Menschwarmers

By now, you've probably had one seder. You may have even had two seders. But it's time for an annual CJN tradition totally unlike those slow-moving family get-togethers: the Menschwarmers' Jewish baseball seder. Combining the start of baseball season with the week of Passover, our Jewish sports experts have rewritten the haggadah to focus on Jewish baseball legends and potential future stars, from Hank Greenberg to Spencer Horwitz, with commemorations and celebrations in between. And before that, as always, the boys give a roundup of the latest news of Jews in sports, including Jewish NHL stars dominating the playoffs, Max Homa's near-win at the 2024 Masters Tournament and whether New Orleans Pelicans fans consider themselves Zionists. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This weekend, the long-running Jewish comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm will air its final episode. Over more than 20 years, creator Larry David did more than redefine what improv comedy could look like in a single-camera sitcom—he also showed the world what diehard Jewish sports fandom looked like. But before the show plays its iconic theme song one last time, the hosts of our Jewish sports podcast, Menschwarmers, wanted to pay tribute to what they've decided is the most Jewish sports TV show of all time. It's unlikely we'll see another TV program so unabashedly Jewish embrace baseball, basketball and golf in the same culturally specific way, so let's dive in and remember some of the show's best sports episodes and gags. Plus, the boys talk about Zach Hyman's recent "Jew-bilee", scoring 50 goals this season (to much acclaim and a little antisemitism), as well as Jewish golfers to root for this month and Jewish NHL players worth keeping eyes on ahead of the summer Olympics. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

In Game 6 of the Major League Baseball World Series in November 2021, in the bottom of the second inning, the Houston Astros' two-time All-Star Alex Bregman stepped up to bat. He faced off against the Atlanta Braves' Max Fried, slammed the ball high into the right field, and found himself out of luck when outfielder Joc Pederson caught the ball. Jewish baseball fans recognized the significance of this swift moment, in which all three players in this high-stakes game were themselves Jewish. It has since been called the most Jewish play in any MLB matchup, let alone a World Series. But Bregman himself didn't think about it until later—he has since joked about it in his group chat with other Jewish MLB players, in between pipedream chats about joining up to play for Team Israel at the World Baseball Classic. He tells these stories and more on the latest episode of Menschwarmers, The CJN's Jewish sports podcast. Will he suit up for Team Israel in 2026? What was it like when he finally met Sandy Koufax? What was the reception like after he wore a Star of David on the field in the aftermath of Oct. 7? Listen and subscribe to find out. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

Mitch Albom has sold tens of millions of copies of his popular inspirational books—among them Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Stranger in the Lifeboat—but never has the Jewish author focused so explicitly on Judaism until his latest book, The Little Liar. Set in Greece during the Holocaust, the novel tells the story of a young boy who never tells a lie—until he is tricked into doing so by a Nazi officer, changing the trajectory of his life after he war. Albom will be in Toronto to discuss the book at Beth Tzedec Congregation on Feb. 29, but before heading north, he spoke to The CJN's sports podcasters to discuss his decades-long career as an award-winning sportswriter. On this week's episode of Menschwarmers, Albom drops by to share stories of dining over subs with Brendan Shanahan and how he came to write "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" for Warren Zevon. Plus, hosts Gabe and James recap the latest news in Jews and sports, including the now-infamous incident involving two Jewish fans being removed from a Toronto Raptors game and how the new Netflix docuseries about Formula 1 racing focuses its debut episode on Jewish Montrealer Lawrence Stroll. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

They say two events can be a coincidence, but three make a trend. And in the past month, three Jewish or Israeli athletes have been controversially kicked out of the public sphere. First, Israel's hockey team was barred from competing in an international match in Bulgaria—the decision was reversed, and Israel wound up winning the tournament. Around the same time, the Jewish captain of South Africa's cricket team, David Teeger, was relieved from his captaincy after vocally supporting Israel on a public stage; the saga resulted in tremendous backlash from activists on both sides. Finally, this week, Canadian cyclist and motivational speaker Leah Goldstein learned her keynote address at an International Women's Day event in Peterborough would be cancelled because she served in the Israel Defense Forces more than 30 years ago. Within days, organizers decided to simply scrap the entire event. These trends extend beyond the world of sports into broader culture. The CJN has covered numerous examples of Jewish artists, playwrights and comics having performances heavily protested or outright cancelled. In this week's episode of Menschwarmers, producer Michael Fraiman joins host Gabe Pulver to give a rundown of these controversies and ask the inevitable question: How does it all end? Related links Champion cyclist and IDF veteran Leah Goldstein felt ‘angry and heartbroken’ after being disinvited by a women’s festivalProminent Canadians in Israeli hockey speak out after the IIHF abruptly banned Israel from competition‘A very dangerous precedent’: Two Jewish theatre artists respond to Victoria, B.C.’s Belfry Theatre cancelling a play set in IsraelThe cancelling of culture: What happens when arts and politics collide in Canada during the Israel-Hamas war Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

