Mazel tov! For just 5th time ever, both starting pitchers in MLB game are Jewish
By David Drier, Jewish Journal, May 5
Max Fried of the Atlanta Braves and Dean Kremer of the Baltimore Orioles were the starting pitchers for the May 5th game in Atlanta.
The last time two Jewish pitchers started for opposing major league teams was Sept. 25, 1966, when the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax pitched against the Cubs’ Ken Holtzman.
Koufax is often considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Holtzman had an outstanding career, too. Both were winning pitchers in a World Series Game 7.
Fried has an amazing 56-25 won-lost record, a .691 winning percentage, which is better than Koufax’s .655. Kremer became the first Israeli citizen to play in the major leagues on Sept. 6, 2020, when he held the Yankees to one hit and one run in six innings and earned the win. His parents are Israelis who moved to the U.S. after they completed military service in Israel.
‘This could only happen in Utah’ — Jewish congregation celebrates 50 years of an unlikely union ‘designated Hebrew’
By Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune, May 11
In 1973, Salt Lake City’s two small Jewish congregations — one Conservative, the other Reform — did something bold and, frankly, almost unthinkable in their respective traditions. They merged to create Congregation Kol Ami, which means “all my people.”
Though not without bumps, the new community has continued to thrive for decades. This week, hundreds of Kol Ami members, their neighbors and friends, gathered at This Is the Place Heritage Park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the state’s largest synagogue. “This could only happen in Utah, where we all seem to love each other,” Rabbi Samuel Spector said in his opening remarks. “We celebrate that coming together.”
Apostle Gerrit W. Gong of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints echoed that sentiment at the party.
“As we celebrate Congregation Kol Ami’s 50th anniversary, we celebrate many more years of rich association in Utah as neighbors and friends, brothers and sisters.”
Translating ‘tzedakah’ for Marylanders: Sen. Ben Cardin’s long Jewish goodbye
By The Forward, Ron Kampas, May 5
Ben Cardin’s love letter to Maryland, the state he has represented in the U.S. Senate since 2007, was also a love letter to his family’s Jewish values.
In a video that Cardin released to announce his retirement from the Senate, he reminisced about the 56 years he has spent representing Maryland voters. In conversation with his wife Myrna, he also reflected on the ideals that animated his work and his family life.
“We use the expression ‘tikkun olam,’ repairing the world. We use it a lot. It’s in our DNA,” Myrna Cardin says in the video. “I love the way you’ve taken that from our family, to Annapolis, to Washington. It undergirds so much of what you do.”
“It also comes back to the tzedakah part of our tradition as Jews to help those that are less fortunate,” Ben Cardin says, as a definition of the Hebrew word floats across the screen. Elsewhere, the video shows Cardin in a kippah at his wedding, then surrounded by children including one wearing a kippah himself.
Cardin, 79, plans to retire in 2024 from the Senate seat he first won in 2006, with commanding majorities then and since. He wants people to know: He is as much a Jew as he is a Marylander. In fact, he sees the two identities as inextricable.
