Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Julian Edelman says he is studying for his bar mitzvah

(JTA) — New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman said he is studying for his bar mitzvah.

Edelman told Los Angeles Magazine before the start of a Ruderman Family Foundation dinner that he is going to have a bar mitzvah in Los Angeles “soon.”

“I speak with a rabbi every Friday. He’s from out here,” Edelman said.

Edelman, 33, also said he has attended synagogue during the football season.

He is one of only a few Jewish players in the league, embracing that side of his identity over time.

Before the Super Bowl in 2012, Edelman acknowledged that he has a Jewish father and his mother is not Jewish. He was not raised in the faith.

“I’m kind of Jewish but not really,” he said at the time.

But since then he has shown his Jewish pride on a number of occasions. In a 2014 game, for instance, he wore a pin featuring the Israeli flag. He has tweeted about Jewish holidays. He even went on a Birthright-style trip to Israel, and has written a children’s book that references modern-day Zionism founder Theodor Herzl.

After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in the fall that killed 11, he wore special cleats with Hebrew on them to honor the victims. And in December he wore custom cleats to support the Israel Baseball Association. They were auctioned off to raise money for the cause.

Edelman did not specify a date for the bar mitzvah. His business partner Assaf Swissa said they were working on “something big” involving the bar mitzvah and preferred not to reveal more, according to the report.

The post Julian Edelman says he is studying for his bar mitzvah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.