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By JTA - October 10, 2018
(JTA) — Ten Jewish-American baseball players will become dual Israeli citizens partly to help the country’s team make the 2020 Olympics.
Some of the players, who will visit Israel’s Interior Ministry next week to begin the process, also represented Israel in last year’s World Baseball Classic, where Team Israel shocked followers by reaching the quarterfinals.
Jewish Baseball News first reported the development on Wednesday.
While players in the World Baseball Classic only have to be eligible to be a citizen of the team’s country, players have to be actual citizens of the country they represent in the Olympics. They also must be citizens of that country for a year before they can start officially playing in pre-Olympic competition, which begins with the European Championship B Pool in the summer of 2019.
Read More: JTA