{"id":289963,"date":"2026-02-13T21:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289963\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:52:09","slug":"israeli-bobsled-team-heads-historic-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289963\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli bobsled team head’s historic year"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter what happens when Israel\u2019s bobsled team<\/a> hits the ice next week at the 2026 Winter Olympics, team captain Adam \u201cAJ\u201d Edelman has already had a year for the history books.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old Brookline, Massachusetts, native is the first Orthodox Jewish athlete to compete at the Winter Olympics, and now the first Israeli to qualify for the Games in two sports. He placed 28th in skeleton at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.<\/p>\n

But for Edelman, the 12-year journey that culminated in Israel\u2019s first-ever Olympic bobsled appearance – which he has nicknamed \u201cShul Runnings,\u201d a spin on the 1993 movie about Jamaica\u2019s bobsled team – is about more than success on the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics were never a goal,\u201d Edelman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview prior to the Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics were the tool, or the stepping stone, to get to the goal, which was to fundamentally redefine, or change, how our community, both the Israeli and the Jewish one, views investment into and the role of sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"THETHE ISRAELI bobsledding team for the Winter Games, 2026. (credit: Screenshot\/X\/@realajedelman)<\/p>\n

Edelman\u2019s journey began in 2013, when Israel attempted to recruit him to play for its national hockey team. Hockey had been Edelman\u2019s first sport, which he played through college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/a>, where he was the first Shabbat-observant player in program history.<\/p>\n

Edelman discussed the idea with the long-time alumni director of his Jewish day school<\/a>, Brookline\u2019s Maimonides School. Mike Rosenberg pointed something out to Edelman that ultimately sparked a calling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ, no one from this school has ever gotten to the level of sport beyond high school that you\u2019ve gotten to that didn\u2019t go to, let\u2019s say, [Yeshiva University] or Brandeis,\u201d Edelman recalls Rosenberg, who died last year, telling him about the two historically Jewish colleges.<\/p>\n

Edelman couldn\u2019t believe that. Out of thousands of Maimonides alumni (including his older brother, Emmy award-winning comedian Alex Edelman), only Edelman, who called himself \u201cnot a very gifted athlete,\u201d had reached that level? He had a theory as to why that might be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to the conclusion that it had to be a self-selection process,\u201d Edelman explained. \u201cThat people were selecting out of sport as a journey before they got to that level. And why were they doing it? Because there was no priority placed on sport. \u2029It wasn\u2019t something people in our community aspired to do or invest in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edelman said the lack of investment in sports led to a lack of infrastructure and a dearth of role models for Jewish kids to look up to. He set out to change that – to \u201cbe the change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to do that was a certificate, so to speak, of excellence in sport, and that\u2019s the Games,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Games are essentially the certificate of, \u2018you did something.\u2019 So in that way, the Olympics became very, very much the tool for which I wanted to make the change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edelman began training in skeleton after graduating from MIT in 2014. His initial scouting report was not promising: he was told he was \u201cnot athletic, would never make the Olympics, and would never be competitive in sliding sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

That did not deter him. Edelman moved to Israel in 2016, where he kept training, teaching himself the sport on YouTube when he couldn\u2019t afford a coach. He ultimately clinched Israel\u2019s first sliding sport Olympic appearance in 2018.<\/p>\n

Then the pandemic hit. Edelman was pursuing an MBA at Yale University when classes were suspended. Edelman was visiting Jordana Balsam, a close friend who is an attorney in New York City, when the Olympics came up.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was telling me about his history with skeleton, and how he competed in the 2018 Games, and how he was actually really intrigued by bobsled,\u201d Balsam recalled. \u201cAnd in an offhand comment, I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you pursue that, since you have this time off from Yale?\u2019 And I guess something clicked in his brain, where he was just like, \u2018Yes, I\u2019m gonna do that.\u2019 And the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edelman began working toward bringing Israel to the Olympics in bobsled. Again, there were hurdles. He had to recruit a team from scratch. Israel\u2019s own athletic authorities were skeptical – its Olympic committee almost didn\u2019t accept an invitation to the 2026 Games. Funding was practically non-existent. Still, the team continued training, ultimately missing out on Olympic qualification for the 2022 Games by 0.1 seconds.<\/p>\n

Then came October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Gaza war, in which five members of the team were called into combat and multiple team sponsors backed out. Still, Edelman kept his eye trained on the 2026 Games. He used Instagram DMs to recruit a new team, most of whom play other sports and had never been in a bobsled, which also features Israel\u2019s first Druze Olympian, Ward Farwasy.<\/p>\n

Israel ultimately qualified in late January at an event in Lake Placid, the same location where Edelman had been told 12 years ago that he\u2019d never make it. The team often trains there, as well as in Park City, Utah, British Columbia, and elsewhere. Edelman said he is rarely in the same place for more than a few weeks at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce he had something in his head – an idea, a concept, a goal that he has – he dives into it 200%, and it\u2019s something that I admire greatly,\u201d Balsam said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anyone so dedicated to their craft, to their sport, to their goal. It really is inspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olympic-sized obstacles<\/p>\n

