Top of Their Game

December 5, 2025

Originally Published for the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey HERE

Josh Janove has spent the past three seasons doing whatever his Towson University baseball team needed–catching, fielding, and hitting when called on. This year brings something unexpected: A modest paycheck that has nothing to do with his batting average, RBIs, or how many runners he’s caught stealing, and everything to do with his Jewish identity.

The Cherry Hill resident is one of just 50 athletes nationwide chosen for the inaugural roster of Tribe NIL, a collective created to support and elevate Jewish student-athletes. To understand what makes Tribe NIL different, it helps to know how NIL–short for Name, Image, and Likeness–came to be.

Along with the stipend come the perks–an Israeli cap here, a pair of Air Maccabees there–and access to something no brand can box up: A national network of Jewish athletes proud to wear who they are.

For Janove, the NIL deal has been far less about money and more about finding a sense of belonging he didn’t realize he was craving. At Towson, where Jewish athletes are few–just him and his roommate–the demands of a Division I schedule, with early-morning workouts, weekend travel, and late-night games, leave little time for the kind of Jewish community that came easily back home in South Jersey.

“It’s definitely something that makes me feel connected,” he said. “There aren’t that many Jewish athletes at the D1 level. To know there are others out there and that we’re being seen—that’s pretty special.”

The effort behind that connection is what sets Tribe NIL apart. It’s the first organization of its kind: A national collective supporting Jewish college athletes through brand deals, mentorship and community.

“It’s not a life-changing amount of money,” said co-founder Jeremy Moses, politely declining to say how much it is. “It’s a start, a way to thank these athletes for representing the Jewish community and to remind them they’re not alone. We’ve been around for less than a year, but it’s already growing faster than we imagined.”

For Moses, a comedian, writer, and television producer turned NIL entrepreneur, Tribe was born out of both pride and possibility.

“When you look at sports, Jewish athletes are underrepresented, and when they do make it, they carry the weight of representing all of us,” said the Montreal-born New Yorker. “Especially now, with antisemitism rising on campuses, there’s pressure on these kids just for being visible.”

That tension collided with a new moment in college athletics in which student-athletes can finally profit from their names and talents.

“We realized this new NIL world didn’t just have to be about big schools and big money,” Moses said. “Tribe celebrates Jewish pride and amplifies athlete stories,” he added. “Through mentorship, community, and partnerships, we’re building something that helps Jewish athletes thrive on and off the field.”

“For years, college athletes weren’t allowed to make a single dollar off themselves, not off a camp, a commercial, not even a local car ad,” Moses said. “Schools and networks were making billions, and the athletes weren’t seeing a cent.”

That changed in 2021, after a Supreme Court decision forced the NCAA to loosen its rules. “Once that happened,” he said, “everything flipped overnight. Suddenly, there were million dollar contracts going to the biggest names in football and basketball. But for everyone else–the 95 percent of athletes who aren’t playing in front of 80,000 people–nothing really changed.”

Moses teamed up with his longtime collaborator Eitan Levine, a fellow comedian and media entrepreneur whose viral work often mixes Jewish humor with sports. The two first met in the TV world, producing a daily sports comedy show on Prime Video. One of their running bits–a segment called “This Week in Jews”–spotlighted Jewish athletes making headlines.

“We talked about people like Danny Wolf all the time,” Moses recalled, referring to the 7-foot American Israeli rookie with the Brooklyn Nets who played for Yale and Michigan. “It really is kind of a golden age for Jewish athletes right now, across all levels. We’re seeing more visibility than ever before.”

The idea gained traction after Levine brokered a NIL deal between BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff and Manischewitz. It was the first NIL deal in which a major Jewish brand publicly sponsored a college athlete because of his Jewish identity.

The campaign worked, Moses said, because it felt joyful and genuine. “The big takeaway wasn’t that he’s a good quarterback for a Jew—it’s that he’s a good quarterback and a Jew.”

Soon after, Jewish athletes began reaching out to Levine through Instagram, asking how they could land similar deals. That’s when the lightbulb really went off.

“We thought, what if we use the same model to do something different, something that builds community instead of just paying stars,” Moses said.

He and Levine quickly created an online form to keep up with the flood of messages. “That’s how we built our first network,” he added, “straight from the athletes themselves.”

Tribe’s growing visibility sparked a collaboration with Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, best known for its national “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” Blue Square campaign.

Earlier this year, the foundation partnered with Tribe to launch the Blue Square Athlete Ambassador Program, featuring six Tribe-affiliated college athletes–among them Columbia basketball standout Riley Weiss, Cornell wrestler Meyer Shapiro, and Stanford baseball player Ethan Hott–whose stories of Jewish pride and perseverance are all over Blue Square’s media platforms.

