Israeli Dodger Dean Kremer is a link to Koufax

Other than being part of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, Sandy Koufax and Dean Kremer have something else in common: a respect for Jewish tradition.

Koufax — recently ranked by ESPN as the best left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) history — did not pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because the game fell on Yom Kippur.

“I would do the same,” Kremer said.

Last month, the 20-year-old Kremer became the first Israeli citizen to sign with an MLB team. The right-handed pitcher had also made history in 2015 by becoming the first Israeli drafted by an MLB team, the San Diego Padres, but he did not sign with that club and instead pitched for a year at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He re-entered the draft in 2016 and was selected by the Dodgers in the 14th round—up from his 38th-round draft slot the previous year—and subsequently joined the Dodgers’ Ogden Raptors minor league affiliate in Utah.

“I feel very honored, it’s a great opportunity,” Kremer told JNS.org. “To represent more than one country, especially my home country, and to be the first, it’s a pretty awesome feeling.”

Kremer was born in Stockton, Calif., and grew up in Tel Aviv. “I was raised in the Jewish tradition and we speak Hebrew at home,” said Kremer. “Everything will stay the same [while I’m playing professional baseball], but it is difficult, especially when we get meals catered here. … The values and morals of a Jewish person were instilled in me, and that’s the way I live my life.”

“Growing up, we would have Shabbat dinner as often as possible,” he added. “I never attended Hebrew school formally, but since my parents are Israeli, I have been speaking Hebrew my entire life.”

Kremer is already noticing differences between the Israeli and American societies. “The people are raised a bit differently [in the U.S.], it’s a different society,” he said. “One of the major differences is that people in Israel are raised to be more independent than here in the States.”

Asked if he feels pressure as the first Israeli to sign an MLB contract, Kremer said he tries not to think of it that way.

“It’s different for me than say, someone like Jackie Robinson,” he said, referring to the MLB’s first black player. “Although baseball is growing, it is still not a major sport in Israel. There are a lot of people who still don’t know what it is.”

“If I were Omri Casspi, it would be different,” said Kremer, contrasting himself with the first Israeli-born player in National Basketball Association history and making the point that basketball remains more popular than baseball in Israel.