By Jacob Gurvis
All eyes might be on Israel’s unlikely bobsled squad, making its first appearance at the Winter Olympics, but there is a slew of Jewish and Israeli athletes in Milan.
The 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics kick off on Feb. 6, followed by the Paralympics one month later.
Jewish and Israeli athletes enjoyed historic success at the most recent Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024, with a combined 36 athletes taking home 31 total medals between the two competitions.
Israel’s seven Olympic medals were the country’s most in a single tournament.
Israel will send nine athletes to Italy, its second-largest delegation in its ninth Winter Olympics appearance.
A number of Team USA stars also hail from Jewish backgrounds.
Here are some of the biggest Jewish names to watch as the Olympic torch is lit in Milan.
A.J. Edelman and the Israeli bobsled team
For A.J. Edelman, the 2026 Games represent a culmination of a 12-year effort to build an Israeli bobsled program worthy of Olympic competition. This is Israel’s “Shul Runnings” moment — a nod to the 1993 movie “Cool Runnings” about the pathbreaking Jamaican bobsled team that made it to the Olympics in 1988.
Edelman, a Boston native who made aliyah in 2016, is the first Israeli athlete to qualify for the Olympics in two different sports, having competed in the 2018 Games in skeleton.
Edelman will be joined by Menachem Chen, Ward Fawarsy and Omer Katz, plus Uri Zisman as an alternate, as Israel makes its Olympic debut in bobsled.
Jared Firestone, Israel’s ‘Jewish Jet’
Miami-born Jared Firestone will compete for Israel in the skeleton competition, making his Olympic debut at age 35.
He discovered the sport as part of his recovery from a transient ischemic attack (“TIA”) during his first semester of law school.
Firestone became the first Israeli to win gold in an Olympic-discipline sliding sport competition, at the North America Cup in Lake Placid. In 2025, he was the first Israeli finalist at the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Championships.
The Jewish day school alum writes on his website that “my lifelong dream has been to represent Israel at the Olympic Games.”
He and Edelman founded Advancing Jewish Athletics.
Aerin Frankel, star goalie
Boston Fleet goaltender Aerin Frankel, 26, has made a name for herself the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Frankel was Team USA’s starting goalie for the Women’s World Championships, 2023-2025, leading the US squad to gold medals in 2023 and 2025 and silver in 2024.
During the 2023 tournament, Frankel became the first US women’s goaltender in 26 years to start five consecutive games at an Olympics or World Championship.
Known as the “Green Monster,” a nod to Fenway Park’s left-field wall, Frankel makes her Olympic debut this year.
The Hughes brothers; Boston’s other Jewish goaltender
On the men’s side, Team USA will feature a trio of Jewish ice hockey stars all making their Olympic debuts: brothers Quinn and Jack Hughes and Jeremy Swayman.
Quinn Hughes, 26, a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild, was the 2024 winner of the NHL’s James Norris Memorial Trophy for the league’s best defenseman.
He was traded to the Wild (for Israeli-American former DU Pioneer Zeev Buium) after several seasons as the captain of the Vancouver Canucks.
Middle brother Jack Hughes, 24, is a star center for the New Jersey Devils, where he plays alongside youngest brother Luke Hughes.
Jack, the first overall pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, is a three-time All-Star and was named tournament MVP of the 2018 World U18 Championship.
Swayman, 27, was a star at the University of Maine before joining the Boston Bruins in 2021.
The Alaska native co-won the William M. Jennings Trophy in 2022-23 for allowing the fewest goals in the NHL and was named an All-Star in 2024.
Attila Mihály Kertész, Israel’s first Olympic cross-country skier
It’s fitting that Attila Mihály Kertész is a cross-country skier, given the circuitous route he took to his first Olympics.
The 37-year-old was born and raised in Hungary, lives in Thailand and works as a veterinarian. He didn’t begin training until 2018. Now, he’s Israel’s first Olympic cross-country skier.
Kertész endured a long path to Israeli citizenship, a process that was interrupted by COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He and his family finally completed the process in 2024.
“OK, this is something I can give back to my nation,” Kertész told the Times of Israel.
Emery Lehman, US speed skater
The elder statesman of the US Jewish Olympic cohort, Chicago native Emery Lehman, 29, returns for his fourth straight Winter Olympics.
He won a bronze medal in Beijing in 2022, and has won several gold medals at international speed skating competitions.
Lehman first began speed skating as a child to improve his ice hockey skills. He became a national champion at 13 and qualified for his first Olympics, the 2014 Sochi Games, at 17.
In Italy, Lehman will compete in the 1500-meter race and the team pursuit.
Kayle Osborne, Canadian ice hockey goaltender
New York Sirens goalie Kayle Osborne completes the quintet of Jewish ice hockey players headed to Milan.
The 23-year-old Ontario native almost played for Canada at the Maccabiah Games as a teenager before going on to a standout career as a goalie at Colgate University, where she was a finalist for the NCAA’s Women’s Hockey Goalie of the Year honor.
She is making her Olympic debut.
Mariia Seniuk, Israeli figure skating champion
Mariia Seniuk, 20, is a Russian-Israeli figure skater fresh off her fourth consecutive Israeli national championship in singles skating.
Seniuk placed 16th overall at the 2025 World Championships in Boston to clinch an Olympic quota for Israel.
Noa and Barnabás Szollos, ‘ski siblings’
Alpine skiing siblings Noa and Barnabas Szollos are returning for their second straight Winter Olympics. Noa, 22, became the first Israeli athlete to medal at a winter Olympic event when she won a silver and a bronze at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics.
Barnabás, 27, finished sixth in combined downhill in Beijing in 2022.
The third Szollos sibling, Benjamin, also competes in alpine skiing for Israel. Their father, Peter, was a professional skier for their home country of Hungary, before becoming an Israeli citizen.