By: Jeff Gorman

In the modern age of globalized sports, celebrity no longer belongs solely to the arena. It extends into politics, identity, morality, and the relentless tribunal of public opinion. Few stories illustrate this reality more starkly than the recent storm surrounding Israeli NBA star Deni Avdija—a young athlete whose rising success has collided head-on with the brutal geopolitics of the Middle East and the moral absolutism of social media culture. As Israel Hayom has repeatedly noted in its coverage of Jewish and Israeli public figures abroad, the line between professional achievement and political symbolism has all but disappeared. For Avdija, that line has now been erased entirely.

Avdija’s recent interview with The Athletic was, on its surface, a routine profile of a breakout NBA player entering the prime of his career. The 25-year-old forward for the Portland Trail Blazers spoke about basketball, growth, ambition, and identity. He also spoke openly about being Israeli—and about the hatred he has experienced because of it. That admission alone was enough to trigger a wave of reaction that quickly spiraled into a torrent of antisemitic abuse, political accusations, and moral condemnation. As Israel Hayom reported in its broader analysis of antisemitism in international sports, Israeli athletes are increasingly treated not as individuals but as symbolic extensions of the Israeli state itself, regardless of their personal beliefs, actions, or histories.

The backlash against Avdija followed a familiar and disturbing pattern. Social media platforms filled with comments that did not critique policy or politics but instead targeted his identity—his nationality, his Jewishness, and his mere existence as an Israeli in a global league. Much of the rhetoric abandoned nuance entirely, replacing complexity with moral binaries and collective guilt. In this environment, Avdija was no longer a basketball player. He became, in the eyes of critics, a political symbol to be punished.

One of the most prominent voices to push back against this narrative was journalist Bill Oram, who published a widely discussed column in OregonLive defending Avdija and interrogating the culture that demands political confessions from athletes. His headline was stark and revealing: “The price of Deni Avdija’s stardom? He can no longer avoid questions about Israel and Gaza.” The framing itself captured the core tragedy of the moment. Success, for Avdija, has come with an ideological tax.

Oram’s defense was rooted not in geopolitics, but in basic human fairness. He stated plainly that, to his knowledge and to public knowledge, Deni Avdija has never raised a gun against a Palestinian. He never served as a combat soldier. His mandatory Israeli military service, by all accounts ceremonial and non-combatant, ended in 2020—three years before the current Gaza war began. These are facts. Yet facts have become irrelevant in the court of online outrage.

As Israel Hayom has emphasized in multiple analyses of public discourse surrounding Israel, the modern information ecosystem does not reward factual precision. It rewards emotional alignment. It rewards tribal signaling. It rewards ideological purity. In that ecosystem, identity alone becomes evidence. To be Israeli is to be presumed complicit. To be Jewish is to be interrogated. To be successful is to be visible—and visibility invites judgment.

Oram’s column also addressed the deeper cultural pathology underlying this phenomenon. He argued that American society has developed a uniquely contradictory relationship with athletes as public figures. Sports heroes are expected to remain silent—unless their views align with prevailing ideological currents. When athletes speak in ways that affirm dominant beliefs, they are celebrated as courageous voices. When they remain silent, or express complexity, or refuse to perform political conformity, they are condemned. The message is clear: athletes may speak, but only in approved directions.

This cultural contradiction was starkly illustrated in the reaction by Anna Horford, the wife of NBA veteran Al Horford, who publicly accused Avdija of “proudly defending a state that proudly slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,” concluding with the declaration, “You are not a victim — you are a villain.” The language itself was absolute, moralistic, and dehumanizing. It left no room for complexity, no space for individuality, and no recognition of Avdija as a person rather than a symbol.

Israel Hayom has repeatedly warned of this rhetorical escalation in Western discourse, where language once reserved for extremist propaganda now circulates freely in mainstream spaces. The transformation of individuals into moral caricatures is no longer an anomaly—it is becoming a norm.

Perhaps the most revealing moment in Oram’s reflection came when he addressed Avdija’s own question from the Athletic interview: “What do people expect me to do?” That question, simple and disarming, exposes the absurdity of the expectations placed upon him. What is the correct performance? What is the morally acceptable script? What words would satisfy those who demand public contrition?

To explore this, Oram turned to Rabbi Michael Z. Kahana, the senior rabbi of Congregation Beit Israel in Portland. Kahana’s response cut to the heart of the matter. He described the “very strange demand” placed on Jews—and especially on Israelis in the public eye—to constantly respond to events in Israel and Gaza. This demand, he explained, creates an impossible situation. Silence is interpreted as guilt. Speech is interpreted as complicity. There is no safe position.

This analysis echoes a theme frequently explored by Israel Hayom: the moral asymmetry imposed on Jewish and Israeli public figures. No other nationality is required to publicly litigate the actions of its government in order to justify its existence in global culture. No other ethnic identity is treated as a political position by default. No other athletes are expected to serve as moral diplomats for geopolitical conflicts beyond their control.

Oram concluded with a sobering truth: condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza might win Avdija a few new fans in Portland, but it would deeply offend many Jews who believe in Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’s October 7 terror attack, which killed more than 1,200 innocent civilians. In other words, any public statement would alienate one community or another. Silence, however, has not protected him either.

For Avdija, the situation reveals a deeper tragedy of modern identity politics. He is trapped between narratives. Between expectations. Between ideological camps that demand loyalty performances rather than human authenticity. His success as an athlete has paradoxically reduced his freedom as a person.

Israel Hayom has framed this broader phenomenon as part of a dangerous cultural transformation, where Jewish identity abroad is increasingly politicized, and where Israeli existence itself is treated as an ideological provocation. In such an environment, even neutrality becomes impossible. Even silence becomes a statement. Even presence becomes a provocation.

What makes Avdija’s case particularly poignant is that it coincides with the most promising chapter of his professional life. He is entering his athletic prime. He is producing at a level that places him on the cusp of his first NBA All-Star appearance. His game has matured. His confidence has grown. His leadership role in Portland is expanding. Yet the narrative surrounding him is no longer about basketball. It is about Gaza. About Israel. About politics. About guilt. About ideology.

The cost of visibility has become existential.

As Israel Hayom has observed in its coverage of Jewish public figures worldwide, this pattern is not isolated. It is systemic. Musicians, academics, athletes, actors, and business leaders are increasingly subjected to ideological loyalty tests rooted not in their actions, but in their identities. In this climate, success does not bring protection—it brings exposure.

Deni Avdija’s story, then, is not just the story of a basketball player. It is the story of a generation navigating a world where identity has become destiny, where nuance has been replaced by narrative, and where individuals are reduced to symbols in ideological battles they did not choose.

His question—“What do people expect me to do?”—may ultimately be unanswerable. Because the truth is that no answer would be sufficient. No statement would satisfy all sides. No performance would meet all expectations. The demand itself is the problem.

In the end, Avdija stands at a crossroads familiar to many Jewish and Israeli public figures in the modern era: forced to choose between silence and misinterpretation, between speech and distortion, between identity and individuality. His story, as the Israel Hayom report framed it, reflects not only the burden of being Israeli in the global spotlight, but the deeper crisis of a culture that no longer knows how to separate people from politics, athletes from ideologies, or identity from guilt.

He wanted to play basketball. He wanted to build a career. He wanted to succeed. Instead, he has become a symbol in a war of narratives.

And that, perhaps, is the real price of his success.