The New England Patriots’ own wide receiver Julian Edelman has been very vocal about his Jewish heritage as of late (sending his fans Passover greetings, becoming a pseudo-spokesperson for Israeli airline company El Al, etc.), particularly since he helped his team win the Super Bowl last February.
It eventually got to the point where there was likely nothing more the NFL star could do to to embrace his Jewishness, that is, before he announced his first trip to the Holy Land earlier this summer. While he may have done his best to share the highlights with his fans via social media, it’s a newly released video filmed by his marketing company, Superdigital, that truly illustrates Edelman’s experience.
Entitled Israel Tyme (Yalla!), the video finds Edelman – one of the few NFL greats of this generation to identify as Jewish – exploring the Jewish state alongside representatives from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. Edelman’s trip seems like an exclusive Birthright trip for celebrities: he prays at the Kotel, visits Nachlat Binyamin in Tel Aviv, swims in the Dead Sea, rides a camel (which he mistakes for a horse) in the desert, goes parasailing, eats Israeli street food, and participates in many other touristy activities.
Throughout the entire clip, Edelman, in proper Israeli lingo, yells to his counterparts and other random Israelis on the street, “Yalla!” (Hebrew and Arabic slang for “let’s go”). On social media, the wide receiver refers to his experience with only one word: sick.
“Exploring my heritage is something I started in the past few years and seeing Israel for the first time, really getting a sense of its history and culture – I now truly understand why it’s so special,” Edelman added in a press release.
If Robert Kraft’s affinity for Israel wasn’t enough for you to jump on the Patriots bandwagon before, it seems pretty obvious who the international Jewish community should be rooting for this upcoming NFL season.
#GoPatriots
