Julian Edelman: The Patriot
Julian Edelman Image by Getty Images
When you think about prominent Jews in the National Football League, various owners often come to mind. But there is also a 33-year-old, undersized, overachieving, insanely tough wide receiver named Julian Edelman. He’s Jewish, too.
Edelman, possessor of three Super Bowl rings, is one of the best Jewish players to ever play the game, and one of the best receivers in the league; he was named Most Valuable Player after this year’s Super Bowl, when the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams for their sixth championship in the last two decades. He has also been suspended for use of a performance enhancer and been penalized for unnecessary roughness.
Edelman, whose father is Jewish, has made several visits to Israel, displayed Israeli pins during games, and once photo-shopped himself catching a piece of matzah. After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, he wore customized cleats with Hebrew lettering and #STRONGERTHANHATE. (He did not respond to requests to fill out the Forward’s questionnaire.)
Julian Edelman Image by Getty Images
Asked before the 2012 Super Bowl about his Jewish background: “Well, I’m not completely Jewish, if you know what I mean. I know people want me to be…. I guess you could say I’m kind of Jewish but not really.”
Asked in fall 2019 about the upcoming High Holidays: “This year, Rosh Hashanah falls on a Sunday, unfortunately, so it will most likely be pretty low-key. Every year, though, for Yom Kippur I head up to temple on the North Shore of Boston and go to a service with some friends.”
Read more: A 2019 Forward article about Edelman’s conversation about Judaism with Stephen Colbert.
The Forward’s 2017 list of the five Jewiest things about him.
A Jewish Telegraph agency article in 2015 on whether he is Jewish.
Follow Julian Edelman on Twitter @Edelman11
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
