Auburn University men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl didn’t mince words talking about his Jewish identity and love for the United States and Israel during a Jewish American Heritage Month breakfast in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
“I’m a Jewish-American basketball coach who coaches basketball in Auburn, Ala.,” he told attendees. “Don’t tell me this isn’t the greatest country in the world.”
About 100 people attended the event, which included speeches from more than half a dozen members of Congress, including Sens. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), and Reps. Randy Weber (R-Texas), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Randy Fine (R-Fla.), Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Rick Allen (R-Ga.).
Pearl, who led the Auburn Tigers to the NCAA tournament Final Four in April, joked about another Jewish coach, Florida’s Todd Golden, and his players who were being honored on Wednesday as national champions.
“I’m in Congress eating bagels, and Todd Golden is at the White House getting recognized by President Trump,” Pearl said. (The menu included bagels, lox, white fish spread, pastries, coffee and juice.)
Golden played for Pearl as a point guard in the 2009 Maccabiah Games, which Team USA won.
“We played Israel for the gold medal game—the referees: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—we were getting screwed,” Pearl said, to laughs. “We were literally getting no calls.”`
Pearl has risen to prominence off the court since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as one of the sporting world’s most vocal supporters of Israel and its efforts to release the hostages.
He told JNS that he came to Washington out of gratitude for the opportunities that the United States has given him.
“This country saved my family’s life from the Holocaust,” Pearl told JNS. “There is a tremendous rise in antisemitism, but a lot of it is because there’s a very loud minority. The vast majority of this country has been unbelievable friends to the Jewish people.”
He particularly cited the support of evangelical Christians for Jews and Israel as worthy of praise.
“I’m married to a beautiful, Christian woman. Her name is Brandy Pearl,” he told the crowd. “She thought she’d get me in the water in two years. She hasn’t yet.”
“Do you know who my wife’s two favorite Jews are? Me and Jesus,” he said. “Those are the two most popular Jews in Alabama, by the way.”
Taking a more serious turn, Pearl called on the world’s Jews to “wake up” to the threats that they and Israel face.
“If there was a Palestinian state, how many Jews could live there? Zero. Because we’d all be killed,” Pearl said. “We’ve got to protect ourselves from those people that want to kill us.”