Feb. 7, 2024, marks the 28th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, a global movement that aims to inspire and encourage young girls and women around the world to get active, play sports and break boundaries. But the barriers are real. There are societal prejudices and fewer opportunities for girls to get into sports—and even more stereotypes about Jews as un-athletic, giving young Jewish girls twice as many hurdles to overcome. Chelsey Goldberg knows those hurdles firsthand. Growing up in California, her only option to play hockey was to play in a local boys' league, eventually rising the ranks of women's hockey to play professionally in Canada and the United States. She spent years lobbying the Maccabiah Games to create a women's hockey division—a fight she won in 2022, when she became the captain for Team USA at the Maccabiah, winning silver. Goldberg joins Menschwarmers co-host James for a frank talk about the value of sports for women and girls and what the future looks like. Plus, Gabe and James take a deep dive into the keffiyeh controversy that overtook the recent NHL All-Star Game in Toronto, in which the singer of the national anthem wore a piece of clothing that vaguely resembled a keffiyeh. And we respond to a few listeners to wrote in after our last episode about Jewish NHL players. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This weekend, on Feb. 3, Toronto will host the NHL All-Star Weekend—and it might just be the most Jewish one yet. There are three (maybe four?) Jews playing, including two of the three Hughes brothers (Quinn and Jack), the New York Rangers' Artemi Panarin, and Jeremy Swayman—who may or may not be Jewish, with different media outlets putting out conflicting reports. It's just one of the big Jewish sports stories happening this month. A major Super Bowl ad on antisemitism is debuting next weekend (listen to The CJN Daily episode about the making of that commercial); Israel's U20 national hockey team dominated their division at a controversial international tournament (read more about Canada's players on the team), which almost saw them banned for alleged security purposes; and golfer Daniel Berger made a promising return from an injury that kept him off the greens for over a year. The CJN's sports podcasters recap all these stories and more in the latest episode of Menschwarmers. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This is the most recent episode of The CJN Daily, about the recent fracas between the International Ice Hockey Federation and Israel's national teams. We thought Menschwarmers subscribers would be especially interested, so we're cross-posting it on this feed—listen and enjoy. Last week, the International Ice Hockey Federation—the sport’s governing body—announced they were barring Israeli national teams from competing in crucial championship matches this winter. The move is seen by many as an unfair penalty against the Jewish State in the wake of the war with Hamas, in which an estimated 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, resulting from Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023. IIHF officials insist their decision was not political, but instead made purely for security reasons: they couldn’t guarantee Israeli athletes’ safety from protestors during upcoming matches in Bulgaria, Serbia and Estonia, nor the safety of all participants and fans. Nonetheless, Israel’s hockey federation has announced a legal appeal. In the meantime, the IIHF’s ruling has shocked the team’s fans around the world—not to mention Israel’s athletes and coaches themselves, including a handful of Canadians closely tied to Israel’s hockey program. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, you’ll hear from two of them: Esther Silver, the Canadian-born manager of Israel’s women’s hockey team, and Eliezer Sherbatov, a veteran of the men’s team, now based in Montreal._

On January 6, 2024, a record-breaking 13,361 attendees filled an arena in Minnesota to watch their new women's hockey team trounce visitors from Montreal. The game made history as the biggest crowd on record to turn out to watch women's hockey—and it happened less than a week into the start of the newly formed Professional Women's Hockey League. Kaleigh Fratkin was excited to see it happen. She wasn't in Minnesota that day, instead preparing for her own matchup as part of Boston's PWHL team. (As a new league, none of the teams have monikers or logos yet.) But Fratkin—possibly the PWHL's only Canadian Jewish player, who grew up in Burnaby, B.C.—has spent more than a decade playing the sport. In previous leagues, she's broken records as a leading scorer among defenders, leader in penalty minutes and championship winner. With Boston, she brings veteran wisdom and grit to a league that's already made a huge international splash—but needs to keep momentum going to avoid a collapse and cultivate broader interest from audiences. Fratkin joins The CJN's sports podcasters to pull the curtain back on what it's been like as a pioneer player in this new movement. And before that, hosts Gabe and Jamie catch you up on the latest news in Jewish sports, including a late-breaking relevation that Israel has been indefinitely removed from the International Ice Hockey Federation, and the announcement a new Netflix docuseries that could shed light into the Jewish conversion of NBA All Star Domantas Sabonis. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

