I remember going to West Newton Cinema to watch the movie “Heading Home: A Tale of Team Israel” in May 2019. This is a documentary about the story of Team Israel baseball and the 2017 World Baseball Classic and their journey to represent and celebrate the State of Israel and all the Jewish people. It made me happy to see that other people, like me, were passionate about baseball and being Jewish. This made me become a fan of Team Israel baseball and all Team Israel sports.
I remember waking up at 5 a.m. to watch the Team Israel baseball team play in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Sporting our Ian Kinsler and Danny Valencia blue Israel jerseys, my brother and I were cheering on with enthusiasm in front of the TV. I later found out about the Israel bobsled and skeleton team (“BSI”) after watching a Q&A and Zoom session. BSI was founded in 2002 and qualified for the 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea. I spoke with and later met Jared Firestone, otherwise known as “the Jewish Jet.” He is one of the Team Israel skeleton athletes who finished three places away from making the Olympics in 2022 and later won silver, bronze and Israel’s first-ever gold medal in skeleton at the North America Cup in Lake Placid.
Jared introduced me to Advancing Jewish Athletics (“AJA”), an organization that he co-founded that gives grants to deserving Jewish athletes and helps them on and off the field to act as positive ambassadors for the Jewish community. Jared believes that part of his responsibility is to act as a positive role model for the Jewish people. By helping to recruit and fund more ambassador athletes like himself that may not otherwise have an opportunity to compete at an elite level, he is helping fulfill this mission. Olympic and competitive sports are very expensive and require significant funding. AJA will help pave the path for more Jewish athletes to pursue their dreams. In the coming weeks, AJA will be announcing the first recipients of its initial grants.
It can be easy to focus on being an athlete only, while forgetting about one’s Jewish heritage. Becoming a proud Jewish athlete is even more difficult. I hope to hear more of “Hatikvah” played on the Olympic podium. I hope to see more inspired Jewish athletes like Sandy Koufax, who missed the World Series due to the High Holidays, bring awareness to Judaism. I hope to see more athletes like Ryan Turell, who proudly wears a kippah while playing for the Motor City Cruise (Detroit Pistons’ G League affiliate). I hope to see more players like Matt Mervis, who is currently trying to raise money to build baseball fields in Israel.
As Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz of Temple Emanuel in Newton said to me, “Find a way to say ‘yes’ to all parts of you. When you say yes to baseball, and say yes to Shabbat in your own thoughtful way, you will say yes to the fullness of your humanity. That is the best result of all.”
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