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64
February 8 • 2018
jn
The Winter Olympic
Games opening cer-
emony is on Feb. 9. The
Israelis are sending a
nine-member team, and
I know of four American
Jews and one Canadian
Jew competing. Here
is the rundown on the
Gold siblings
Jewish Olympic athletes
from the Diaspora. Also
noted: an American
alternate and a great
skier with Jewish
ancestry.
Arielle Gold, 21,
a snowboarder, is a
native of Steamboat
Springs, Colo. In 2012,
she won a gold medal
in the halfpipe event
at the FIS Junior World
Goldberg
Championships (FIS
is the French lan-
guage acronym for
the International Ski
Federation, the world’s
governing body for
winter sports). In 2013,
at age 16, she won the
gold medal in the adult
FIS halfpipe world cham-
pionships. She was on
the 2014 Olympic team,
but an injury stopped
her from competing. Her
brother, Taylor Gold, 24, Lehman
also competed in the
halfpipe and was on the
2014 US Olympic team.
Jared Goldberg, 26, a
skier, was born in Boston
and raised in Utah — he
had his bar mitzvah at a
ski lodge. He was on the
2014 Olympic team, fin-
ishing 11th in the men’s
combined and 19th in
the men’s giant slalom.
He’s been strong on the
ski circuit during the last Brown
18 months and is poised
to be a high finisher,
even if a medal is unlikely.
Emery Lehman, 21, a speed skater, was
born in Chicago, and raised in Oak Park, a
Chicago suburb. He was a top high school
ice hockey player and got into speed skat-
ing to improve his hockey game. A series of
junior speed skating championships led to
an Olympic team spot in 2014. He was the
American high finisher at the 2014 Games
(16th in the 5000 meters). His mother,
Marcia, is a senior
development executive
for the American Friends
of the Hebrew University
of Israel.
Evan Weinstock, 26,
a member of the four-
man bobsled team, was
born and raised in Las
Vegas. It’s likely that his
father, Arnold, a promi-
nent criminal defense
attorney, is Jewish, but I
can’t confirm that now.
His mother, who died
recently, was not Jewish.
Jason Brown, 23, a
figure skater, was born
in Los Angeles and grew
up in a Chicago suburb.
He had a bar mitzvah.
He was on the 2014
Olympic team and won a
team bronze medal. He
performed well enough
in 2017-2018 to be
named a team alternate.
Mikaela Shiffrin, 22,
an alpine ski racer, is
the reigning Overall
World Cup cham-
pion and the reigning
Olympic and world
champion in slalom. Her
last name was an inher-
itance from her paternal
grandfather, who was
Jewish. He was her only
Jewish grandparent. A
few years ago, Jewish
Sports Review magazine
spoke to her brother,
also a skier. He said that
he and his sister were
raised in no faith and
don’t identify as Jewish.
Dylan Moscovitch,
33, is a Canadian fig-
ure skater born and
raised in Toronto. He
had a bar mitzvah and
took a Birthright trip to
Israel and is a certified
instructor of Krav Maga,
a self-defense system
used by the Israeli Defense Forces. In 2014,
he and his then-partner, Kirsten Towers-
Moore, won the Olympic silver medal in the
mixed pairs event. He then teamed up with
Russian skater Lubov Ilyushechkina. He
gave her a live try-out in Detroit because
she only had a visa valid for the United
States. To date, their competition results are
a little worse than with his old partner, but
they do have a medal chance. •