WALL STREET JOURNAL
Israel’s Baseball Team: Now Starring Actual Israelis
by Jared Diamond
September 10, 2019

…Buoyed by that unexpected success, Israel now hopes to earn a spot in the Tokyo Olympics next year, with baseball returning to the program for the first time since 2008. Unlike the WBC, the Olympic Charter requires all athletes to be a national of the country they represent—a problem, since only about 1,000 people play baseball in Israel. So Israel found a solution: Over the past year, more than a dozen Jewish-American professional ballplayers have obtained Israeli citizenship under the nation’s Law of Return, a process known as making aliyah—Hebrew for “ascent.” READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT