Julian Edelman: Jewish American Heritage Month

Julian Edelman was the first Super Bowl MVP of Jewish descent in the NFL. We will be honoring the MVP for our final Jewish American Heritage Month article of 2023.

If you aren’t caught up on all of the other Jewish American Heritage Month articles this month, you can find them here, here, and here.

Who Is That MVP?

When you think of Jewish players in the league, Julian Edelman may not be the first person to come to mind. But that would be a mistake because Julian is a trailblazer in his own right.

Born in the San Francisco Bay in 1986 to parents Angela and Frank Edelman, Julian was raised Christian along with his siblings Jason and Nicole. However, Edelman converted to Judaism and detailed his faith in an interview with the NFL Network in 2013. Julian felt empowered by Judaism and enjoyed learning about his Jewish faith and family heritage on his father’s side.

High school Julian was petite—he was under 100 pounds as a freshman playing at Woodside High School in Woodside, California. The quarterback would have a growth spurt and would successfully lead his team to victory in his senior year (13-0).

After a year at the College of San Mateo, Edelman would transfer to Kent State University in Ohio, where he would be the starting quarterback three years in a row and major in business management. He would not be invited to the NFL Combine in 2009, but he was drafted by the New England Patriots in the 7th round anyway. Not quite Mr. Irrelevant, just the 232nd pick.

Julian is a self-aware guy and felt he wasn’t equipped to be an NFL-level quarterback. He practiced other positions and was selected as a wide receiver for the Patriots. The CFL wanted Edelman to be a starting quarterback, but he turned down the three-year incentive-laden contract with the NFL.

NFL Life for Julian Edelman

Julian’s work can be summarized by statistics: second in team history with 620 receptions; fourth in receiving yards; ninth in receiving touchdowns; fourth in all-purpose yards; and at the time of his retirement, he had the most rushing yards and attempts overall. You could even boil down his success to his crowning achievement as the first Jewish MVP of the Super Bowl in 2019 against the LA Rams. Edelman had 10 receptions for 141 yards in Super Bowl LIII.

So much more can be said about Julian Edelman’s career, though. He had the highest praise from important people. Israel’s ambassador to the US in 2018 named Edelman a “gridiron Maccabee,” and Robert Kraft named Julian one of the greatest success stories in the Patriots’ franchise history.

Persistence was a key descriptor of Edelman’s career. As Julian has said, nothing in his career has been easy. In Edelman’s rookie year, he missed many games due to an ankle injury and a broken arm. Despite the injuries, Julian led the wide receivers in Week 2 in receptions and all-purpose yards.

In 2010 and 2011, Edelman had his play reduced. The young wide receiver was primarily a kick and punt returner in 2011, the same year he appeared in his first Super Bowl, which he lost. Things picked up a bit in 2012, and Julian was the first player since the AFL-NFL merger to have a receiving and returning touchdown in consecutive games. Edelman couldn’t fully catch a break, though; he was taken out of games for head injuries at a time when the concussion protocol was a joke, and he broke his foot.

Perhaps being in the hot seat of free agency on either side of the 2013 season inspired Julian Edelman; that season was his breakout season of sorts. The Patriots must have been impressed because after signing him as a free agent in 2013 for a year, they decided to resign Julian to a four-year contract deal.

As a Seahawks fan, the Patriots’ win in the 2014 Super Bowl was not a positive for me, but Edelman felt differently. Five seasons in, Julian won his first Super Bowl and led all NFL receivers in the league playing post-season games in both receptions and receiving yards.

2015 was a bit of a dud for the wide receiver. A foot injury caused surgery and many weeks of rest for the young man. However, he must have bottled up that momentum because he helped lead his team to a win in the Super Bowl in 2017. NFL films named Edelman’s catch the greatest catch in Super Bowl history, and he helped the team come back from a 28-3 deficit against the Falcons, ending the game with a 34-28 win (we all know the 28-3 game).

The reason the Patriots didn’t win the Super Bowl in 2017 was likely because Edelman had been on the injury reserve list since the preseason with an ACL tear. An unfortunate injury that occurred right after he was re-signed by the Patriots for another two years.

Julian got his hands caught in the cookie jar at the beginning of 2018 when he was suspended for using PEDs. Did they think he was playing through so many injuries at an older age because he found the fountain of youth? Not everyone is Tom Brady. Anyway, Edelman didn’t allow this to keep him down; this was the year he became the Super Bowl MVP and became second all-time in playoff receptions and receiving yards, behind only Jerry Rice.

