Toppling a pervasive stereotype about a Jewish lack of athleticism, it’s been pretty great year for Jews in sports — from Deni Avdija putting together the best season of his NBA career with the Portland Trail Blazers and Zach Hyman becoming one of the NHL’s top goal scorers, to Yeshiva University’s men’s basketball team making the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Division III Tournament and goaltender Aerin Frankel helping Team USA women’s hockey win a gold medal in the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. 

It was against that backdrop that the UJA-Federation of New York held its Sports Annual Luncheon on Thursday. The event brought hundreds of executives, team owners, agents, media personalities and league officials to Gotham Hall in midtown Manhattan. A marquee gathering at the intersection of Jewish philanthropy and the sports business world, the luncheon raises money for UJA’s sports for youth initiative, which funds athletic and recreational programming for children across both New York and Israel, including those with financial, physical or social barriers. This year, the event grossed $1.2 million, a record, a spokesperson for UJA told eJewishPhilanthropy. 

Thursday’s event also honored Gary Bettman, the longest-serving commissioner in the history of the National Hockey League, with the David J. Stern Leadership Award, named after the late National Basketball Association commissioner.

Bettman, who has led the NHL since 1993, was celebrated not only for helping expand the league into a major international sports business but also for his long-standing relationship with Jewish communal causes and sports philanthropy. The tribute included a video featuring messages from the likes of Wayne Gretzky (who recently revealed that he has some Jewish heritage), Jack Hughes and Michael Buble. 

Stern, who died in 2020, hired Bettman at the NBA in the early 1980’s, starting a decades-long friendship and professional partnership that shaped the history of both basketball and hockey. 

“David believed that teams should be about community and that teams should look for ways to make a difference in the lives of the people where we all have franchises,” said Bettman. “I believe we have to make sure that we were a welcoming place, that people could be part of no matter who you are, what you believe, where you came from, what your religious or orientations were, that this was a place that would be a safe place for you.”