Sport

Originally appeared in Jerusalem Post Magazine on October 16, 2026

Peter Kurz recounts the improbable journey of Israel’s baseball team to the Tokyo Olympics, sharing behind-the-scenes stories, challenges, and personal triumphs.

The Major League Baseball World Series victory of the Amazing Mets in 1969 and the Six Day War of 1967 were two formative events that set Peter Kurz – who made aliyah in 1989 – on the path of combining his two loves, baseball and Israel, and taking baseball in Israel from almost nonexistent to Olympic competitor.

Kurz used his passion, hard work, and chutzpah to systematically shepherd Team Israel on the long and improbable road to the 2020 Olympics (postponed to 2021 due to COVID) in Tokyo – an occurrence so unlikely that it is often compared to the Jamaican bobsled team competing in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

In his new book, Where Traditions Meet: The Personal Inside Story of the Israel Baseball Quest for Olympic Gold, Kurz offers exciting anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories, while chronicling (sometimes in laborious detail) the history of baseball’s rise in Israel.

Kurz held nearly every position in the Israel Association of Baseball over the past 25 years, including longtime president and secretary-general and general manager of Israel’s Olympic baseball team. He is still trying to understand why he was recently voted out of office – an experience he addresses in the final three pages of the 225-page book.

Where Traditions Meet is cleverly told in nine “innings” (or chapters) – the number of innings in a regulation baseball game – with a prologue and epilogue.

Young Israeli baseball players take part in a practice session as the sport continues to grow, with youth programs expanding into communities across the country. (credit: IAB/Courtesy)

The First Inning shares Kurz’s experience growing up as a “typical kid born in America in the Fifties and raised in the Sixties.” His parents were Holocaust survivors who worked hard to make a living and raise their kids on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Kurz visited Israel for the first time just after the Six Day War in 1967 – two years before his beloved Mets would make him proud by winning the World Series. “I grew up on Israel and baseball.”

The next chapter, “Second Inning: Moving to Israel and Making Aliyah,” shares his first exposure to baseball in Israel while on IDF reserve duty in 1989. A friend told him that his son was playing baseball in a league. Peter soon sold his son Amit on the idea. At the time, fewer than 300 children played the sport.

Kurz was recruited to become an assistant coach, coach, then head coach of the 10- to 12-year-old National Team. He notes that he was inexperienced and learned on the job. He next joined the board and became secretary-general in 2005.

Hardcore Baseball fans will appreciate the details of each bunt and balk he covers in chapters chronicling tournaments around the world, including World Baseball Classic (WBC) qualifiers and tournaments in the US, Korea, and Japan, various European tournaments and championships, and ultimately the Olympics.

It is clear that Kurz has an uncanny memory for game lineups and details, and cities and people encountered around the world.

But the behind-the-scenes stories of famous baseball players and emotional moments bring the book to life.

There was the time Joc Pederson, longtime major leaguer and current Texas Rangers outfielder and first baseman, was 20 and playing Single-A ball and wasn’t allowed into the team’s courtesy suite where alcohol was served, since he was underage.

Before becoming the manager of the Israel national baseball team, Brad Ausmus, who had an 18-year career in Major League Baseball, went on a team trip to Israel with his wife in 2012. He toured the country, surfed, and presented a team ball and jersey to then-prime minister Shimon Peres.

When Ty Kelly went to Israel, the former Mets and Phillies player brought his Jewish mother as his “plus one.”

Ike Davis, former first baseman for four major league teams, realized for the first time, while studying his mother’s side of the family tree, that many family members were killed in the Holocaust.

Jason Marquis, who played 16 major league seasons, including 10 playoff seasons, once surprised his teammates with 20 pizzas after a practice in Brooklyn.

Kurz gives players exposure to Jewish history, holidays

Kurz and his staff worked hard to give their players – most of whom come from fairly weak Jewish backgrounds – exposure to Jewish holidays and history, from Rosh Hashanah, Purim, Shabbat, and Tisha B’Av on the road, to visits to Holocaust sites in Lithuania, half a mile from their field, where 2,000 Jews were rounded up and murdered in the Rase Forest.

Kurz provides a fair accounting of the challenges as well as the happy moments he and his players faced on the road to qualifying for and competing in the Olympics.

For the WBC, players need only be eligible for citizenship in a country. The International Olympic Committee, however, requires players to be actual, legal citizens of the country they represent.

Israel’s Law of Return gives anyone with a Jewish parent, grandparent, or spouse the right to return to Israel and be granted Israeli citizenship.

Identifying players as Jewish was challenging and often required detective-like precision, as Kurz tracked down cemetery headstones and circumcision certificates and ketubot to verify Jewish status.

