The headline “The Fundamentals of the Baseball 'Game' Described for Non-Sports Fans" was featured on the front page of the August 27, 1909 edition of The Forverts (The Forward), a Yiddish-language daily newspaper for New York's newly arrived Jewish immigrants.

This image highlights how generations of Jewish immigrants sought acceptance through baseball: understanding it, playing it, and cheering it. Nothing blends the American Jewish experience quite like the love affair Jews have had with the sport of baseball. In the words of Solomon Schechter, the first President of the Jewish Theological Seminary – “In order to be a success in the American rabbinate, you must be able to talk baseball.”

May is American Jewish Heritage Month. It is a moment to relish in the grand American Jewish experience. This month commemorates the contributions American Jews have made to the fabric of American culture, society and history – and mark the gratefulness of American Jews to America.

This month, organizations around the country will join together to help Americans of all backgrounds discover, explore, and celebrate the vibrant and varied American Jewish experience from the dawn of our nation to the present day.  

In Virginia, we are particularly energized this year because our state legislative session saw the formal adoption of May as American Jewish Heritage Month. In recognition of the active role the Jewish community has played on the Peninsula for more than 125 year history, Mayor Phillip Jones of Newport News published a proclamation, which can be read in full at the bottom of this email.

The proclamation highlights how Jewish immigrants “played a central role in the creation, growth, freedom, prosperity, and strength of the United States” and how the “enduring values of the Jewish faith were vital sources of inspiration for the founding of the United States, the Civil Rights movement, America’s global leadership in the cause of freedom, Americans’ commitment to social justice, and many of our Country’s most central tenets.”

In the spirit of this month and the great American pastime of baseball, we are thrilled to welcome Assaf Lowengart, an Israeli baseball player on the William & Mary Baseball team, on May 18th for a conversation and screening of the film Israel Swings for Gold.  I hope to see you. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Eric Maurer
Executive Director
emaurer@ujcvp.org