My letter in The New York Times about a public display of faith

The following is a letter to the editor that I wrote, which appeared in The New York Times, about a public display of faith:

May 17, 2025

To the Editor:

Re “E.P.A. Jewish Celebration Has Jewish Critics” (news article, May 13):

Criticizing Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, for a proud and public display of his faith because one disagrees with his policies and politics is a dangerous and disingenuous conflation of two unrelated issues.

At a time when antisemitism is rampant and far too many Jews feel the need to hide or play down their religious identity, we should be celebrating public figures who openly embrace their Judaism, not vilifying them because of public policy divergences.

N. Aaron Troodler
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.

The Birth of a Jewish State

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the May 8, 2025, edition of the Washington Jewish Week:

It was one of the most significant moments in Jewish history, and the anticipation and excitement leading up to this historic event was palpable.

In this month’s installment of “Remember When,” we look back at the May 14, 1948, issue of the National Jewish Ledger, which subsequently became Washington Jewish Week, when the large headline “Palestine To Be Proclaimed A Jewish State On Sunday” ran across the top of the front page.

An article titled “Century-Old Dream Nears Realization,” quoted David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Jewish Agency who would ultimately become the first prime minister of the state of Israel, who noted that, “our generation will see the realization of the centuries-old dream of independence” as he asserted his belief that a Jewish state would soon be established.

The front page of that issue also featured text from the “Jewish Declaration of Independence.”

“We have decided, relying on the authority of the Zionist movement and the support of the entire Jewish people, that upon termination of the mandatory regime there shall be an end of foreign rule in Palestine and that the governing body of the Jewish State shall come into being.

“The state which the Jewish people will set up in its own country will guarantee justice, freedom and equality for all inhabitants, regardless of religion, race, sex or land of origin. It is our aim to make it a state in which the exiles of our people are gathered together and in which happiness and knowledge shall prevail and the vision of the prophets of Israel shall illuminate our path.”

The declaration of the state of Israel in May 1948 formalized the establishment of the Jewish homeland, and although it has spent the better part of its existence over the past 77 years battling enemies who are focused on its destruction, Israel has not just survived but thrived.

With technological advances that people never would have thought possible and a land that is rich in culture and history, Israel has become a precious commodity for the Jewish people and a beacon of hope for Jews around the world.

Through an incredible sense of faith, resilience and perseverance, the “centuries-old dream of independence” that Ben-Gurion spoke about in 1948 thankfully became a reality.

Yeshiva University Men’s Basketball Team Nets a Big Win in ‘Rebound’

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the May 1, 2025, edition of the Washington Jewish Week, and the May 2, 2025, edition of the Baltimore Jewish Times:

Photo credit: FOX Nation

For this group of young men, basketball is much more than just a game.

In “Rebound: A Year of Triumph and Tragedy at Yeshiva University Basketball,” which FOX Nation premiered on April 9, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges faced by the Yeshiva University men’s basketball team in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks that shocked the state of Israel and Jews around the world.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker Pat Dimon does a masterful job conveying the conflicts the players felt after the horrific attack as they contemplated how to move forward with their basketball season, which suddenly felt insignificant after what transpired on that fateful day in October 2023, just two days before the start of practice for the team.

YU men’s basketball has experienced a resurgence in recent years, which began shortly after the arrival of Coach Elliot Steinmetz in 2014. Their 50-game win streak, which stretched from November 2019 until December 2021, and which was the second-longest in NCAA Division III history, captivated the nation and catapulted the team to the top of the rankings. I was at the Dec. 30, 2021, game at the Max Stern Athletic Center when the Maccabees’ historic win streak came to an end against Illinois Wesleyan University, who was ranked fourth in the nation at the time. The energy and excitement in the gym that night was palpable, a keen reminder of how much the dedicated YU fan base and the greater Jewish community values this team.

“Rebound” begins by chronicling the struggles faced by the team’s Israeli players after Oct. 7 and it does an excellent job underscoring the shock and disbelief that they felt as they learned about what was happening. The film opens with YU guard Adi Markovich describing the experience of hearing about the events of Oct. 7, including discovering that one of his friends was murdered. As he’s talking, we see jarring footage from the Hamas attack that presents viewers with scenes from the destruction and devastation that ensued, which is followed by a scene in which Markovich walks onto the basketball court at YU holding a ball in his left hand. The juxtaposition of those powerful images encapsulates the dichotomy that the filmmakers skillfully conveyed through “Rebound”: the inner turmoil the players were feeling and how to reconcile that with their passion for basketball, which seemed relatively trivial in light of the unimaginable suffering of their Israeli brethren.

