American-born Team Israel Olympian praises Trump's fight vs antisemitism, but won't play for Team USA
If they qualify for Cortina-Milan next year, it would mark his and his teammates' return to the Olympics after failing to qualify for Beijing in 2022. It would also mark their first trip back to the Winter Games since their country was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
"We were blessed to have a team ready to go on October 7 and when October 7 came, when it was perpetrated on Israel, every one of them had to be called to war. So it really changed the dynamic of the team over the last couple years," Edelman told Fox News Digital.
"The goal of the team after October 7 was to exist."
Edelman recalled his team adjusting to a new starter in every competition it participated in, for a time.
All the while, he has had to live below the poverty line in order to maintain his commitment to leading the team for the last 12 years. He even says he had to sell all of his bitcoin, which he says would have been worth millions today if he held onto it.
"It was all spent on bobsledding," he said. "I'd be a mega-millionaire if I still had it."
Edelman admits could have made things much easier for himself if he, a Massachusetts native and MIT grad, competed for Team USA instead of Israel.
In a sport that is so resource-dependent like bobsledding, nicknamed F1 on ice due to its hefty costs to be competitive, Edelman knows he would have had access to more resources for coaching, training, equipment and marketing.
However, for him, that would have defeated the point of competing as an Olympian at all.
"I don't add anything to the United States. If I were to join the United States, the only value that would have been added is to my own journey, but it makes my journey non-additive to other people's journeys," Edelman said.
"My value to the world, and why God put me on this Earth, I genuinely feel is to use the skills that he gave me to impact others positively… so I'm solely motivated to represent Israel. I've thought about this a lot."
Still, Edelman is a proud American and believes that the U.S. is "the greatest country to ever exist in the history of mankind."
Additionally, as a Jewish American, Edelman has also taken pride in seeing President Donald Trump crack down on the wave of antisemitism that has erupted in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Edelman said he saw the antisemitism up-close when he went to Columbia during its pro-Palestinian protests in 2024.
Trump's administration has frozen billions of dollars to Ivy League universities Columbia and Harvard, declaring the schools violated Jewish students' civil rights by enabling antisemitic campus protests amid the Israel-Gaza conflict over the last year and a half.
The president has even launched a specialized Justice Department task force fronted by Leo Terrell to tackle the issue.
"The appropriateness of what the Trump administration has asked for is just enforcing the law. It's just saying 'hey, these people are protected under the civil rights act' and you're blatantly not enforcing the civil rights act. If people take over, trespass, assault security guards on your campus, harass Jews on the way to class, set up Jew-free zones, you wouldn't tolerate that for another group," Edelman said.
The Trump administration also announced earlier in April that it would halt more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and approximately $790 million for Northwestern University amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations.
Roughly $510 million in funds for Brown University could also be on the chopping block, a White House official told The Associated Press April 3, due to allegations of antisemitism at the school.
"I think the way that the Trump administration has approached many issues since he came to office is exactly the right way," Edelman said.
"Some policies are good, some policies are bad, and this is an inexplicably good policy. Make sure that American institutions of higher education do not continue this pathway to being so inaccessible to Americans, but also indoctrination centers of anti-American values."
As Edelman looks to push his team back to the Winter Olympics in Cortina Milan in 2026, he aspires to be a voice for Americans and Jews in a complicated time in history.
He hopes the rest of the story can appreciate the underdog story that he and his teammates are sledding through.
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