The victory improves Yeshiva’s record to 22-8 on the season, continuing a postseason surge that began with a dramatic 71-69 first-round win over Bates College just a few days ago.

By Abe Mermelstien, Jewish Breaking News

The Yeshiva University Maccabees are headed to the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 after a huge 92-69 win over the University of Maine-Farmington in the Round of 32 on Saturday night.

The victory, played at Montclair State University’s Panzer Athletic Center in New Jersey, brings YU as one of the final 16 teams remaining in the national tournament.

From the opening minutes, the Macs took control of the game. Yeshiva jumped out to a strong first-half lead, entering halftime ahead 47-34, and continued to build on that advantage throughout the second half to seal the win.

The Maccabees showcased a great offensive attack with four players scoring in double figures. Yoav Oselka led the way with a dominant performance, recording 24 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double.

Zevi Samet added 16 points, Yair Dovrat contributed 13 points and six assists, and Nate Jacobs provided a strong boost off the bench with 10 points.

The victory improves Yeshiva’s record to 22-8 on the season, continuing a postseason surge that began with a dramatic 71–69 first-round win over Bates College just a few days ago.

This marks only the second time in history that Yeshiva University has reached the Sweet 16.

They previously advanced to the tournament’s third round during the 2019–2020 season, though that year’s tournament was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the win, the Maccabees will now face Emory University in the Sweet 16 as they look to continue their historic NCAA Tournament run.

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The team’s current star is Zevi Samet, a junior from the heavily Orthodox town of Monsey, New York, who is also the Skyline Conference’s Player of the Year.

By Philissa Cramer, JTA

It’s another March Madness run for the Yeshiva University Maccabees, which clinched the Skyline Conference championship on Sunday night to head to the national men’s basketball tournament.

The 81-78 win against the Farmingdale State Rams means that the Orthodox university is returning to the NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament for the first time since 2022.

That year, the team fell in the first round of play to Johns Hopkins, following a season that notched a record 50-game winning streak, and captivated Jewish basketball fans.

Mayim Bialik, the Jewish actor, is producing a documentary about the 2022 team, whose star, Ryan Turell, now plays professional basketball in Israel after a stint in the NBA’s G League in Detroit.

The team’s current star is Zevi Samet, a junior from the heavily Orthodox town of Monsey, New York, who is also the Skyline Conference’s Player of the Year.

Samet posted the game-winning three-pointer with just 16 seconds to spare on Sunday.

March Madness is here

Zevi Samet w/ a fading 3 to seal the @SkylineConfD3 title for Yeshiva over Farmingdale St.

Samet poured in 37 points on the night to follow up 34 in the semis & 30 in Round 1#d3hoops // @YUathletics pic.twitter.com/qtJT7F4esc

— D3Direct (@D3Direct) March 3, 2025

“Solid run… Onto the @ncaadiii tournament,” coach Elliot Steinmetz posted on Instagram on Sunday. “Thanks to those who have continued to support us.”

He posted photographs showing the team wearing orange practice shirts in honor of the Bibas brothers killed in captivity in Gaza; fans holding Israeli flags in the stands; and a victory dinner at a kosher restaurant on Long Island.

The DIII men’s basketball tournament begins March 20 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The Maccabees have played in the tournament only twice before, making it to the third round in 2020 before play was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“It is a profound privilege to offer a prayer of unity and hope on behalf of Yeshiva University and for all Americans at this historic moment,” said Rabbi Berman.

By Mike Wagenheim, JNS

The leader of America’s flagship Jewish university will give a benediction following Donald Trump’s inaugural presidential address on Jan. 20. So, too, will an imam who refused to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

A program showing the lineup for Trump’s inauguration at the Capitol indicates that Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University in New York City, and Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Center in Dearborn, Mich., will take the podium back to back immediately following Trump’s speech.

They are two of four religious leaders who have been selected for the honor.

“Working on the benediction for the inauguration,” Berman wrote on X, with a picture of him at a desk, pen in hand, with a pad of paper and a thick book in front of him:

“It is a profound privilege to offer a prayer of unity and hope on behalf of Yeshiva University and for all Americans at this historic moment.”

Berman has served as Yeshiva University’s fifth president since 2016, during which time the institution has experienced significant growth in several key categories.

Al-Husainy, who was among the Arab and Muslim leaders the Trump campaign leaned on during the 2024 election, has declined to call Hezbollah a terror organization and attended a 2006 pro-Hezbollah rally in Dearborn during Israel’s conflict with the southern Lebanese-based Iranian proxy.

The Middle East Forum reported that Al-Husainy held up a photo of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on the stage at the rally. Nasrallah was eliminated by an Israeli bunker-busting strike near Beirut this past September.

Al-Husainy was invited by Democrats the following year to give an invocation at the national committee’s winter meeting, during which he prayed that God would “help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation” in Iraq.

(JNS sought comment from the Trump transition team.)

Critics said Al-Husainy was referring to the United States military as an oppressor. While Al-Husainy denied it, he did not explain who he was referring to during an interview on Fox News that year.

When asked during that interview if Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, Al-Husainy said, “No.”

“Hezbollah is a Lebanese organization,” he said. “And I’ve got nothing to do with that. But there is a biblical meaning of Hezbollah. It is in Judaism and Christianity and Islam, meaning people of God.”

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Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the New York Mets game as they faced off against the Cincinnati Reds.