We hear YU guard Roy Itcovichi, a native of Israel, say that, “it feels selfish” to be playing basketball “when other people are protecting my country, our country,” a sentiment that seems to be shared among the team’s Israeli players.

The film offers some star power, with appearances by Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, and Josh Harris, managing partner of the Philadelphia 76ers, Washington Commanders and New Jersey Devils. Additionally, it gives us a glimpse into the lives of the YU players and how they balance religion and basketball as it transitions from a clip of the players davening Shacharit, led by YU star Zevi Samet, who’s wearing a white shirt, black jacket and black hat along with his tefillin, to a play that may be among the best in YU basketball history, in which forward Gabriel Leifer threw a behind-the-back alley-oop pass to guard Ryan Turell, YU’s all-time scoring leader, who then dunked the ball with authority as the crowd erupts in cheers.

Photo credit: FOX Nation

As YU guard Tom Beza, whose good friend, Ofir Engel, was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, talks about the diverse religious backgrounds of the players, we see scenes of the team praying and eating together, giving us a sense of the unity and camaraderie that these players feel with one another.

Viewers get a lesson about Shabbat, as we hear Samet talk about how he wouldn’t play on the Sabbath, even if it could give him an opportunity to play basketball at an even higher level, and we listen to Samet’s mother, Jenny, describe the meaning and beauty of Shabbat as she works in the kitchen with her husband and son preparing for that special day by making challah.

Samet has earned a name for himself during his time as a YU Maccabee, with his three-point shooting prowess and vast offensive arsenal earning him accolades from near and far. Yet as we listen to Samet talk in the film, it becomes apparent that basketball, as important as it is to him, takes a back seat to his commitment to his Judaism, as he says that the prospect of compromising his religion to further his basketball career is “nonnegotiable.”

The film does a superb job conveying the distinctive nature of Yeshiva University as it relates to athletics, with Steinmetz noting that, “Yeshiva is definitely the most unique place in college basketball, probably in college sports.” Beza sums up what it means to him to be a Yeshiva University Maccabee when he says that, “Judaism for me is to be an Israeli, to be a representative of the only Jewish country in the world. I’m not necessarily the most religious Jew, but I do believe that it’s important to be here and to represent the Jewish people.”

“We want to show that Jews can play basketball, and we want to make the Jewish community proud,” Turell says, as he aptly sums up the mission of the YU Maccabees and goes on to discuss why he chose to attend Yeshiva University and describes the start of their historic win streak.

“We play for the Jewish people,” Samet says.

But it’s the film’s focus on Oct. 7 that really captures viewers’ hearts and minds.

“After Oct. 7, everything changed,” Samet says. “It was definitely very difficult to be playing basketball.”

At the first home game after Oct. 7, we see the players warming up, wearing T-shirts with photos of the hostages, and listen as Samet gives an impassioned pregame pep talk to the team in the locker room, which ends with the team proclaiming “spirituality before physicality” in unison before taking the court. The image of the YU players from Israel unfolding a large Israeli flag at half-court as the crowd sings Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, captures the moment and the mood perfectly.

Photo credit: FOX Nation

The film spends a great deal of time giving us an inside look into the team’s emotionally charged January 2024 trip to Israel, which Steinmetz says was an opportunity for them “to show our brothers and sisters in Israel that we’re here with them.”

While in Israel, Itcovichi’s father explains to the players the impact that they have by playing basketball for YU and standing in solidarity with the Jewish state. “You are supporting us … you are our ambassadors,” he says.

Through emotive scenes of the team praying at the Western Wall, visiting an injured Israeli soldier in the hospital, touring the Nova music festival site, going to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, and visiting Kibbutz Be’eri, where over 100 people were murdered on Oct. 7 and 30 were taken hostage, we have a front-row seat that enables us to comprehend what the players experienced during their trip.