But even qualifying for the Games didn\u2019t end the obstacles. Due to Olympic security, Edelman said his team\u2019s training time in Cortina was limited. Then the team\u2019s apartment in the Czech Republic, where they were training prior to leaving for Italy, was robbed on February 7. Edelman said thousands of dollars in personal belongings, including passports, were stolen.<\/p>\n

Throughout the process, Edelman said the wave of support, particularly from American Jews, has been \u201cpleasantly surprising\u201d – especially compared to the reaction after he qualified in 2018, which he called more of a \u201cblip.\u201d<\/p>\n

That support has manifested through donations and merchandise sales, with Edelman fundraising to support the team\u2019s Olympic costs. There has also been ample news and social media coverage, inside the Jewish and Israeli communities and out. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee<\/a> has given the team a shoutout, too.<\/p>\n

Edelman said the positive response has been all the validation he needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a constant question of, at the end of the road, you\u2019re doing this for a reason, right?\u201d he said. \u201c\u2029And the only reason to do this is for the goal, the goal of making a change. Of people caring about sport. Of being the change. So if the change doesn\u2019t come and it doesn\u2019t make an impact, then all of it is irrelevant\u2026 I think that, from what we\u2019ve seen in the last [several weeks], the answer is an unequivocal yes. It was 100% worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Israel, sports fans are proud of the historic nature of the bobsled team\u2019s Olympic appearance, but the story has not broken through to the same extent, according to David Wiseman, who lives in Jerusalem and runs the popular \u201cFollow Team Israel\u201d Facebook page that tracks Israeli sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media are very football [soccer] and basketball-centric, so they get all the headlines,\u201d Wiseman said. \u201cSomeone like Deni Avdija<\/a> gets significantly more coverage. They know of him being the first Israeli to play in the [NBA] All-Star game far more so than this. They think it\u2019s cool that [Edelman] made it, but they don\u2019t devote any more thought to it. Independent of Israel, bobsled is a niche, niche sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Edelman and some of his supporters have seized on the narrative draw of Israel\u2019s underdog bobsled story, not to mention the apartment break-in and other obstacles, to amplify an almost muscular form of pro-Israel advocacy. Edelman commonly uses the phrase \u201cvictors, not victims,\u201d in reference to his team and to Israel\u2019s spirit more broadly.<\/p>\n

Jared Firestone, who is representing Israel in skeleton in Italy, said there was \u201cno chance I\u2019d be here without AJ\u2019s guidance.\u201d Edelman helped coach Firestone in skeleton after he made aliyah in 2019, and the pair co-founded the nonprofit Advancing Jewish Athletes to support other Jews in sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it means so much to Israelis and to the Jewish community at large to see, with a little investment, how much can be accomplished,\u201d Firestone said. \u201cUnfortunately for me and AJ, we\u2019ve had to dedicate so much of our time that could\u2019ve gone to training and progressing on the ice to fundraising, but hopefully we\u2019ll be inspiring people who could help to create that infrastructure so the next AJ and Jared could just focus on sport and being even better than we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balsam, who also serves as a director of Advancing Jewish Athletes, said it\u2019s hard to articulate how meaningful Edelman\u2019s achievement of making the Olympics is to him and to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ has been very, very passionate about trying to cultivate the idea that sports can be a career path for Jewish kids,\u201d she said. \u201cHe wanted to make it to the Olympics. He wanted to show that this is possible. So for him to combine both of his passions and achieve his dream, I think, is something that he can\u2019t put into words, that I can\u2019t put into words, but it\u2019s just immense pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now comes the actual tournament. Israel will compete in the two-man races on February 16 and 17 and in the four-man races on February 21 and 22, with Edelman piloting the sleds. His Shiba Inu Lulu, the team\u2019s mascot, is staying with Balsam in New York, where they\u2019ll be cheering him on.<\/p>\n

But no matter where Israel places, Edelman has one more box to check to fully accomplish his mission to change Israeli sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one thing that I wish beyond anything, and it\u2019s that I\u2019m not the only one to do it,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2029What I really wanted to accomplish through it was that someone else saw it and decided to do it themselves. That they saw that pathway opened by someone who was less than stellar, who was not, like, a God-gifted athlete, and went, \u2018You know what? I\u2019m pretty good at what I do. I can do that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to leave it better than you found it, and it has to be for a purpose, and that purpose is always going to be to inspire someone to do it better than you did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No matter what happens when Israel\u2019s bobsled team hits the ice next week at the 2026 Winter Olympics,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,106,43,6661,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-289963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-israel-sports","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-olympics","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}