Baseball players, community members unite against hate
MIAMI - On Tuesday night, Israel's baseball team is hoping to get an upset win over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, but before that, they met on the diamond at Jose Marti Park to talk about the problem of hate with young players.
"With the use of social media, a lot of people are anonymously kind of bashing Jews throughout the world," Ryan Novick said.
Novick is a senior at Posnack Jewish College Preparatory School.
"The day of hate that happened recently, a lot of that is from ignorance, events like this really allow the community to see the true value of friendship that we can have," Novick shared.
CBS4 has reported on numerous antisemitic events in recent months, and messages and events continue to pop up. According to the latest report from the Anti-Defamation League, Florida has seen a dramatic rise of cases. In a 2022 report, the group estimated there was a 40% rise in 2020, followed by a 50% rise in 2021.
"You know we are living in a very polarized climate, a lot of hate has been experienced on both Latino and Jewish communities, particularly the Jewish community, I like to emphasize because there is a level of antisemitism that has increased, that hasn't been seen since the time of the Holocaust," Jesse Rojo, Philos Latino Director said.
Rojo leads the non-profit, and together the group organized this meet-up ahead of the game.
"We are all equal and there should not be any different between because you're a different color, or different you come from different part of the world, we're all the same," Nelson Cruz, Dominican Republic and San Diego Padres baseball player said.
As part of the event players from both countries took answers from young players, showing that this game can transcend race and cultural barriers.
As the meet-up wrapped, all participants were given a white rose, it was a symbol used by a student-led Nazi resistance group during the 1940s. Philos Action League chose this to represent solidarity with victims of hate and antisemitism.
"We got to love each other, we got to stop the hate," Jeimer Candelario, Dominican Republic and Washington Nationals baseball player added.