Convincing players wanting to represent Israel at the Olympics to make aliyah – and to endure the complex, bureaucratic process – was similarly challenging.

There were moments of luxury – like when the team flew to Israel on Sheldon Adelson’s private plane, and there was a great deal of discomfort and frustration navigating COVID restrictions and lodging in uncomfortable rooms at the Olympic Village in Tokyo.

Despite Kurz’s efforts to get the Israeli media on board, they mostly remained uninterested, thinking throughout that the American-heavy team was not “Israeli enough” to justify coverage.

Kurz has always viewed the team’s composition, with American stars, as a necessary step toward building a program that would ultimately produce a team of mostly native Israelis.

His efforts are paying off. It would have been interesting to hear more about Israel’s extensive youth program, from five-year-olds through adults.

For now, Israel baseball will go on without Kurz. But he admits, “An Olympic gold medal would look pretty on my wall!”■

WHERE TRADITIONS MEET: 
THE PERSONAL INSIDE STORY OF THE ISRAEL BASEBALL QUEST FOR OLYMPIC GOLD
By Peter Kurz
KDP
225 pages; $15

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Original Article Published On The JNS

The go-ahead runs came in the eighth inning in a game that was supposed to be easier for Israel.

Team Israel’s first game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic against Nicaragua on Sunday was supposed to be its easy game before playing powerhouse teams Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. But it took a come-from-behind win to put the Nicaragua team away.

Playing before a crowd of nearly 20,000 at Miami’s LoanDepot Park, Dean Kremer—the first Israeli pitcher drafted by an MLB team and a current Baltimore Orioles starter—threw an impressive four shutout innings. Nicaragua’s only run came on a double in the fifth inning.

Israel trailed 1-0 through eight. After Matt Mervis grounded out, Alex Dickerson singled, advancing to second after Ryan Lavarnway was hit by a pitch. Spencer Horwitz lined a single, scoring Jakob Goldfarb (pinch running). Several batters later, Garrett Stubbs, a Triple-A catcher and outfielder for the Phillies and Team Israel’s third baseman, smacked a two-run, ground-rule double to left field.

Horwitz and Noah Mendlinger crossing the plate were all that Israel needed to win 3-1, as the team’s reliever Robert Stock retired three batters in a row in the top of the ninth. The win belonged to Red Sox lefty Richard Bleier, who struck out two in relief in the eighth.

Israel sends lefty Colton Gordon of the Houston Astros farm system to the mound Monday against Puerto Rico at 7 p.m.

Dean Kremer of Team Israel pitches against Nicaragua at the World Baseball Classic on March 12, 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Major League Baseball.
Joc Pederson (left) of Team Israel congratulates teammates after beating Nicaragua in a come-from-behind win at the World Baseball Classic on March 12, 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Major League Baseball.
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Original Article Published On The JNS

For 24-year-old, Minor League pitcher Daniel Federman, the trip via Uber and airplane from the Baltimore Orioles spring training camp in Sarasota, Fla., to Team Israel’s facility in Jupiter three hours east across the state provided much more than just a chance to play baseball in another Florida city. It affords him the opportunity to reconnect with his Jewish roots and with fond memories of his paternal Jewish grandparents.

Federman, who grew up in the backdrop of Chanukah, Passover and Christmas, had two paternal Jewish grandparents and his mother Amy’s father is Jewish.

“My father’s Jewish side was not extremely religious, but holidays were family times. We got together as part of our heritage,” he told JNS.

The family’s Jewish connection “died out” largely when Federman’s grandparents died. “My father wishes he could but didn’t know how to do it, so it’s been a while,” the pitcher said of his father’s connection to Jewish ritual.

Federman’s father was kicked out of Hebrew school, so he opted not to subject his son to it, and Federman did not celebrate his bar mitzvah. His parents let him decide about his own religious affiliation and supported his decisions.

He played baseball and basketball at his local JCC in Davie, Fla., and almost played Maccabiah basketball before baseball took priority.

Federman said that he first learned about Israel’s World Baseball Classic team as a student at the University of Miami. His fellow baseball teammate at the university, Ben Wanger, pushed him to go on Birthright and to live a more Jewish life, and told him about the Israeli team. Federman has not been able to visit Israel yet, as he has been busy with college, the baseball draft and then his signing.

“I spoke to my mother, and she has been dying to go,” he said of an Israel trip. Ironically, they had decided to go before he got involved with Team Israel. He anticipates that they will make the trip after the baseball season.

Federman, No. 99. Credit: Team Israel.

‘Oh man, you are actually doing it!’

Peter Kurz, general manager of the Israeli team, told JNS that Federman is “definitely a pitcher with potential.”

Wanger’s recommendation of Federman to the team is the sort of thing that has been happening more after the team’s success at the last World Baseball Classic and at the 2020 Olympics.

