Northwestern forward Aaron Liberman played 1 minute Sunday in a 74-51 loss at Michigan and didn’t record a single statistic, but he still made a bit of Big Ten Conference history.
Liberman, a 6-foot-10 freshman walk-on from Valley Torah High School in Los Angeles became the first player in Big Ten history to wear a yarmulke in a game. A yarmulke is a skullcap worn by Orthodox Jews and by other Jewish men during prayer.
Liberman is believed to be the only Orthodox Jew playing major college basketball, but he is not the first player to wear a yarmulke in a Division I game. The other player to do so was former Towson guard Tamir Goodman, who played in 2000 and 2001 and was nicknamed the “Jewish Jordan.”
Liberman observes the sabbath. Part of doing so means he doesn’t use electricity from sundown Friday to sundown Saturdays. So on Fridays last season he sometimes walked 8 miles to practices.
Liberman was invited to speak after a home game last month about what it’s like for him to be an Orthodox Jew playing major college hoops. The school handed approximately 200 purple yarmulkes with an N printed on them to people who attended.
Aaron Liberman you are a true Kidush Hashem example to our youth today and when I showed this story in Yahoo Sports to some of my colleagues none Frum and some none Yid they were very impressed,
Best shliach the world over – stationed at Northwestern University.
keep it up
now thats what the rebbe wants of us!!! keep it up
bh a proud jew
WOLFPACK!!!
Go from strength to strength Aaron! You are already a hero.
Shows exactly what The Rebbe has taught, the infinite value of a mitzvah
make me proud to be jewish!
Go Aaron, we love you!!
NICE LOL TO SEE A JEW PLAYING BASKETBALL IN A NON JEWISH LEUGE HOPE YOUR GOOD ALL STAR GO AHRON
thnx fo rsharing!
he is an amazing student,.May his parents have much pride and joy.
Aaron was a former student of mine, and I have immense nachos that he was able to overcome a lot of obstacles to achieve this. My bracha to him that he remains strong and firm and creates a big kiddish Hashem out there, as we could really do with some today. I can only hope that he remains true to his mesiras nefesh to be involved in that area of sports as a lot of pressure will be put on him as we know from Tamir goodman who I know personally and heard many stories which makes your hair stand… Read more »
So nice to see someone proud to be Jewish.