The partnership didn’t fund Tribe NIL directly. Instead, it was a creative alliance that Moses calls “a model for the future.”

“It showed what’s possible,” he said. “Jewish foundations and brands can work with us to spotlight these athletes, amplify their stories, and help them lead with pride.”

Tribe’s reach extends beyond its inaugural roster of 50 paid athletes. The collective has grown into a nationwide network of 175 and counting. It includes Jewish student-athletes from every division, sport, and corner of the country.

The difference between the 50 on stipends and everyone else isn’t about who deserves to be paid more, is a better athlete or better Jew, Moses stressed.

“We just had to cap the roster because of funding,” he said. “Every one of these athletes is representing the Jewish community in their own way.”

Those outside the paid roster still gain access to the same growing ecosystem: Virtual meet-ups and leadership workshops, mentorship opportunities, and brand collaborations.

South Jersey is well represented among that wider circle. Alongside Janove, the Tribe includes Rutgers University lacrosse player Katie Buck of Voorhees, Rutgers soccer player Devon Stopek of Cherry Hill, and Case Western Reserve wrestler Alexander Goldman of Haddonfield. It also includes Cherry Hill siblings Zachary Chhabria, a Drew University baseball player, and his younger sister Darby Chhabria, a basketball player at Bowdoin College in Maine who was recently awarded the Katz JCC’s David Back Memorial Maccabi Award at the annual Sports Award at the J.

Beyond its growing roster, Tribe operates as a kind of virtual clubhouse for Jewish college athletes–a space to connect, collaborate, and be seen. Every member is added to an active group chat where they can trade updates, celebrate wins, and cheer one another on. Each week, Tribe sends out schedules highlighting who’s competing, inviting others to tune in and support.

“It’s wild,” Moses said. “We have athletes from every division–soccer, wrestling, lacrosse, track, baseball, gymnastics–all over the country. And now they’re rooting for one another like teammates.”

That sense of camaraderie is paired with real-world opportunities. Tribe NIL helps athletes explore branding and partnership deals with Jewish-owned companies, from apparel lines like Air Maccabees to small businesses looking for athlete ambassadors. In the future, he said, members will get access to workshops and soon-to-launch mentorship programs connecting them with professionals in sports, media, and business.

“What we’re trying to teach is that being proudly Jewish can open doors,” he said. “Jewish community is about connection, and that’s as true in sports as it is anywhere else.”

For Stopek, Tribe came as a surprise. Even as a starter for Rutgers’ nationally ranked D1 program–the team was ranked 18th in the country at press time–he never expected a NIL deal. A Cherry Hill native, Stopek left public school in eighth grade to train with the Philadelphia Union Academy, a professional pipeline where soccer eclipsed everything else.

Still, college soccer isn’t a sport where big money flows. “Even the best players in our game aren’t getting million-dollar deals,” he said. “So for me, this wasn’t about money. I wanted to be part of something that shines a light on athletes who are Jewish and doing well in their sport.”

He found Tribe in the most Jewish of ways. “Our team’s academic advisor is Jewish,” he said. “Someone in her family knew the people who were starting Tribe NIL. She mentioned my name, we had a call, and I was officially on their team.”

So far, Stopek has landed a few small brand collaborations, including the Israeli sneaker line Air Maccabees, and looks forward to being more engaged post-season. “When we’re in season, it’s basically eat, sleep, soccer and class,” he said.

For Bowdoin freshman Darby Chhabria, Tribe is a welcome layer of connection, even as her interactions so far as the only Jewish player on the Bowdoin basketball team have been really positive.

“I wear my Star of David; I celebrated the High Holidays, and my teammates love hearing about it,” she said. “They’re really supportive.”

Her Tribe involvement so far has been early stage–one meeting, a group chat of “hundreds of Jewish athletes,” and the promise of more to come. But the connection already feels real.

“It’s a huge networking pool,” she said, noting that she played against Columbia’s

Riley Weiss over the summer and now has a direct line to connect. “Even just following each other back on Instagram–being given her number on day one–makes reaching out a lot easier.”

Janove looks to Tribe NIL for both an immediate sense of belonging and a bridge to what comes next. After graduation, he hopes to keep playing, ideally with Israel’s national team. A business administration major at Towson, he’s already thinking about life and career beyond baseball.

“The people behind Tribe NIL are the kind of people who could help with connections like that later on, maybe Jewish businesspeople or mentors who could open doors,” Janove said. “It’s not just about sports; it’s the people you meet through it.”

Freelance writer Jayne Jacova Feld was an assistant editor of the Jewish Community Voice and also previously served as the editor of SJ Magazine.