World News in Brief

(JTA) Orthodox player second to hit the big league

The Washington Nationals selected Elie Kligman in its final and 20th round pick on 13 July, making him the second Orthodox Jewish player ever drafted into the league and the second in two days. The Arizona Diamondbacks picked 17-year-old Long Island, New York, native, Jacob Steinmetz, 77th overall on 12 July.

According to MLB.com, Kligman, 18, has moved towards becoming a catcher, but has also played shortstop and thrown the ball 90 miles an hour (144km per hour) as a pitcher. (The pitcher, Steinmetz, has reportedly touched as high as 97 miles per hour.) Kligman switch-hits as well, meaning that he can bat righty or lefty, a skill that boosts his future value.

The Las Vegas native is also more observant than Steinmetz. While Steinmetz plays on the Jewish Sabbath, albeit in walking distance of his hotels, Kligman doesn’t.

“That day of Shabbos is for G-d. I’m not going to change that,” he told The New York Times in March.

Trump’s in-laws tout Haley for president

Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner and the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump, hosted a fundraising event for Nikki Haley and speculated about the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador becoming president.

If Haley declares, and Donald Trump, Jared Kushner’s father-in-law, says he wants another shot at the White House, things could get interesting at the Kushner family seder.

Haley has said she will announce her decision about whether to run in 2024 early in 2023. She is among the more popular potential Republican candidates among pro-Israel Jews.

Fired Oregon professor sues for $4 million

A professor who was fired from an Oregon university after publicly criticising its president for antisemitism and for neglecting sexual-harassment allegations has sued the university for $4 million (R58 million).

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a tenured English professor at the Baptist-affiliated Linfield University, accused President Miles Davis of making multiple antisemitic remarks to him in recent years. The antisemitism, Pollack-Pelzner said, was partly a backlash to his demands that the school do more to address allegations of sexual assault against university trustees including Davis.

Davis denied some of the allegations during an independent investigation, though later admitted to making a remark about Jewish noses.

In April, Linfield fired Pollack-Pelzner, citing “serious breaches of the individual’s duty to the institution”. The termination didn’t appear to follow the process for firing tenured faculty.

British Jews welcome 800-year-old apology

British Jewish leaders say an anticipated apology from the Church of England for antisemitic laws enacted in 1222 is “better late than never”.

The church is planning a formal “act of repentance” for next year, the 800th anniversary of the Synod of Oxford, a set of laws that restricted Jews’ rights to engage with Christians in England, according to a report in the Telegraph.

The laws ultimately led to the expulsion of England’s Jews in 1290. They weren’t officially readmitted until 1656.

“The historic trauma of medieval English antisemitism can never be erased, and its legacy survives today. For example, through the persistence of the ‘blood libel’ allegation that was invented in this country,” Dave Rich, the policy director of a British antisemitism watchdog group, told the Telegraph. “But at a time of rising antisemitism, the support of the Church of England for our Jewish community is most welcome as a reminder that the Britain of today is a very different place.”

Israel first to offer COVID-19 vaccine booster shot

Israel has begun inviting immunocompromised adults to receive a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as case rates in the country have risen again due to the spread of the Delta variant.

Israel led the world in vaccinating most of its population early this year, and the country fully reopened as COVID-19 cases plummeted to a low of single digits during a few days in late May and early June. But cases have since spiked back up to more than 400 a day.

In response, Israel is the first country in the world to approve a third dose of the vaccine as a booster shot, according to The Times of Israel. It has also brought back an indoor-mask mandate.