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Auburn Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl
to Speak About Israel Trip
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
E arlier this summer, Bruce Pearl
made headlines in Jewish media
with his “Birthright for College
Basketball” tour in Israel.

Th e Jewish head coach took his pre-
dominantly Black Auburn University
men’s basketball team to his people’s
homeland, where they competed in
exhibition games against Israeli teams,
held a basketball clinic with Tamir
Goodman, the “Jewish Jordan,” and
visited historic sites.

Th e Jewish Telegraphic Agency
described it as “a 10-day Birthright-
style trip.” Pearl called it a way to bring
people together and, since ESPN aired
the games, an “infomercial for Israel.”
On Sept. 13, Pearl, one of the biggest
names in college basketball, will visit
Philadelphia to talk about the trip.

Th e coach, who led Auburn to the
regular-season SEC championship in
2022 and the Final Four in 2019, will be
the keynote speaker at the 5th Annual
Athletes Against Antisemitism Gala
at the Hilton City Avenue. Th e event
is a fundraiser for Stand with Us, a
nonprofi t that promotes a pro-Israel
agenda and combats antisemitism,
according to Paula Joff e, its executive
director for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Pearl also is on the board of advisers
for Alliance of Trust, a Philadelphia-
based nonprofi t that tries to “improve
Black-Jewish relations through pro-
grams to combat racism and antisem-
itism,” according to its website. Stand
with Us is a sponsor for Alliance of
Trust’s educational series on using
sports to fi ght racism and antisemi-
tism, said David Edman, the Alliance’s
co-founder. “I’m going to open up my heart. Th ere
are a lot of things that should bring
the Black and Jewish communities
together,” Pearl said. “One of the basic
ones is we both have survived slavery.”
Pearl took his players to Israel
because he wanted them to see that
there was not much of a diff erence
between his religious upbringing and
theirs in the Christian faith. Th e group
saw both Jewish and Christian sites.

It was an idea that the coach devel-
oped when he led the U.S. men’s bas-
ketball team to a gold medal at the 2009
Maccabiah Games. But due to COVID
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and other events, the timing was never
quite right, he said.

In 2022, though, it fi nally was.

“I’m a basketball coach. I’m trying to
bring people together. Israel, Jerusalem,
should bring everyone together. Not
separate us,” Pearl said. “We got some-
thing started here.”
Pearl is working with a company
called Creative Sports Marketing to
bring more teams to the Holy Land in
the future. He hopes to include a stop
in the United Arab Emirates to teach a
lesson about the Abraham Accords, the
2020 treaty organized by the United
States between Israel, the UAE and
Bahrain that normalized relations
between the countries.

The coach’s grandparents were
Orthodox. He went to shul with his
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6 SEPTEMBER 1, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
5/19/22 2:25 PM