The Jewish sports world is abuzz after Assaf Lowengart signed with the New York Boulders of the independent Frontier League, making him the first Israeli-born position player to sign a professional baseball contract in the US. Lowengart signed on Feb. 9, and the local Jewish community of Rockland has already wholeheartedly embraced him.

JTA reports:

The support Lowengart has felt from the Jewish community is one reason he is looking forward to joining the Boulders, who play in a county where roughly a third of the residents are Jewish, many of them Orthodox … “Being able to come back there with the big Jewish community, it’s going to be pretty amazing,” Lowengart said. “I’ve been in many colleges, and the Jewish communities usually weren’t that big. So it’s going to be a pretty cool experience being connected to the Jewish community this time, having them behind me, having them support me and being able to contribute back to them.”

This “pretty amazing” support of the heavily Orthodox local community for the secular and nonobservant Lowengart is a masterclass of the Jewish unity — or achdut — that we need so desperately. We’ve seen such achdut, with Israel at war; secular and religious, left and right have connected on the basis of their shared Jewishness as opposed to harping on their differences.

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