The segment at the Nova music festival site is particularly jarring. “6:29 is when the music stopped,” a survivor of the attack tells the players, a reminder of how suddenly everything changed in an instant on the morning of Oct. 7. We watch as the players examine the various aspects of the exhibit, including mounds of shoes and glasses, which to me, evoked memories of the Holocaust and the atrocities that the Jews endured at that time.

The team’s Israel trip culminated with an exhibition game against Hapoel Tel Aviv, and the enthusiastic reaction of the large crowd speaks volumes about what it meant to the Israeli people to have the YU Maccabees with them in the Jewish state.

“On such a different level, it was the first home game we ever played,” Steinmetz says, describing the surreal nature of the experience. “Even your opponents are your brothers — I never felt like that before.”

Samet aptly sums up the lasting impact that the trip had when he says, “It was a wake-up call to recognize why I’m living.”

“We came back stronger as a team, mainly off the court, as one unit, as brothers,” Markovich says.

Photo credit: FOX Nation

“Rebound” takes us inside the YU locker room following a particularly tough loss to Mount Saint Vincent shortly after the team returned from Israel, and we get to listen in as guard Max Zakheim talks about the team’s loss and Steinmetz dresses down the players following what he considered to be a lackluster effort on the court. We then watch as YU notches two big playoff wins to set up a showdown with Farmingdale State College for the Skyline Conference championship, a game in which the Maccabees ultimately came up short.

Yet for the Yeshiva University Maccabees, who in essence carry the Jewish community on their shoulders, that unforgettable season was much bigger than just basketball. They felt an obligation to play for their people and a sense of immense pride as they did what they could to lift up their brothers and sisters in Israel and bring some light into what was a very dark time.

“Rebound” is an uplifting story about resilience, and regardless of whether you are a basketball fan, this film is absolutely worth watching.

Former US Ambassador to Israel Set to Address Baltimore Jewish Community at Beth Tfiloh

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the May 2, 2025, edition of the Baltimore Jewish Times:

Ambassador David Friedman
(Photo credit: wikicommons/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)

His affinity for and deep connections to the Jewish homeland made it an easy decision. When President Donald Trump asked David Friedman to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Israel during his first term in office, Friedman jumped at the opportunity. He ended up serving as ambassador from 2017 to 2021, a tenure that was defined by several significant steps taken by the U.S. relative to Israel and the Middle East region.

On Tuesday, May 6, at 7:30 p.m., Friedman will be the featured speaker at Beth Tfiloh Congregation’s Annual Dahan Lecture sponsored by the Haron Dahan Foundation, where he will discuss the topic of “One Jewish State.”

“Beth Tfiloh takes tremendous pride in the success and prestige of our annual Dahan Lecture, endowed by our visionary benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Rachel and Haron Dahan. The Dahan family and Beth Tfiloh share an unwavering commitment to Israel and Zionism, and this year’s lecturer, Ambassador David Friedman, follows in our tradition of featuring extraordinary Jewish giants, including Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Natan Sharansky,” said Mandi Miller, chief advancement officer at Beth Tfiloh.

Friedman, who launched the Friedman Center for Peace Through Strength following his service during the first Trump administration, is the author of two books: “Sledgehammer: How Breaking With the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East” and “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

A longtime attorney, Friedman ruminated on his journey from the legal profession to becoming ambassador to Israel with a bit of levity.

“I get asked a lot by kids who want to follow in my footsteps, who are all really excited about the idea about getting into diplomacy and getting into foreign relations,” he said in an interview with the Baltimore Jewish Times. “And they say to me, can you give me some advice on how to do this? And I say, here’s the advice I could give you. I don’t know how practical it is, but what I would say is, you become a lawyer. You represent a series of wealthy, high-profile clients. You win as many cases as you can, and you hope that one of the clients that you represented becomes president of the United States. And that’s really my path.”

Turning serious, Friedman spoke about how grateful he is to have had the opportunity to serve.

“I practiced law for 35 years, something like that, and I would say a day didn’t go by where I didn’t think to myself, how can I spend a meaningful portion of my life doing things that are important and meaningful to me, important to America, important to Israel, important to the Jewish people. … My father was a prominent rabbi. I think he did great things for the Jewish people and I wanted a little bit of that feeling for myself. And so, to get the opportunity to pivot in a way which is so profoundly meaningful to the state of Israel, to the United States of America, to the Jewish people, was something that I could only see as literally an answer to my prayers,” he said.

