Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija sat out his first preseason game with his new team on Yom Kippur, saying that his priorities had shifted after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on his native Israel.
“Tomorrow, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the first pre-season game of the season will take place. When the management informed me, I knew right away that I would not participate. I feel that the best way to start the season is by honoring Jewish tradition and standing united with my fellow Jews in Israel and around the world,” Avdija posted on an Instagram story on Thursday.
“Basketball has been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember, and it’s always been my top priority. However, after the past year, I’ve realized there are more important things than basketball,” Avdija added. “Am Yisrael Chai. Wishing everyone a good inscription and sealing.”
Avdija, 23, is the only Israeli player in the NBA. The Washington Wizards traded him to the Trail Blazers over the summer, shortly after inking a $65 million, four-season contract with him. Born to a Jewish Israeli mother and Muslim father who immigrated to Israel from Yugoslavia to play basketball, Avdija grew up on Kibbutz Beit Zera, a Jordan Valley village that both housed evacuees from the Gaza border since Oct. 7 and has faced a security crisis of its own.
Whether Jewish athletes and other celebrities take Yom Kippur off has long been of intense interest for American Jews, as typified by nearly 60 years of veneration of Sandy Koufax, the Los Angeles Dodger who sat out game one of the 1965 World Series (and possibly attended synagogue in Minnesota instead).
Unlike with Koufax, Avdija’s game was of little consequence: It was a preseason game with no effect on his team’s standing. Still, his presence could have altered the final score, as the Trail Blazers dropped the game against the LA Clippers by two points. (Portland bested the Sacramento Kings by 20 points on Sunday; Avdija, who played for 20 minutes, notched five of them.)
Deni Avdija, shown as a member of the Maccabi Tel Aviv team in 2019, on being such a high NBA choice: “I’m still thinking it’s a dream.” (Seffi Magriso/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images)
And his decision — unlikely to be repeated, because the basketball preseason rarely overlaps with the High Holidays — also inspired Jewish sports fans anxious about the spike in antisemitic incidents that has accompanied the Oct. 7 attack and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“It’s preseason, but the gesture is important, especially when Jewish people are being attacked around the world,” tweeted Acorn Sports, an account operated by a Jewish sports buff. “Respect.”
Another notable Jewish athlete did suit up on Yom Kippur. Jake Retzlaff, the starting quarterback at Brigham Young University, a Mormon school where he is one of just three Jewish students, chose to take the field against Arizona on Saturday.
“He might get a lot of criticism from this, but we’ve taught them to be part of both worlds,” his mother, Maxanne, said in an episode of ESPN “College GameDay” focused on her son. “That’s the way he can best contribute to the community that he’s in right now.”
Retzlaff himself has embraced representing Judaism at BYU, wearing a Star of David necklace on and off the field and giving rise to the moniker “BYJew.” He told ESPN that he saw an upside in playing on Yom Kippur, which he also did last year, his first with the team after being recruited out of junior colleges in his native California.
“It’s going to be a special day that there’s a Jewish kid playing football on Yom Kippur because if that makes headlines, that means I get to be another light for somebody else,” he said. “And that means I have to win.”
BYU, ranked 13, bested Arizona 41-19.
College football’s schedule means that Retzlaff will never need to play on a holy day for his Mormon teammates: Sunday is not a regular game day in the sport. BYU famously bars sports competition on Sundays, and the NCAA has twice adjusted the spring basketball tournament to accommodate the team.
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