“Many players came to us upon recommendations of others,” said Kurz. “That’s a major source of our players—simply word of mouth and recruitment by ex-players.”

Federman found out on Feb. 7 that Team Israel invited him to join the 30-member roster for the World Baseball Classic. The team’s first game is on March 11.

“It hit me: Oh man, you are actually doing it!” he said.

He has already had a chance to reaffirm his Jewish identity. The day after arriving at the team’s training center, Federman joined teammates to hear the Megillah on Purim.

With the blessing of the Orioles, he will spend two weeks with Team Israel before joining his Baltimore teammates for spring training.

“There are lots of great guys out there, and I am excited to meet them,” he said of his Team Israel colleagues. The teammates had communicated via group chat, which is par for the course in baseball. When Federman joined the Orioles organization, he also didn’t know anyone.

“The good thing about the baseball community is that there are a lot of mutual connections. You will always know guys you grew up with, and we are all there to play baseball,” he said.

He obviously hopes that he will make it to the major leagues someday, but even if he doesn’t, he thinks what he is experiencing with coreligionists is more than enough.

“Millions would trade with me. It will be unbelievable!” he practically gushed, adding that the World Baseball Classic is “the highest level of competition most will play in front of.”

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Original Article Published On The JNs

Still, it has its work cut out for it at the World Baseball Classic in Miami, where some of the best teams share its division, says Peter Kurz.

Team Israel is currently battling it out in the World Baseball Classic in Miami, where it’s part of a grouping with powerhouses the Dominican Republic, which many are picking to win; Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Nicaragua rounds out the five-team Pool D, whose games will be held from March 11 to March 15.

Still, the team’s coach and general manager are optimistic. “We will be the underdog like always, and we will be overlooked,” former professional baseball player Ian Kinsler, who coaches the Israeli team, told JNS. “I have a pretty easy message for the players. We are showing up to win, not just to participate.”

Peter Kurz, the team’s general manager, told JNS that he has a lot of confidence after Israel’s “incredible run” in the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Israel was the lowest-ranked team “by far” to make the Olympics, and it won Israel’s first-ever Olympics team game.

It also came in second in the 2021 European Championship “on a team that was over 50% locally grown sabra ballplayers,” he said. “Those were incredible achievements, and they have certainly put Israel baseball on the map.”

This year, Israel’s team has 13 current or former Major League Baseball players and eight Minor League prospects, who might play in the majors next year. Ten hold Israeli citizenship.

“Team Israel will surprise a lot of people,” said Kurz.

Ian Kinsler, part of Team Israel, is playing in the World Baseball Classic in Miami from March 11 to March 15, 2023. Credit: Israel Association of Baseball.

‘It was a great trip for the family’

JNS reached Kinsler—himself one of the most decorated professional baseball players—in early March before he left his home in Texas to fly to Miami with his son, Jack.

A former four-time All-Star and holder of a World Series ring, Ian Kinsler won two gold gloves at second base during his 14-year career: eight with the Detroit Tigers. He won the World Series in 2018 with the Boston Red Sox. Throughout his career, he stole 243 bases, recorded 1,999 hits, belted 257 home runs and batted in 909 runs. In 2022, the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame inducted him.

Kinsler grew up in Tucson, Ariz., the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. He has told reporters often that he did not grow up religiously observant but that playing for Israel, including going through the process of making aliyah in 2020 to be eligible for the Olympics, has connected him more strongly with his Jewish relatives.

He was one of five torchbearers at the Maccabiah opening ceremonies in Jerusalem in 2022 and threw out the opening pitch at a Maccabiah game. On that trip, he told JNS, he and his family spent Shabbat at the home of Jordy Alter, president of the board of directors of the Israel Association of Baseball.

“We got to experience Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,” he said. “It was a great trip for the family.”

Experiencing the history in Israel made Kinsler feel more connected, and it “brings out feelings of lineage and heritage—that it is really your people,” he told JNS. “The more you experience Israel, the more you feel connected.”

Kinsler’s 14-year-old daughter, Rian, felt like she was participating in a high school learning field trip, and his 11-year-old son, who answered every question with “King David,” ended up being right half the time, he said. At Israeli sporting events, Kinsler appreciated how relaxed it was.

The Israel team arrived in Miami on March 6 before nightfall and the start of the Jewish holiday of Purim. On Tuesday, Jordy Alter arranged a Megillah reading for the team, which also watched the 2022 film “Israel Swings for Gold,” about Israel’s baseball team competing in the Olympics in 2021.

After exhibition games on Wednesday and Thursday, the team will work out on Friday at the Miami stadium, take Shabbat off and play the first game on March 12 at noon against Nicaragua.

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