Hanukkah is a festival of light, hope, gambling with dreidels (maybe a sport?) and remembrance—and so, this week, in the final episode of Menschwarmers for 2023, we remember eight crazy Jewish sports stories from a great year. Our list includes shout-outs for the historic Canadian Open held at the Oakdale Golf & Country Club and Israel's triumphs in baseball and soccer; individual mazel tovs for rising stars like the Blue Jays' Spencer Horwitz, the three hockey Hughes brothers and MMA fighter Natan Levy; and breakdowns of more recent stories, like Mark Cuban selling the Dallas Mavericks. So grab a latke, gather round the hanukkiah and settle in for a candlelit recap of the year 2023 in Jewish sports. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

At 24 years old, Lior Berman has already spent years playing NCAA Division I basketball for Auburn University in his home state of Alabama. But it was only this past summer that the walk-on athlete—and the only Jewish player on the team—got promoted to a full scholarship. The 6'4" guard decided to stick around for a fifth year, taking a few classes after graduating with a degree in industrial design, continuing to learn the game under one of college basketball's most outspoken Jewish coaches, Bruce Pearl. While Berman is appreciative of being able to keep living and playing just two hours from his home city of Birmingham, he also remains laser-focused on his true goal: playing professionally in Israel. He's visited a handful of times, having played for the Maccabi USA Open Men's Basketball team, and even visiting once with his Auburn Tigers, where some of his Christian teammates got baptized. Berman joins Menschwarmers to chat about his relationship with Coach Pearl, his journey so far, and what it's been like as one of the few openly proud Jewish basketball players competing at the highest level of college sports. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

Kevin Youkilis doesn't crave attention. But in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the Jewish MLB All Star and World Series champion has become especially vocal, taking to social media to talk about resiliance and Jewish pride in the face of antisemitism. It's a mission that began when he started playing for Team Israel Baseball, which made him realize how important representation is on a global stage. He explains these thoughts in a new article in the Boston Herald written by Gabrielle Starr, the paper's Red Sox reporter. Starr joins the Menschwarmers to break down her hour-long conversation with Youkilis, key takeaways and the new appointment of Craig Breslow as the new Jewish chief baseball officer of the Red Sox. Plus, we recap what's new in Jewish sports, including Alysha Clark's WNBA championship, the three Jews playing in the NBA's season openers, and how this year breaks a possibly record-setting streak of consecutive baseball World Series featuring Jewish players. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow us on Twitter @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

In the early days of the latest war between Hamas and Israel, something unusual happened in the sports world: a lot of Jewish athletes, and their teammates, went public with their support of Israel. Even Israeli athletes like Deni Avdija of the Washington Wizards, who has refrained from speaking about Middle Eastern politics in the past, posted a lengthy message, in Hebrew and English, disclosing that he personally knows victims and is advocating on the country's behalf to his teammates and the NBA at large. That kind of advocacy is rare—and speaks to the severity of the situation. Dozens of Jewish, Israeli and allied athletes have come out in support of the Jewish homeland. And Louis Keene, a reporter with the Forward who covers sports and religion, has been tracking as many of them as he can, compiling a growing list on Twitter. We invited Keene on to discuss reactions to the war, how Jewish athletes have performed this week, and the distinction between teams' statements, from fervent to mealy-mouthed. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This is the first in a series of live conversations hosted by The CJN and the Prosserman JCC. To learn more and get tickets, visit thecjn.ca/events. In many ways, Michael Landsberg filled a position in Canadian broadcasting that had never even existed before. A founding face of TSN since 1984, Landsberg anchored SportsDesk, recapping everything in sports with highlights and commentary. He moved on to host the debate and interview show Off the Record with Michael Landsberg, which ran from 1997 to 2015, making it one of the longest-running talk shows in Canadian history. Along the way, however, he struggled with deep-seated anxiety, depression and emetophobia—a fear of vomiting. Compounding all of this has been his Jewish upbringing, family values and a not-so-coincidental public perception of arrogance, which he describes in this special live episode of Menschwarmers, recorded at the Prosserman JCC in Toronto on Sept. 12, 2023. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

Join the Menschwarmers for their upcoming live show, in conversation with legendary broadcaster Michael Landsberg, at the Prosserman JCC in Toronto on Sept. 12, 2023. Reserve your seat here. Outside of executive offices, David Thorpe is one of the biggest Jewish names in the NBA—a player development coach who's helped countless athletes, especially young prospects, reach new heights and meet their goals of competing on the world's biggest basketball stage. Among those athletes have been Omri Casspi and Gal Mekel, two of Israel's biggest basketball stars; after he helped them get drafted into the NBA, word began to spread in the Holy Land, and Coach Thorpe found himself flown into Israel to help cultivate a homegrown scene there. Hear him tell these stories and more, including some FIBA discussions and how his parents instilled Jewish values in him personally, in this deep-dive interview on Menschwarmers. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

