Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Rabbi Avremi Zippel had Monday's Utah Jazz game against the Dallas Mavericks circled for some time.
He saw it as his chance to finally send a message to Dallas guard Kyrie Irving, who was suspended last season for promoting antisemitic material on social media.
"Kyrie is a Holocaust denier — that really is the beginning, middle and end of it," Zippel told KSL.com. "I'm a grandson of multiple Holocaust survivors, almost all of whom are no longer with us and don't have the ability to have their own voice and tell their own story."
Zippel and three other Utah rabbis sat courtside Monday and held up signs that read, "I'm a Jew and I'm proud."
After an interaction with Irving, however, arena staff asked the rabbis to not show the signs. Zippel was taken aback by the request. He said he had gone through the NBA's, the Utah Jazz's, and the Delta Center's codes of conduct to make sure the signs would be allowed. The group even intentionally decided to leave out any mention of Israel and the current war in the Middle East so it wouldn't come across as politically motivated.
After Irving responded to the signs, the Jazz said they had to step in.
"The Utah Jazz Code of Conduct is in place so that games can be played without distraction and disruption. No matter where someone is in the arena, if a sign becomes distracting or sparks an interaction with a player, we will ask them to remove it," the Jazz said in a statement.
The statement further clarified that it wasn't about the nature of the sign but Irving's response to it — a response that came in the early moments of the game Monday.
We may have brought four Rabbis to sit courtside tonight… pic.twitter.com/mRzPPUoOZf
— Avremi Zippel (@UtahRabbi) January 2, 2024
According to Zippel, as Irivng was about to inbound the ball early in the game, he made note of the signs.
"He was maybe 24 inches from me and he looks at me and he says, 'Cool, I'm a Jew too.' And he points to his hand. He's got a Star of David tattooed on his hand," Zippel said.
The rabbi, not wanting to cause a scene, responded: "Nice. Happy New Year, buddy."
Once Irving inbounded the ball, he yelled back in the rabbis' direction: "Ain't gotta bring a sign like that to the game."
Once Irving checked out of the game a few moments later, Zippel said the issues began. A security guard came over and asked to see the group's tickets — something Zippel called "demeaning" — and a few moments after that another security member informed them they had to remove the signs.
Why? The group didn't get a clear answer Monday night. Zippel was told by one staffer that it was because no signs were allowed on the front row. He was also told by another that Irving requested the signs to be removed. It was also explained to him it was due to the nature of the signs.
That confusion left Zippel extremely frustrated with the situation.
"I think that the nature of how the Jazz handled it as an organization was profoundly disappointing more than anything," he said.
The Jazz said the uncertainty was in part due to bad info being relayed to the rabbis.
"The part-time employee who told the fans it was the content of the sign that was the problem was incorrect," the Jazz statement said. "The issue was the disruptive interaction caused by usage of the signs, not the content of the signs."
Zippel said he never intended to spark outrage or even get a reaction from Irving at all. His goal was to "remind myself and remind my community and remind the wider community that the Jewish people have survived antisemitism before, the Jewish people have survived Holocaust denial before, and we will continue to do so and we will live on proudly.
"My intention last night was not to boo Kyrie," he continued. "In fact, I did not engage with Kyrie but it was the other way around. It was not to yell at him every time he came up the floor. It was nothing of the sort. It was to bring a sign that said 'I'm a Jew and I'm proud' to a Jazz game."