In 2019, Edelman re-signed with the Patriots for another two years and had a successful year despite a painful hip injury. This was the calm before the storm. Julian would play his final game on October 25th, 2020. Six games in, Edelman would sustain a knee injury that spelled the end of his career. Julian was able to come off injured reserve in December 2020, but Coach Belichick had to release the tough news that they would not be placing Edelman on the active roster.

The End Of A Julian Edelman Era

Edelman retired in 2021 after a failed physical with the Patriots. Julian would post a video on Twitter where he was emotional and trying not to cry, expressing that retiring was coming as easily as the rest of his 12-year professional season—with great difficulty. He said he would play until the wheels fell off, and at that point, they had come off. Belichick had kind words for Julian, not something entirely common for such a stoic guy. The Patriots’ head coach said it was a pleasure to coach Julian Edelman and said he was always all out, whether it was practice or a super bowl.

Off The Gridiron

For some of us, the last time we remember seeing Julian Edelman in the news (and by us, I mean me) was when he was jumping on the hoods of cars drunk as a skunk in 2020. No official charges were pressed because he paid to have the car fixed, and it was at a time when hoarding toilet paper and chicken and trying our hand at creating sourdough bread on our back porches seemed like a good idea, so Julian’s actions were only slightly out of the norm.

There was a bit of a paternity spat between Julian and the mother of his child, Swedish model Ella Rose, in 2016. Edelman felt maybe baby Lily wasn’t his, so he contested it but later acknowledged he was a soon-to-be parent. A bit too late for Ms. Rose because he was not put on Lily’s birth certificate when she was born. It seems since then that Julian Edelman has taken his daddy duties more seriously with baby Lily and felt parenthood was one of the most rewarding and challenging things in his life and was something that changed his entire world view. We applaud Edelman for getting the dad role down in the end.

The Many Occupations of Julian Edelman 

Post-NFL career, Julian Edelman has stayed busy. Rumors spread around that Edelman would do a Gronk and rejoin the NFL in Tampa Bay with Tom Brady, but the wide receiver said he was a one-team kind of guy. Instead, he would do podcast interviews shortly after his retirement, detailing the highlights of his career. Not one to stay out of the limelight, Julian has been in front of the camera ever since.

The former Patriot has had many television appearances on shows, reality TV, documentaries, and advertisements. Edelman also co-founded a production company and became an analyst for the show “Inside the NFL” on Paramount+. He would be nominated for a Sports Emmy in 2022 for his first year as an analyst on “Inside the NFL.”

One of the cutest projects an NFL player has ever worked on was completed by Julian Edelman in 2016. Along with teammates Malcolm Mitchell and Martellus Bennett, Edelman would publish a children’s book. His work of art focuses on Jules the squirrel, who overcomes physical limitations through hard work and the help of a friend named Tom (who just so happens to be a goat—coincidence? I think not). He also wrote a sequel, “Flying High 2,” the following year. What a heartstring tugger.

Julian Edelman’s Faith Journey

Julian has had a unique faith journey. Having been raised Christian, Edelman had a revelation of sorts that connected him to his Jewish roots and faith. After announcing his religious inclinations in 2013, the wide receiver was seen wearing a pin with the Israeli flag. He then proceeded to make a birthright trip to Israel and returned for another visit with Jewish owner Robert Kraft in 2019. After finishing his stories about Jules, the squirrel, Julian proceeded to write children’s books that referenced prominent people in the Jewish community. He also was the focus of an episode of  “A Football Life,” where he discusses his relationship with his religion and ancestry.

In 2018, Julian honored the victims of a Synagogue shooting in Pittsburg that killed 11 people by wearing cleats with Hebrew written on them along with the star of David and the hashtag #strongerthanhate.

Much like the Schwartz brothers, who attempt to combat ignorance and prejudice surrounding their Jewish heritage and faith with education, Julian Edelman offered to take NBA player Meyers Leonard to a Shabbat dinner with friends and promised the basketball star he would have a good time. This was in reaction to an antisemitic slur that Leonard said during a Twitch stream while playing a video game.

Julian Edelman is as imperfect as the rest of us and makes mistakes on a platform far more public than most of us can imagine. However, Julian is always willing to right a wrong and continues to try to do the right thing with resilience. The NFL, the Jewish community, and America as a whole have a role model in Julian Edelman, and it will be great to follow what he continues to do. Maybe a Flying High 3 book?