When AJ Edelman tried out for the Israeli Olympic skeleton team at Lake Placid in 2014, he was told, flat-out, he'd never make it. Not only was he 30 pounds underweight, but the Israeli Olympic commitee wouldn't support him, because Israelis didn't care about the obscure winter sport in which an athlete slides down an icy track head-first as fast as 130 kilometres per hour. It wasn't the first time Edelman had been told he'd fail, and it wouldn't be the last. In the end, the American-born Orthodox athlete did ultimately represent the Holy Land on his skeleton bobsled in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, though he retired shortly afterwards. Instead, he decided to plunge head-first into a different impossible-seeming task: reviving Israel's dormant bobsled team. Despite once again not receiving any support from the Israel, he's nonetheless set a goal of qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. All he needs is a team. And funding. The dream may sound impossible, but as Edelman explains on this week's episode of Menschwarmers, "impossible" is a challenge he's happy to take on. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

On July 19, Josh Sokol, a 29-year-old Scrabble influencer from Montreal, won the top prize of US$10,000 at the 2023 North American Scrabble Players Association championship in Las Vegas. But, as Sokol explains on this episode of Menschwarmers, he isn't even the first Jewish Montrealer to win this competition—one of his local club colleagues took home the top prize last year. What is it about Montreal that's producing such high-quality gamers with encyclopedic memories of the dictionary? And why are so many of them Jewish? To give answers and insight into the world of professional word gaming, Sokol joins our podcast about Jews and sports—because, you know what, it's summer, and board games are competitive enough that we consider them a sport. Subscribe to Sokol's channels on YouTube or Twitch to watch him play. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This year, the Washington Capitals' training camp will take place on Sept. 15, 2023. For most players, this won't be a problem. For Andrew Cristall, the Jewish rookie out of B.C., it will cause a slight conflict—Rosh HaShanah. It won't be the first time Cristall has to navigate his game around Jewish holidays, though. Last year, for Yom Kippur, he fasted until the sun went down, with just enough time to eat a pre-game meal before suiting up on Oct. 5, 2022. Shortly after being drafted to the Capitals, Cristall sat down with Menschwarmers host Gabe Pulver and The CJN Daily's Ellin Bessner. We're now airing the full, half-hour interview—alongside commentary from Gabe and his co-host, James Hirsh, on everything new in the world of Jews and sports, including the Gelof family's big week, Daniel Weinman winning the $12-million World Series of Poker, and whether the MLB's Cade Povich is Jewish. (The answer may surprise you!) Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

We're deep into summer and the sports world is moving slowly, so we're giving you a comprehensive round-up of Jewish sports stories you need to know. Israel qualified for Olympic soccer with big dreams for its young squad; a second Jewish guy named Amari was drafted into the NBA (well, the first was Amar'e, but still) in Amari Bailey for the Charlotte Hornets; the NHL now has another Canadian Jewish hockey talent to watch, drafting Talmud Torah alum Andrew Cristall out of British Columbia; and with the Tour de France in full swing, we recap some great Jewish moments in cycling, including a righteous-gentile racing cyclist, the tour's antisemitic origins and the surprising birth of Curious George. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

This week, the RBC Canadian Open kicks off at the historically Jewish Oakdale Golf & Country Club. And while we have an interview with Mark Sadowski, the club's immediate past president, and general manager Molly Jagroop, the impact of this monumental event happening on Jewish grounds isn't actually the biggest story of the week. It's been overshadowed by the surprise merger (or acquisition, really) of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League. That shock has transformed the Canadian Open—and Oakdale—into ground zero for heated reactions and geopolitical analysis from players, media and experts. Gabe and James will be visiting the tournament this week, and give a breakdown of what to expect from a Jewish perspective. Plus, they talk about the death of the Iron Sheik (and his deep connections to Toronto's Jewish community), Israel's incredible upset victory over Brazil in the U-20 World Cup, and a recent BBC article reflecting on Jewish hockey star Rudi Ball, who competed on the Olympic stage for Nazi Germany—and survived the Holocaust because of it. Credits Menschwarmers is hosted by James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our intro music is by Coby Lipovitch, and our outro music is "Organ Grinder Swing" by chēēZ π. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Follow the Menschwarmers on Twitter @menschwarmers or TikTok @menschwarmers. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.