Ambassador David Friedman visits Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel in December 2017. He is accompanied by Brig. Gen. Eyal Greenbaum, the commander of the base. (Photo credit: wikicommons/dvids/David Azagury)

The lack of foreign policy experience didn’t impede Friedman in any way, as evidenced by what he accomplished as the United States’ representative to Israel.

Friedman, who when presenting his credentials to Israeli President Reuven “Ruvi” Rivlin in 2017, said that, “Serving the United States as its ambassador to Medinat Yisrael is the greatest honor of my life,” was ambassador when the American embassy was relocated to Jerusalem, the U.S. recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory, the Abraham Accords were brokered and finalized and the U.S. declared that the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are not per se inconsistent with international law.

To Friedman, moving the embassy to Jerusalem is the thing he is most proud of.

“It really was a statement, not just to the Jewish people, but to the world, that the United States of America will stand on its values and stand on its principles, and they won’t flinch from the threats of rogue nations. … Peace ultimately is the goal. And what Isaiah was saying in his prophesy is that the road to peace runs through Jerusalem,” he said.

“In retrospect, having done it, not knowing what would happen after we did it, the response from the Arab world was nothing. … Nobody went to war. You had the kind of rudimentary condemnations at the United Nations. But nothing happened. Nothing happened at all. Nothing negative happened, and then something positive happened, which is that for the first time in 25 years, and without giving up one inch of Israel’s biblical homeland, four Muslim nations normalized ties with Israel, which is the Abraham Accords. So, to me, everything got started by moving our embassy to Jerusalem. It just set everything else in motion. If you look at it sequentially, that was the first thing we did,” he added.

Ambassador David Friedman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the dedication ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. (Photo credit: wikicommons/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem)

As for the Abraham Accords, Friedman noted that despite the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the beating that Israel takes in the Arab press, the agreement has remained intact and none of the Arab nations that normalized relations with Israel have sought to back out.

“Not one of them tried to get out of the Abraham Accords, even though the media in those countries is enormously hostile to Israel,” Friedman said. “And I’ll tell you why. It’s because at the core these countries and Israel have more in common than they have that separates them — they’re all engaged in the war on the same side in the battle against radical Islamic extremism.”

Friedman, who played an integral role in the U.S.-Israel relationship during his ambassadorship, decried recent developments relative to the bond between the two countries. Citing Democratic members of Congress who voted to cut off arms to Israel or who refer to Israel as an apartheid state and a country that is committing genocide, he expressed concern about how the U.S.-Israel relationship has become highly partisan.

“In the aftermath of the election, there was a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. And a lot of people are saying that for the Democrats to have a future, they have to abandon the far left, the progressive left, the pro-Hamas wing of the party, the anti-Israel wing of the party, and they have to move more toward the middle. And I hope they do. Because what we like to think is that Israel’s relationship with America doesn’t rise or fall every four years on an election. Nobody wants to see that,” he said.

Ambassador David Friedman visits a yeshiva
in the Israeli city of Sderot in October 2017.
(Photo credit: wikicommons/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)

After Rep. Elise Stefanik’s name was recently withdrawn from consideration as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, there were murmurs that Friedman was interested in the post.

Noting that, “It’s not my decision and not my call to make,” when asked about it by the Baltimore Jewish Times, Friedman did speak about the prospect of serving in that position with a degree of intrigue and a sense of duty.

“If he [President Trump] calls me, as he did when I was asked to be the ambassador to Israel, and he tells me that this is something where he feels I can make a contribution to strengthen the United States, it’s essentially impossible to say no,” he said. “Once you’ve been involved in public service and you understand how important it is and how you get a once in a lifetime, or maybe in this case, twice in a lifetime, opportunity to really take your values and export them on a large scale and bring them to others, you don’t say no. But I haven’t gotten that call and a lot of other people are qualified, and he’ll make that decision.”

Whether it’s he or someone else in the U.N. ambassador role, Friedman did have a lot to say about the current state of the international body in terms of the pervasive nature of its anti-Israel animus and how the United States should handle it.

“It’s time for the United States to take a very, very aggressive role in what it expects out of other members of the U.N. The U.N. was formed kind of out of the ashes of the Holocaust, to make sure that there was always a place for disputes to be resolved amicably and for wars to be avoided. Well, what a failure it’s been,” he said.

