Sarunas Jasikevicius, the Lithuanian gentile basketball player who moved from Israel to the NBA this year, may be the closest we'll get to a Jew in professional basketball anytime soon. But some aren't quite so happy:
Baruch Marzel, chairman of Israel's United Jewish Front party, published an open letter calling on Israeli model and former Miss World Linor Abargil to turn down a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Lithuanian basketball player Sarunas Jasikevicius, who led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Israeli league championship two years in a row and now comes off the bench for the Indiana Pacers.If it doesn't work out, perhaps Sarunas should make a run at Andrei Kirilenko's wife.Instead of embracing Israel's version of the Beckhams, Marzel declared that by marrying Jasikevicius, Abargil would be "divorcing the people of Israel as well as her family." Marzel ended his letter with what must be considered one of the weakest pick-up-lines of all time: "If you wish to be informed of the dangers associated with marrying gentiles," Marzel wrote, "I am leaving my cell phone number. Please call me any time and I shall help you."
The United Jewish Front, as I've never heard of it, appears to be neither united, nor Jewish, nor a front. Sarunas and Linor would be wise to instead listen to the Judean People's Front.
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 24, 2006 01:20 AM