Before taking a single question about the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team’s 82–70 victory over Creighton University that advanced his team to the tournament’s Sweet Sixteen round, Head Coach Bruce Pearl began his postgame press conference to advocate for Israel.
“I believe it was God’s plan to give us this success, success beyond what we deserve, to give us this platform, to give me an opportunity to just start this press conference really briefly and remind the world that Eden Alexander is still held hostage in Gaza right now,” Pearl said. “An American held hostage. And there aren’t enough people in this country that know his name.
Wearing a set of “Bring Them Home” dog tags that hung over his orange Auburn polo shirt, Pearl said, “So I asked the players if it was okay if I started out this press conference and just called out the name of an American. Bring the hostages home.”
When a reporter asked what prompted that statement, Pearl said, “It starts with my faith. It starts with answering a question: Why? Why has God blessed Auburn and this basketball team the way He has all season long? And honestly, it’s to, I think, put us on a platform — in this case right now, myself as a Jewish-American who loves his country more than anything else in the world. My grandfather came over here at 11 years old in 1929. He became a citizen when he was 32 years old — said it was the greatest day of his life. This Jewish-American loves his country more than anything else. At the same time, over in Israel, that’s our ancestral homeland for the Jewish people, and it’s under attack. It’s under attack, it’s under siege, and all it wants to do is live in peace with its neighbors.”
Pearl continued, “And you know what? There are some Arab countries that actually want peace with Israel right now. But there’s a segment of the population that is there in the Middle East that has been doing nothing but attacking Israel for 80, 85 years. Oct. 7 was the worst day since the Holocaust for the Jewish people. And they say they want to do it again and again and again. We have Americans that are held hostage in Gaza right now. It’s unacceptable.”
Auburn entered this year’s “March Madness” NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed and was ranked the top team in the country when the tournament began. They defeated Alabama State on March 20 in the first round, then beat the Creighton Bluejays on March 22 to advance to the next round. It marks only the sixth time in program history that Auburn has reached the Sweet Sixteen, and only the second time under Pearl. In the 80 years of the NCAA tournament, Auburn has advanced to the Elite Eight just twice and made the Final Four once — in 2019, also under Pearl.
Pearl’s advocacy for Israel in a college basketball setting has not been limited to the NCAA Tournament. On Feb. 4, immediately following a 98–70 home win over Oklahoma, Pearl walked over to a section of 120 Jewish high school students from New York, New Jersey, and Florida and led them in chanting “Am Yisrael Chai.” The students had traveled to Auburn as part of a trip organized by Athletes for Israel, a nonprofit that uses sports to combat antisemitism and create inter-community dialogue.
The chant was captured on television and circulated on social media, receiving more than one-million views on Instagram. Pearl also wore a pin displaying the Star of David, the American flag, and the Israeli flag during the game.
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During the SEC Network broadcast of the Auburn-Oklahoma game, play-by-play announcer John Schriffen said, “Bruce Pearl said it’s so important for these young students to come here to campus because he loves to be able to break down stereotypes for what the Deep South is for Jewish students. He says he loves to have also non-Jewish athletes go to Israel and then have them come back as allies.”
“Bruce Pearl has been an ambassador for them,” color commentator Daymeon Fishback said during the same broadcast.
Athletes for Israel was founded by Dan Posner, a Detroit native who works in finance in New York. The organization has become known for taking both professional and college athletes to Israel. This time, they brought students to Auburn.
“We got to our kids, we played this All-Star game, all All-Star kids against the All-Star of an Auburn, Alabama public school,” Posner said. “The guys from the [Auburn] team, Chad Baker-Mazara and Tahaad Pettiford, two of the all-stars of the team, came to hang out with us and interact with our kids and just chill with us. That was a huge thrill for our kids. This is the number one team in the country.”
Pearl helped coordinate and host the visit.
“The Athletes for Israel group does so much great work in the community, and Bruce Pearl said this campus has nothing but love for everyone as he embraces diversity,” Schriffen said on the broadcast.
Students participated in a weekend of leadership sessions, basketball clinics, and informal interaction with Auburn’s student body. The weekend ended with the Auburn-Oklahoma game.
Posner said, “Because sports is something where it doesn’t matter who you’re from, the color of your skin, it’s about if you could play — it’s the automatic meritocracy. You play hard, you work hard, you fight against each other, but at the end of the game, you shake hands.”
“Sports is something where it doesn’t matter who you’re from, the color of your skin, it’s about if you could play — it’s the automatic meritocracy. You play hard, you work hard, you fight against each other, but at the end of the game, you shake hands.” – Bruce Pearl
“For every hour you’re on the court, you spend hundreds of hours preparing for it. That’s a lot of what our faith teaches us,” Posner said. “We can appreciate that at the end when you hit a home run and you score a touchdown, often, what do athletes do? They point up above, they cross themselves, they kneel, they pray. It’s showing appreciation, it’s showing gratitude. Those are values that Americans hold dearly, and I think Israelis hold dearly. When we come over to Israel and visit, we see that.”
Athletes for Israel also runs an educational initiative called the Eddie Jacobson All-Star Fellowship, named after President Harry Truman’s longtime Jewish friend and business partner. The program offers high school and college students training in Israel advocacy, media literacy, and public speaking, with the goal of preparing them to serve as effective pro-Israel ambassadors on their campuses and in their communities.
Pearl’s ties to Israel go beyond public statements. In 2022, he brought the entire Auburn men’s basketball team to Israel and the UAE for an 11-day trip. They played three games — against the Israel Under-20 National Team, the Israel All-Star Select Team, and the Israel National Team. For many players, it was their first trip outside the United States.
“I’m a Jewish American basketball coach and I’m a proud Zionist,” Pearl told The Journal at the time. “Israel loves basketball and Israeli basketball’s really good. They pay well, have a great, great following and obviously it’s a country that has a great relationship with the United States. They love us and therefore they love the athletes that go [to Israel].”
During that 2022 trip, Pearl called the Journal multiple times and could hardly contain his excitement and amazement at what the players were experiencing.
On their first night, Pearl led the team in Kiddush and Hamotzi while overlooking Jerusalem. They later visited Yad Vashem, placed notes in the Kotel, floated in the Dead Sea, and some players chose to be baptized in the Jordan River.
The team visited Bethlehem and toured the Church of the Nativity with Palestinian tour guide and basketball coach Kamal Mukarker. He hosted the entire Auburn travel group for lunch at his home.
Pearl said he and Mukarker laughed about the fact that in many ways, Arabs and Jews are more alike than Alabamians and Californians. “It didn’t matter that this Jewish-American basketball coach wanted to come to Bethlehem and shake hands with a Palestinian-Christian basketball coach and go, ‘brother, there is way more that bonds us than separates us and divides us.’”
Pearl has said that he hopes these kinds of visits will become routine. He envisions a future international tournament, which he calls the Abraham Accords Cup.
“I’m going to work on trying to get other college basketball teams to do this in the future,” he said. “This tournament is going to live and go to UAE or Morocco or Bahrain and play in that country for a couple games. And then go to Israel and have that trip be normal, like no big deal.”
Pearl has since helped coordinate and fund Israel trips for other programs, including Kansas State and the University of Arizona.
“There’s a huge interest in a lot of demand to come to Israel because Israel is such a powerful place,” Posner said.
Coach Pearl and the Auburn Tigers will face 5-seed Michigan Wolverines in the Sweet Sixteen on Friday, March 28 in Atlanta, airing nationally on CBS.
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