Olympic Champ Rebecca Soni Has Jewish Roots
Move over Michael Phelps, we have Rebecca Soni batting for our team. And by batting, I mean swimming laps.
American breast stroke champion Rebecca Soni, who just picked up three Olympics medals, including two golds, and two world records this past week, is Jewish.
Growing up in Freehold, N.J., Soni began swimming at an early age. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Hungary, after being deported there from Romania during World War II. Her grandparents survived Auschwitz.
The swimming star made her Olympic debut while still in college—competing in Beijing at the relatively young age of 21. She walked away with three medals and world recognition.
Known for her fierce swimming and super-human concentration, Soni was the first woman to swim the 200-meter breaststroke in under two and a half minutes. She is an important female role model for the Jewish community, as evidenced by her commitment to helping adolescent females around the world, through her work with United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up campaign.
And though her training schedule is tough, she still makes time to visit her family’s homeland of Hungary.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30