JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
(JTA) — An 18-year-old pingpong star may have to skip this year’s Olympics because the U.S. trials are scheduled for Shabbat and she is an Orthodox Jew. While many Orthodox Jews will informally play sports on Shabbat, they generally do not take part in organized competition. Estee Ackerman, who won the women’s division at the…
(JTA) – She’s beaten a table tennis Hall of Famer. She’s beaten Jewish philanthropists in suits and high heels. She’s beaten tennis champion Rafael Nadal. And she’s only 15. Like many Orthodox Jewish teens, Estee Ackerman was raised around a basement pingpong table, a traditional gathering spot for Sabbath-observant kids on long Saturday afternoons. But…
An Orthodox Jewish teen from suburban New York City came up short in her bid to make the U.S. Olympics table tennis team and did not compete in the trials on Shabbat. Estee Ackerman, a 14-year-old freshman at the Yeshiva University High School for Girls in Queens, lost matches for two consecutive days at the…
Estee Ackerman, an 11-year-old table tennis star, was disqualified from the national finals when her match fell on Friday evening and she chose not to play, the New York Post reported. “I practiced and trained for six months for this,” the sixth-grader from West Hempstead, L.I. told the paper “Ping pong is important to me,…
