This article was sent as a newsletter. Sign up for our weekly Jewish sports newsletter here. (JTA) — Hello! We’re excited to be back from our Passover hiatus with the latest Jewish sports news. Let’s jump right in. A stellar week for MLB’s two Jewish aces Max Fried pitches during Game 5 of the NLCS between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium, Oct. 21, 2021. (Rob Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images) Atlanta Braves ace Max Fried produced one of the more dazzling performances you’ll ever see in his Tuesday night win over the Miami Marlins: Fried threw a complet ..read more

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two New York congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to compel universities to accept supervision from an antisemitism monitor. The bill introduced Friday by Reps. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a Rockland County Republican, comes in the wake of anti-Israel protests roiling Columbia University. The lawmakers named the bill the COLUMBIA (College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability) Act. It would allow the federal government to bring in an outside monitor to ..read more

WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has yet to make a determination on whether the United States will withhold some defense assistance from Israel because of human rights abuses by one of its army’s most notorious units. A source familiar with the State Department review of alleged abuses by units of the Israel Defense Forces on Friday pushed back against reports earlier this week that Blinken had made a determination to withhold funding from the Netzach Yehuda battalion, which was formed to integrate haredi Orthodox soldiers into the military. There has been a determinat ..read more

(JTA) — Israeli police arrested Ayelet Waldman, a Jewish American author, while she was with a group trying to deliver relief to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Waldman, who is Israeli-born, was one of seven people arrested Friday morning at a protest action organized by Rabbis for Human Rights, and one of five Americans. Two were released before Shabbat, organizers said, but Waldman was still in custody at the police station in Ashkelon, a city near the Gaza border. Her husband Michael Chabon, also a noted novelist, expressed concern about her status on Instagram. “She was there in the compan ..read more

BOSTON (JTA) – In all other years, the Massachusetts House of Representatives begins its annual budget debate on the Monday after Patriots’ Day, the state holiday that commemorates the first battles of the Revolutionary War. But this year, lawmakers broke from their time-honored traditions and postponed the ritual — in deference to their Jewish colleagues. That’s because the first Monday after Patriots’ Day this year was April 22, which coincided with the first night of Passover, when Jews around the world gather for the Passover seder. When Rep. Ruth Balser realized that the traditional ..read more

(JTA) — The governor of Texas cheered on the arrests of dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Texas this week, as clashes with authorities broke out on campuses from Austin to Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, the Twin Cities and beyond. At some schools, students took over campus buildings, while others were seeing protest encampments spring up for the first time. Hundreds of people have been arrested as police and campus authorities have cracked down on the student protests in a growing number of places. Meanwhile, the University of Southern California announced Thursday that ..read more

(JTA) – A former athletic director of a Baltimore-area high school was arrested Thursday morning and charged with using artificial intelligence to fake antisemitic and racist comments supposedly made by the school’s principal. The case was part of a growing body of AI-generated impersonation incidents, which experts say is a newfound worry in a growing, barely regulated field of technology. This was an unusual instance of faking antisemitic comments in order to damage a public figure’s reputation. Baltimore County police charged Dazhon Darien, formerly of Pikesville High School, with disruptin ..read more

(JTA) — I am the only Jewish elected official in Rochester, the third-biggest city in New York State. I am 38 years old, which when it comes to Israel can feel like the political “sandwich generation” — old enough to know that Israel was once seen as vulnerable, and young enough to understand that many cannot remember an Israel before Benjamin Netanyahu. The generational differences can feel massive at times, including at this moment when communities like Rochester are struggling to define and explain antisemitism. Rochester has a Jewish community of roughly 20,000, with strong, well-resourced ..read more

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration released a call from the leaders of 18 countries with citizens held hostage in Gaza calling for their immediate release in exchange for “an immediate and prolonged ceasefire” that would lead to the “end of hostilities.” Israel, which has the most citizens among the more than 130 hostages still held in Gaza, is not among the participants in the joint call. While the statement hews to conditions Israel has accepted for a hostage deal in the short term, it does not refer to Israel’s other goal in the war, which is to remove Hamas from power. “We welcome ..read more

(JTA) — Hamas has released a video showing one of the remaining American-Israelis that the terror group is holding hostage in Gaza, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, calling for the Israeli government to strike a deal to release the remaining hostages. Goldberg-Polin, 23, was abducted Oct. 7 from the site of the Nova music festival after having his hand blown off by a Hamas grenade. His parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, have become some of the most prominent advocates for the hostages; Rachel has met with Pope Francis, Zoomed with President Joe Biden and spoken at the United Nations. Last week ..read more