A group of Jewish men attending a Utah Jazz basketball game on New Year’s Day was told to take down their blue-and-white signs featuring the slogan, “I’m a Jew, and I’m proud,” after basketball star Kyrie Irving took offense at the message.
Irving was suspended for several games in 2022 for sharing a Black Hebrew Israelite documentary that parroted antisemitic conspiracies accusing Jews of orchestrating the Atlantic slave trade and argued that African Americans are the true descendants of ancient Israelites.
Avremi Zippel, one of the sign holders, told National Review that everything was going smoothly until midway through the first quarter when Irving, a point guard with the opposing Dallas Mavericks, gestured over to him and said, “Nice! I’m a Jew, too,” pointing to “some sort of Star of David-Illuminati tattoo on his hand.” Rather than challenge Irving, Zippel brushed it off, telling NR he responded by saying, “Nice! Happy New Year, buddy!”
Following the brief interaction, dribbling the ball downcourt, Irving reportedly shot back at Zippel over his shoulder: “Don’t gotta bring a sign like that to a game.” Zippel laughed it off and thought it “was a pretty harmless exchange” until, minutes later, stadium security was dispatched to check his tickets and demand he take his sign down.
“We complied; we obliged. All is good. All is calm,” Zippel told NR, reflecting on the encounter, sharing that a Jazz executive later told his group that they have a no-signage courtside policy.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Jazz released a statement about the incident explaining that the basketball club’s “Code of Conduct is in place so that games can be played without distraction and disruption.” “The issue was the disruptive interaction caused by the usage of the signs, not the content of the signs,” the note read. Zippel said prior to attending the game, he had checked Jazz guidelines and found no clause that prohibited his display.
The Chabad rabbi was gifted, alongside his brother, father, and friend (all of whom are figures in the local Jewish community), the tickets from the grandchild of Holocaust survivors and felt Irving’s presence was a fitting backdrop to highlight growing concerns about antisemitism in America. Leading up to the encounter, Zippel insisted that no one in his party booed or jeered Irving.
“We did not heckle Kyrie. I did not say a word in his direction,” he said.
The controversy overshadowed the Mavericks’s press conference on Wednesday after their win over the Portland Trail Blazers. “I wish him and his family well,” Irving told reporters in Dallas. “No disrespect going their way. That’s not my MO.”
In December, serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban sold the Mavericks to the surviving wife of Sheldon Adelson, a staunch advocate of Israel and erstwhile Trump ally.
Zippel is a well-known sexual-assault survivor advocate in Utah and collaborates with figures such as Elizabeth Smart to raise awareness. He was one of the first Orthodox Jewish men in America to share his story publicly and published a book about his story last May, Not What I Expected.