“Since it’s been formed, there’s been nothing but wars, nothing but killing, nothing but acts of real genocide. I’m not speaking about Israel and Hamas, but I’m talking about places like in Africa and in the Far East, where there was real genocide — genocide committed by ISIS and other organizations. So, there has been just enormous suffering all around the world, and the U.N. has done absolutely nothing to stop it. And in fact, they’ve done, as we’re finding out now, a good deal to promote it. We see the connection between UNRWA and Hamas, that frankly, UNRWA fueled a large portion of the Hamas massacre. We’ve seen UNESCO pursue this vile and fake argument that Jerusalem has no connection to the Jewish people.

“Whoever gets this job, I would recommend they come in, they articulate very quickly what they expect out of America’s continued involvement in the United Nations and they try to get that. At the end of the day, if we could fix the U.N., that would be the best outcome. Because the concept of the U.N. is a good one — the idea that before people start shooting at each other, they have a forum within which to talk — but that concept has long ago been buried in the dustbin of history,” he added.

Ambassador David Friedman delivering remarks at the dedication ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. (Photo credit: wikicommons/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem)

At the Annual Dahan Lecture, an important evening of Jewish learning and inspiration for the Beth Tfiloh community and the greater Baltimore Jewish community, Friedman plans to talk about his experiences, which he said were greatly enhanced by his familiarity with the Bible.

“To take that [a knowledge of the Bible] and to then bring that to a government position for the United States in which you are responsible for the connections between America and the one Jewish state — the wellspring of all the biblical stories, values and messages that you studied for so long — I don’t think too many people have had that opportunity,” he said.

“There’s a reason why this book has been around for 3,000 years and why we’re called the ‘People of the Book.’ … The book is what’s kept us together. Because for most of the time that we’ve been around, we haven’t had an army, we haven’t had a nation, but we always had the book. And so that book is important. … Being fluent in Jewish history and the Bible, that fluency is the single most important thing that we can give to our children. It’s the way that we will survive.”

Predicting a Jewish Vice Presidential Candidate

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the April 10, 2025, edition of the Washington Jewish Week:

Forecasting the future is no easy feat. Yet in 1976, a prominent American Jewish historian and rabbi took out a proverbial crystal ball and made a bold prediction that ended up becoming reality.

In this month’s installment of “Remember When,” we look back at our issue from April 1-7, 1976, when an article titled “Jewish V.P. candidate in 25 years foreseen” ran on the front page.

At the 1976 biennial convention of the national Jewish Welfare Board, Rear Adm. Bertram W. Korn, a member of the U.S. Navy’s Chaplain Corps, stood up and predicted that the United States would have a Jewish vice presidential candidate within the next 25 years.

Citing historical trends upon which he based his prediction, Korn, who served as the rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in the Philadelphia area, said, “Two Jews serving as U.S. senators in the period before the Civil War, followed by two Jews serving at the same time on the U.S. Supreme Court prior to World War II, and two Jews serving simultaneously in the president’s cabinet during the Kennedy administration, foreshadow the ultimate political achievement of equality of Jews.”

Korn, the first Jewish chaplain in American history to reach two-star rank in one of the branches of the U.S. armed forces, added that, “No other American religious or ethnic community gave more generously to help its own new people. No other religious or ethnic community in the world has given more to help its refugees and victims abroad than American Jewry. Our neighbors know that American Jews are an easy touch for every good cause. We will continue to share our substance with Jews anywhere who need help and with all non-Jews who are in want.”

It turns out that Korn, whose son Bertram (Benyamin) “Buddy” Korn, served as executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, which is owned by Mid-Atlantic Media, the same company that owns and publishes the Washington Jewish Week, from 1994 to 1997, was spot-on in his prediction.

In August 2000, 24 years after Korn’s prediction, Vice President Al Gore chose U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate for the 2000 presidential election. Lieberman, who passed away in March 2024, was an Orthodox Jew who was proud of his faith and spoke about it openly and often. His selection as Gore’s vice presidential running mate made him the first Jewish member of a major presidential ticket.

Although the Gore-Lieberman ticket ended up falling short after a prolonged legal battle focusing on Florida’s 25 electoral votes, the historic choice of Lieberman as a vice presidential candidate galvanized the American Jewish community. As it happens, it also proved Korn’s bold declaration in 1976 to be prophetic.