Weekly Kibbitz
Joshua Jayden “JJ” Harel, newly 14
and standing at 6-foot-2, expects to
face some tough competition when
the Olympics return to Los Angeles
in 2028. But his fi rst decision will be
whether to march into the Olympic
stadium under the American,
Australian or Israeli fl ag.

JJ inherited his triple citizenship
through his father, Oren, 47, born
in Houston, and his mother, Lucy, a
native Australian. Oren Harel spent
his formative years in Israel and
served in the Israel Defense Forces.

Afterward, he attended Cornell
University, where he met Lucy. After
two years in Manhattan, and fol-
lowing Sept. 11, the couple moved
to Sydney for 10 years, where all
three of their children were born.

They relocated as a family to Israel
for two years before moving to Los
Angeles in 2013.

JJ won 27 international medals
in competitions over the past year
JJ Harel decked out in his medals
alone. At the Maccabiah Games in
Israel, he placed fi rst in high jump
and second in triple jump in the
under-18 category after needing
special permission to participate
since he was underage. Then there
was the record-breaking high jump
that earned him a profi le in The Los
Angeles Times.

Finally, last month, he participated
in the American Athletic Union
Junior Olympics, one of the largest
youth track-and-fi eld competitions
in the world. There, he won three
gold medals and cleared 6 feet and
5 inches in the high jump, breaking
a record for the 14-and-under age
group that had stood for 42 years
(he was still 13 at the time). Harel won
gold in the triple jump and javelin as
well, and he was the only athlete to
achieve All-American status in fi ve
events. Oren Harel noted that JJ’s grand-
father worked for NASA for about 20
years starting in the early 1970s, con-
tributing research to the “Voyager
2” and “Galileo” space-exploration
projects. “Sometimes, I say a joke when
people ask me about [JJ’s] abil-
ity,” related Oren Harel. “I tell them
his grandfather worked for NASA;
maybe that’s how he learned the
secret on how to defy gravity.”
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Lucy Harel
The Sky’s No Limit for This Record-breaking Teen Athlete