A Rabbi threw out the first pitch for the NY #Mets.

Well done, @AriBermanYU! pic.twitter.com/U3i9lwP1XE

— Frum TikTok (@FrumTikTok) September 9, 2024

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‘These students will become the leaders and bridge-builders our society so desperately needs.’

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

Robert Kraft, the Jewish owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS), has donated $1 million to Yeshiva University in New York City to establish a new program aimed at promoting inclusivity.

The Blue Square Scholars program will also help Yeshiva University accommodate and support Jewish college students who are transferring to the school after feeling unsafe at their previous campuses due to the recent rise in antisemitism on college campuses across the country.

The program will “help provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the best and the brightest students who are rooted in the university’s values of compassion and respect for all,” the university announced on Tuesday.

“These students will become the leaders and bridge-builders our society so desperately needs.”

The name of the Blue Square Scholars program is inspired by FCAS’s Blue Square initiative, a multimedia campaign that addresses rising antisemitism.

“I am honored to establish the Blue Square Scholars program at Yeshiva University in order to give students a welcoming place to further their education and grow into leaders who will serve as advocates for unity and respect and will push back on all hate,” Kraft said in a statement.

“At a time where hate has been unleashed across our universities, Jewish students are feeling isolated and unsafe. Yeshiva is providing a safe haven for these students and I look forward to seeing them thrive in an academic environment where they could live and study free of fear for being who they are.”

Yeshiva University President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman thanked Kraft and FCAS for establishing the Blue Square Scholars program, “and for all they have done to foster a more inclusive society throughout our country.”

“Robert sets the standard for impactful leadership in this country and this program will support top tier students who will follow his example to become the leaders of tomorrow,” he added.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, more than 100 university and college presidents across the US — including from public, private, faith-based, and historically Black colleges and universities — joined Berman in expressing solidarity with Israel and condemning Hamas terrorism.

Berman also led a group of university presidents on the March of the Living at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on Holocaust Memorial Day last month.

Kraft pulled funding from his alma mater, Columbia University, in April “over the treatment of Jewish students and faculty during pro-Palestinian protests at the campus.”

In an op-ed for the New York Post, he said he was profoundly disappointed seeing Jewish students being targeted by anti-Israel student protesters at Columbia.

“The Columbia I loved is no longer a place I know,” he said.

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‘It is truly humbling to be invited to share in this milestone with the graduates of Yeshiva University,’ Fetterman stated in a Yeshiva University news release before graduation.

By Menachem Wecker and David Swindle, JNS

Addressing graduates at Yeshiva University’s commencement on Wednesday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) noted that he was last at a graduation “literally a quarter century ago,” when he graduated from Harvard University.

The pro-Israel senator’s reference to the Ivy League school, which has been accused of silence concerning Jew-hatred, drew some boos from the audience.

“Today, I have been profoundly disappointed with Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community,” Fetterman said. He then reached for the hood from his Harvard robe.

“For me personally, I do not fundamentally believe that it is right for me to wear this today,” said the junior senator from Western Pennsylvania, drawing widespread applause and a standing ovation, even from those on the stage with him, as he removed the hood.

Videos of Fetterman responding to anti-Israel activists in and around the U.S. Capitol abound on social media.

But a different sort of imagery surfaced on Wednesday, as the senator received a presidential medallion—Yeshiva University’s top award—at the New York private university’s commencement ceremony.

In one video, which the writer and researcher Dovi Safier shared, Fetterman holds hands with YU President Rabbi Ari Berman and Rabbi Hershel Schachter as they and graduates dance to the song “Geshmak to Be a Yid” (“It’s delightful to be Jewish”).

Schachter, 82, is among the most senior leaders of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. In a photo that Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, a Jewish educator, posted on social media, Schachter is shown blessing the senator and thanking him.

“During these challenging times, the leadership, service and moral clarity of this American patriot and hero of Israel have been a beacon of hope and strength for the country and the world,” Yeshiva University stated about Fetterman.

“Like Senator Fetterman, the Yeshiva University community has been deeply engaged in the post-Oct. 7 battle against antisemitism, and in the pursuit of justice for the victims and the hostages still in captivity,” YU stated.

“This year, in particular, given Senator Fetterman’s career of activism on behalf of the United States and Israel, Yeshiva University highlights his stellar example of strength and leadership.”

Berman, the YU president, called Fetterman “one of the true heroes of our time for his unwavering and courageous commitment to moral clarity, which has fortified our community and been a clarion call for our country.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) meets at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., with more than 100 Yeshiva University students in April 2024. Credit: Courtesy of the office of Sen. John Fetterman.

‘Humbling to be invited to share this milestone’

“In the one commencement ceremony that has never been in doubt, I am proud to announce that I will be awarding YU’s highest honor for global leadership, our presidential medallion, to a true U.S. patriot and hero of Israel: Senator John Fetterman,” Berman posted on May 22.

“It is truly humbling to be invited to share in this milestone with the graduates of Yeshiva University,” Fetterman stated in a Yeshiva University news release before graduation.

“As we gather to celebrate the achievements of the graduating class, we must also acknowledge the profound significance of their journey within the context of the recent surge in antisemitism across the country,” he added. “I thank Yeshiva University for the opportunity to join these students on this momentous day.”

JNS sought comment from Fetterman’s office.

More than 5,000 people were expected to attend Yeshiva University’s main commencement ceremony, which took place at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1795897667630903396

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