July 7, 2026

How Boston Became One of Israel Baseball’s Most Important Cities

If you were to ask which American city has had the most influence on Israel Baseball, you’d probably say New York — the Jewish capital of the United States. But if you trace the history of Israel Baseball back to its roots, one city keeps appearing in the story, and it isn’t New York.

It’s Boston, Massachusetts.

That might surprise you. It might even surprise many of the fans who fill Fenway Park every year for the Boston Red Sox’s Jewish Heritage Celebration, an event which draws from one of the largest Jewish communities in America, with over 333,000 people living in Jewish households across greater Boston. Yet most of those fans have no idea their city is so deeply woven into the fabric of Israel Baseball.

Where It All Began

It all started with a Boston businessman named Larry Baras, who had an idea: a professional baseball league in Israel. To bring the Israel Baseball League (IBL) to life in 2007, Baras assembled a leadership group of four people, three of whom had direct ties to Boston.

Andrew Zimbalist, a Massachusetts-based economist and Smith College professor, was among them. So was Marvin Goldklang, owner of the Brockton Rox, an independent professional baseball team in Brockton, Massachusetts. And so was Dan Duquette — the former General Manager of the Red Sox and a Dalton, Massachusetts native — who came aboard as the IBL’s Director of Baseball Operations and held player tryouts at his own Duquette Sports Academy in Hinsdale, Massachusetts.

The fourth member of that founding group, the only one without Boston roots, was Dan C. Kurtzer, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, who served as the league’s Commissioner.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a fifth figure: a trial attorney from Miami named Martin Berger — who also happens to be my father — who originally sought to purchase one of the planned six franchises, ended up working alongside Duquette to find players for the league, and eventually became the President of the IBL.

The league’s roots, in other words, were planted largely in New England soil.

The Red Sox Connection

But the Boston story doesn’t stop with the IBL’s front office. When you look at the players and coaches who have suited up for Team Israel over the years, the thread running through the Red Sox organization is remarkable.

Start with Eladio Rodriguez, a catcher who spent several seasons in the Red Sox minor league system before partaking in the IBL’s one and only season in 2007 — where he shared MVP honors playing for the Modi’in Miracle.

Then there are the players who weren’t Red Sox lifers but grew up in the Boston area. Jake Fishman, born in Sharon, Massachusetts, became one of Israel’s most reliable arms, pitching in the 2021 Summer Olympics, the 2023 and 2026 World Baseball Classics, and the 2023 and 2025 European Baseball Championships.

And then there are the players who passed through the Red Sox system on their way to Team Israel: lefty Jeremy Bleich, who spent a season with the Triple-A Pawtucket in between pitching for Israel in the 2017 WBC and the 2020 Olympics; first baseman Cody Decker, who played at Double-A Portland before the 2017 WBC; and Nate Freiman, who grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts and played with Pawtucket in between his times representing the Blue and White in the 2013 WBC Qualifiers and the 2017 WBC.

Those are the names you might have to look up. The ones who come next, you already know.

The MLB Mainstays

On August 8, 2005, the Red Sox briefly made baseball history when Kevin Youkilis, Adam Stern, and Gabe Kapler took the field at the same time — the most Jewish players on the field simultaneously in Major League Baseball since the 1941 New York Giants put four on the field in the same game. The following year, Craig Breslow joined the roster, giving the Red Sox four Jewish players in a single season.

Three of those four men would later go on to represent Team Israel.

Two of them did so as coaches; Kapler coached Israel during the 2013 WBC Qualifiers, while Youkilis — the Red Sox legend, two-time World Series champion, and one of the most recognizable Jewish athletes in America — coached in both the 2023 and 2026 World Baseball Classics.

While I was at the Jewish Heritage Celebration at Fenway Park on May 27, I had the chance to speak with Gabrielle Starr of the Boston Herald, who grew up in greater Boston. She told me she saw both Youkilis and Kapler at her synagogue’s High Holiday services during their playing days when she was younger.

Starr recalled the sight of two large, muscular World Series champions squeezed into tallitot prayer shawls borrowed from the synagogue — clearly sized for someone much smaller. “It was like watching a man sit in a child’s chair for a tea party,” she said.

The third, Breslow, suited up to compete for the Blue and White, playing on the 2016 WBC Qualifier team that secured Israel’s first entry into the main tournament. Today, Breslow serves as the Red Sox’s Chief Baseball Officer; a man who once wore the uniform of Team Israel now runs the baseball operations of one of the most storied franchises in the game.

The Boston-Israel Baseball player connection doesn’t stop here. Ryan Lavarnway — another Red Sox World Series champion who played four seasons with the team — long served as a leader and captain of Team Israel behind the plate, catching for Israel in the 2017 and 2023 WBCs, the 2020 Summer Olympics, and the 2023 European Baseball Championship.

Over the years, numerous players including Richard Bleier, Ryan Sherriff, Robert Stock, Zack Weiss, Danny Valencia, Ian Kinsler, and Tommy Kahnle all spent time with the Red Sox and at various points suited up for the Sabras.

Jewish Heritage Celebration

The Red Sox have long understood the depth of their Jewish community, and in 2014 they launched what has become one of the most beloved annual traditions in Fenway Park: Jewish Heritage Celebration. In its inaugural year, Breslow — then the team’s only Jewish player — spoke with the Jewish press before the game against the Atlanta Braves, the same opponent the Red Sox faced at this year’s Heritage Celebration.

The event has grown into something far more than a promotional night. In 2025, it produced one of the most powerful moments in the history of the Fenway-Israel Baseball connection: freed Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov — who had survived 505 days in captivity — walked to the mound at Fenway Park and threw out the ceremonial first pitch. He wore a Red Sox jersey with his name on the back, a yellow hostage ribbon on the front, and sneakers inscribed with the words “BRING THEM HOME NOW.”

This year’s Heritage Celebration carried that same spirit. Watching fans come around the Israel Baseball Americas booth at the stadium walkway, I witnessed people turning their heads, stopping short, and doubling back to ask: “What’s this about?”

Israel Baseball Americas COO Adam Gladstone spent the afternoon selling merchandise and talking with fans. According to Gladstone, attendees walk away from these conversations with more than just new knowledge about Israel Baseball — they often leave wearing it, too.

“Everybody that we have the opportunity to see, talk to, and explain a little bit about what Israel Baseball is — they walk away with something that says ‘Israel Baseball’ that they can feel comfortable wearing in public right now,” Gladstone said. “It says a lot about how far we’ve come as an organization. There’s still a lot of curiosity about what Israel Baseball is about, but our appearances in the World Baseball Classic, being in the Olympics, and what we’re doing to help grow the game of baseball in Israel, through Israel Baseball Americas, is just the most important thing.”

The Story Hiding in Plain Sight

Most of the fans who came to Fenway Park for the Jewish Heritage Celebration didn’t know any of this history. They didn’t know that the man who founded the Israel Baseball League was a Boston businessman. They didn’t know that the Red Sox’s former General Manager held tryouts for the Israel Baseball League in the Berkshires. They didn’t know that the team’s current Chief Baseball Officer once wore a Team Israel uniform. And they didn’t know that the coach who has led Israel in two World Baseball Classics is the same man who brought an end to the Red Sox 86-year championship drought in 2004.

But the history is there, quietly embedded in this city and its ballpark.

Boston didn’t just support Israel Baseball. Boston helped build it. And every year, when the Jewish community gathers at Fenway — one of the largest Jewish communities in the country, more than 333,000 strong — they’re part of a story that Boston helped write, whether they know it or not.

_{By Noah Berger, Israel Baseball News Staff}