The New York Mets are facing backlash after fans noticed that Jewish Heritage Night is missing from the team’s 2026 promotional schedule — a gap that has quickly sparked claims, speculation, and a broader debate about why.
Despite the 2026 schedule being public since February, backlash intensified after writer Kevin Deutsch published a Substack essay claiming that the team omitted the event due to the “potential liability” of anti-Israel protests and a rise in antisemitic incidents across the United States.
But the public record is more complicated.
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What’s the story?
Jewish Heritage Night has not appeared on the Mets’ schedule since 2023, and in 2024, the team said it was replacing multiple standalone heritage events with a broader “Celebration of Queens Culture” initiative.
“The team is holding many ethnic heritage celebrations in 2026, and Jews are excluded from that list,” Deutsch told JTA. “The dropping of the Jewish heritage event and the exclusion of Jewish fans from the team’s identity-based celebrations is a fairly recent development, and a major ongoing story.”
The 2026 calendar includes a wide range of other heritage and themed nights — including Italian, Puerto Rican, Black American, Dominican, Irish, Japanese, and Mexican heritage, as well as LGBTQ+ Pride Night, Women’s Night, and First Responders Night — and the omission has raised new questions.
There is no public evidence that the Mets said the event was removed due to Israel or security concerns. Claims circulating online that the team viewed the event as ‘too risky’ are unsubstantiated, and the Mets have not offered a public explanation for its absence.
Are other MLB teams hosting Jewish heritage nights?
Across Major League Baseball, Jewish Heritage Nights are being held this season for 12 out of the 30 teams. The Boston Red Sox will host a Jewish Heritage Celebration at Fenway Park in May, while teams including the San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies all have Jewish-themed events scheduled throughout the 2026 season. Many of these events include themed merchandise, from Hebrew-lettered jerseys to menorah-inspired giveaways.
In addition, 19 minor league teams have scheduled Jewish-themed nights, including the Mets’ own affiliate, the Brooklyn Cyclones, who will host a Jewish Heritage Night on May 3.
While some commentators have claimed that the New York Yankees will host a Jewish Heritage Night in August, no such event appears on the team’s public schedule.
What are Jews saying about the Mets?
Deutsch’s claim was quickly amplified by several Jewish voices online, including pro-Israel writer and influencer Melissa Chapman and Jeffrey Lax, a City University of New York law professor and founder of the Zionist campus group Safe Campus. Some went a step further, falsely claiming that the Mets had said it was “too risky” to hold a Jewish Heritage Night.
“Rumors are that the Mets don’t want to deal with policing antisemitic protests. The night would attract pro-Palestinian and antisemitic activists bringing signs or unfurling banners,” wrote Michael Brendan Dougherty in the National Review.
However, not every Jewish Mets fan is convinced by this reasoning.
Comedian Eitan Levine, who threw one of the first pitches at the Mets’ Jewish Heritage Night in 2023, called out what he viewed as fearmongering by other Jewish influencers.
While wearing a Hebrew-language Mets cap, Levine pushed back on the idea that the team’s omission of Jewish Heritage Night was necessarily tied to Israel. “The Mets have been nothing but kind and welcoming to their Jewish fans,” Levine said. “There are a ton of teams in the MLB that don’t have a Jewish heritage day, and it has nothing to do with Israel.” He argued that reading the decision through that lens was both speculative and unhelpful. “Making everything about Israel doesn’t help anything,” he said, adding that Citi Field’s stands are so visibly full of Jewish fans that “every single game at Citi Field is Jewish Heritage Day.”
Some fans agree that the controversy is overblown, arguing that Jewish fans are already well represented at Citi Field without a dedicated theme night.
What changed?
The Mets’ most recent Jewish Heritage Night, held in 2023, featured guest appearances, live music, and in-game programming centered on Jewish culture. The team had hosted similar events intermittently in prior years, sometimes alternating with a “Celebrate Israel” night. The team has not scheduled a Jewish-themed night at Citi Field since.
Ahead of the 2024 season, the Mets said they were rethinking how they approach cultural programming, moving away from individual heritage nights toward a broader “Celebration of Queens Culture” initiative. The team framed the change as an effort to reflect the borough’s wide range of communities in a more collective format.
The change came during a period of heightened tension around Jewish public life, following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza. In the months since, concerns about antisemitism and the visibility of Jewish events have become more pronounced in many public settings.
Still, the Mets’ silence has left room for competing interpretations. A spokesperson for the team did not respond to a request for comment, and without a public explanation, it remains unclear whether the absence of Jewish Heritage Night reflects scheduling changes, shifting priorities, or something else entirely. That vacuum has helped fuel the more pointed claims made by critics such as Deutsch, who wrote that “in Jewish community circles, fans say the Mets view Jewish Heritage Night as a potential liability at a time when Jews are being harassed, stigmatized, and attacked across New York and globally.”
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The Mets’ relationship with Jewish fans is not easily reduced to this one omission. Over the past year, the team has publicly honored Holocaust survivor Lidia Mayer, and Citi Field has notably expanded its kosher offerings, including Passover options earlier this month. Those moves complicate the idea that the organization has simply turned away from its Jewish fan base.
At the same time, the missing event has become a flashpoint for some of the team’s loudest critics. On Thursday, radio host Sid Rosenberg posted a video accusing Mets owner Steve Cohen — one of the six Jewish principal or controlling owners of MLB teams — of deliberately leaving Jewish Heritage Night off the calendar for political reasons, alleging without evidence that the move was meant to curry favor with Mayor Zohran Mamdani as Cohen pursues a casino project in Flushing. Rosenberg’s comments were part of a broader feud he has recently waged against the team over its interactions with the mayor, going as far as to accuse the team’s mascot, Mr. Met, of antisemitism.
For now, the gap between what has been confirmed and what has been claimed continues to drive the conversation: a missing event, a lack of explanation, and a debate shaped as much by inference as by documented fact.
Until the Mets provide a clear explanation, the absence of Jewish Heritage Night remains an open question — one that has been filled, in the meantime, by speculation.
Originally Published Apr 17, 2026 08:05PM EDT
