Chai Lights
Jewish news for the week of February 23rd
Another week of Jew news for everyone, but of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t start with the biggest Jewish news of the week…
🏒 Sports & Culture
From Bris to Bar Mitzvah to Olympic Gold: Jack Hughes Makes History in Milan The first Jewish No. 1 draft pick just became the first hockey player to have a bar mitzvah AND a golden goal.
Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils star and proud Jewish kid who grew up celebrating Passover with his family, scored the overtime game-winner against Canada to give Team USA its first men’s hockey gold since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.” Hughes and his brother Quinn (also Jewish on their mother Ellen Weinberg-Hughes’ side) become the most decorated siblings in Jewish sports history, while social media dubbed the moment “the greatest Jewish sports moment of all time.” Mazel tov doesn’t quite cover it.
(Times of Israel, February 22, 2026)
Sticks, Stars, and Six-Pointed Chai: The Golden Age of Jewish Hockey In a sport not exactly known for its Jewish fan base, we somehow ended up with an All-Star team.
This Tablet deep-dive from Armin Rosen is essential reading now that Jack Hughes has punched his golden ticket to the pantheon. Zach Hyman, the Hughes brothers, Adam Fox, Jeremy Swayman: a remarkable cluster of elite bar-mitzvahed talent has converged at the top of the NHL all at once, and Rosen captures just how improbable and delightful this moment really is. The kind of piece you forward to your father-in-law who claims hockey is “not a Jewish sport.”
(Tablet Magazine)
⚔️ History
The American Soldier Who Told the Nazis, “We Are All Jews Here,” Is Finally Getting His Medal More than 80 years after he stared down a Nazi pistol to protect his Jewish comrades, the U.S. is making it official.
Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, a Tennessee Baptist who in January 1945 ordered all 1,275 American POWs to stand together and declared “we are all Jews here” when German camp commanders demanded Jews be singled out, will receive the Medal of Honor in a ceremony on March 2. He was already recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, but this long-overdue honor caps a story of moral clarity so powerful it almost defies imagination. One man’s courage, one sentence, 200 Jewish lives saved.
(Times of Israel, February 22, 2026)
We Are All Jews Here Roddie Edmonds didn’t need a philosophy degree. He just needed a spine.
British writer Andrew Fox published this urgent, beautifully crafted essay on the Future of Jewish platform, connecting Edmonds’ story to the aliyah of antisemitism we’re witnessing today. Fox makes the case that Edmonds’ five-word declaration is a call to action for non-Jews right now, not just a chapter in a history book. With the Medal of Honor ceremony on the horizon, this piece gives us the moral and emotional framing to understand why that moment mattered then, and why it still does.
(Future of Jewish, February 19, 2026)
🏺 History & Archaeology
Walk Where the Pilgrims Walked: Jerusalem’s Ancient Pilgrimage Road Is Now Open to the Public The street that carried your ancestors to the Temple Mount every Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot is finally open again. Pack comfortable shoes and a lot of feelings.
After years of excavation beneath the streets of East Jerusalem, the 2,000-year-old Pilgrimage Road connecting the Siloam Pool to the Western Wall has reopened for public tours. The stepped stone road, sealed underground for millennia after Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, is remarkably preserved. The inaugural group included an American family visiting to celebrate their daughter’s bat mitzvah, which is a reminder that these stones were never just history.
(Times of Israel, February 2, 2026)
Chasing Looters, Archaeologists Stumble on a 2,000-Year-Old Stone Vessel Workshop Sometimes the bad guys accidentally point you to the good stuff.
An Israel Antiquities Authority sting operation targeting antiquities looters on Mount Scopus unexpectedly uncovered a Second Temple-era stone vessel factory producing more than 100 ritual vessels. What makes it significant: under Jewish law, these stone vessels couldn’t become ritually impure, making them essential for observant Jews living near the Temple. The discovery paints a vivid picture of daily religious life in Jerusalem just decades before its destruction. Archaeology by way of a heist movie.
(Times of Israel, February 16, 2026)
🍽️ Food & Culture
America’s Only Ethiopian Jewish Restaurant Has Closed Its Doors Due to Antisemitic Harassment Tsion Cafe fed Harlem injera, gursha, and a lesson in Jewish diversity. It deserved better.
Beejhy Barhany, a Harlem chef who grew up in an Ethiopian refugee camp and later served in the IDF, has been forced to shutter the dining room of Tsion Cafe, the only Ethiopian Jewish restaurant in America, citing security threats and antisemitic harassment. For over a decade the restaurant served as the primary public face of Beta Israel culture in the U.S., introducing curious New Yorkers to shakshuka spiked with berbere and the ancient traditions of a Jewish community that maintained its identity in isolation for centuries. Barhany isn’t done, but this loss stings.
(The Forward, February 22, 2026)