Jewish Super Bowl Showdown
Mitchell Schwartz
(Credit: Jeffrey Beall)
Mitchell Bryan Mendel Schwartz (b. 1989) was born in California and raised in a religious Conservative Jewish home. By the time he started high school, he was 6’5″ and weighed 240 pounds—so he started playing football. Very quickly, he dominated the game, and just a couple of years later was California high schools’ Offensive Lineman of the Year. He was also an all-star baseball pitcher, and an honour roll student with a near-perfect GPA. Not surprisingly, many colleges wanted him, and he chose to go to UC Berkeley where he majored in American Studies. Over his four-year college career, he didn’t miss a single game. In 2012, Schwartz was drafted to the NFL by the Cleveland Browns. He went on to play all 16 games in his impressive rookie season. After several more successful seasons, he signed a 5-year, $33 million contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, making him one of the highest paid tackles in the sport. Schwartz wears his Judaism proudly, and co-authored a book with his brother Geoff (also an NFL player) called Eat my Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith. He is a big supporter of Kansas City’s Chabad of Leawood, and has lit the city’s public menorah. Last year, he helped lead the Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory. Until then, he had never missed a single game in his entire NFL career. Unfortunately, that incredible streak ended earlier this season, though his team still made it to the Super Bowl, and will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this Sunday. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay has their own Jewish all-star:
Ali Marpet
(Credit: buccaneers.com)
Alexander “Ali” Marpet (b. 1993) was born in New York to a traditional Jewish family. He was also a big high school football (and basketball) success. Marpet studied economics and public policy at Hobart College, which is not a particularly strong athletic school and doesn’t even award athletic scholarships. Only one other player in the history of the college ever made it to the NFL. Marpet went there anyways, and led their football team to multiple championship appearances. He was drafted to the NFL in 2016 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In his rookie season, he was voted the best pass-blocker among rookies and 12th-best run-blocking guard overall. In 2018, he signed a 5-year, $55 million extension with the Buccaneers, making him one of the highest paid guards in the NFL. Marpet once described how, while on Birthright Israel, the classic camel ride in the desert didn’t go so well for him since he weighed over 300 pounds and the camel wasn’t too happy about that! He has stated that he is honoured to represent all Jews as a professional athlete. Marpet hopes to win his first championship ring this Sunday.
Words of the Week
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
– Chinese Proverb
Sheldon Gary Sholom Gedaliah Adelson (1933-2021) was born in Boston to a working-class, immigrant Jewish family of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and English heritage. Even as a child he thought about how to get the family out of financial hardship, starting his first business at just 12 years of age by selling newspapers. Three years later, he started a new business operating a vending machine. His studies didn’t go well, and he dropped out of both college and a trade school before joining the military. After his army service, Adelson started a new business selling toiletries, followed by several more businesses before making his big break with a charter-bus tour company. In his 30s, he had already become a millionaire. A few years later, he was the co-creator of one of the first computer industry trade shows. The business grew exponentially and was sold to a Japanese company in 1995 for $862 million (of which $500 million went to Adelson). Meanwhile, Adelson had started investing in Las Vegas real estate. His first major venture there was purchasing the Sands Hotel and Casino for $110 million. A few years later, he dreamed of building a massive resort hotel and the result was The Venetian. Adelson also built a casino in Pennsylvania, in Singapore, and the Sands Macao, which was China’s first Vegas-like casino. The latter was one of Adelson’s most profitable investments, with some estimates suggesting it multiplied his wealth by fourteen times! In 2007, Adelson started a new conservative-leaning newspaper in Israel, called Israel Hayom. Distributed for free, it became the country’s number-one weekday paper. Originally a Democrat, Adelson grew disenchanted with the party and became a Republican. He always believed business and politics should not mix, and that wealthy people shouldn’t influence elections. However, when he discovered how strongly some wealthy people were influencing elections, he felt he had no choice but to do so as well. Over the years, Adelson donated hundreds of millions to support various Republican candidates. While he initially did not favour Trump, he ended up backing him due to Trump’s promises to help Israel. He gave around $65 million for Trump’s 2016 campaign, another $113 million to Republicans in 2018, followed by another $100 million in the last election. Trump’s erratic behaviour and obsession with election fraud led to a rift between the two, and they had not spoken following the election. A generous philanthropist, Adelson gave nearly $500 million for Birthright Israel (being its largest individual donor), $50 million to Yad Vashem, $25 million to build a medical school at Ariel University in Israel’s historic heartland, as well as nearly $20 million to fund Israel’s young space-exploration industry. His contributions played a key role in getting 
Jeffrey Alan Hoffman (b. 1944) was born in Brooklyn. He was always fascinated by outer space, and went to study astronomy at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Hoffman went on to get a PhD in astrophysics from Harvard, researching cosmic x-rays and gamma rays. He built one of the first aerial gamma ray telescopes. After this, he did postdoctoral work in the UK, eventually working as a project scientist for the European Space Agency. In 1975, Hoffman returned to the US to work at MIT. His main area of focus was x-ray bursts, and he authored over 20 papers on the subject, becoming the world expert on it. One time, he heard his wife reading a passage in a book saying that there will never be a Jewish astronaut. This inspired Hoffman to pursue just that, and he applied to NASA. In 1978, he was selected for NASA’s astronaut training program, together with