Last week, Washington Jewish Week ran a poll asking for readers’ thoughts on the most influential Jewish sports legends of all time. The poll had four names as choices — Olympic legend Mark Spitz, NBA star Dolph Schayes, and MLB Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg — in addition to a write-in option.
Koufax landed the most votes in the poll, by far. Surely, most readers know some tidbits about his legendary pitching career — like his refusal to play a World Series game on Yom Kippur — and can recall some details about the other three athletes.
However, an equally interesting part of the poll was the write-ins. There, oft-forgotten Jewish sports stars were given their due, which led to our staff reminiscing and, in some cases, learning about legendary Jewish sports figures that are worth bringing back to the collective memory. Without further ado, here are five Jewish sports figures whose names you may or may not recognize but are worth reading about.
Moe Berg
Moe Berg is unlike any other professional athlete, Jewish or not, and it has nothing to do with his accomplishments on the baseball diamond. He played in the major leagues primarily as a catcher for nearly a decade and a half, peaking with a .287 batting average with the Chicago White Sox in 1929. But his real accomplishments came while working as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. The man who Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel called “the strangest man ever to play baseball” could speak multiple languages and worked on a variety of top secret projects, including an effort to find out whether the Nazis had the capability of making an atomic bomb.
Red Auerbach
You can’t discuss the NBA without mentioning cigar-smoking Red Auerbach. The 16-time NBA champion (nine times as a coach, seven as an executive) was once nearly synonymous with the league and the franchise he helped build into arguably the NBA’s greatest, the Boston Celtics. Auerbach started as a high school coach, eventually becoming the coach of the Celtics from 1950-1966 before he ceded the role to his star player Bill Russell. Then, Auerbach served in Boston’s front office until his death in 2006 at the age of 89.
Maxie Rosenbloom
According to the Boxing Hall of Fame, “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom compiled a record of 210 wins, 38 losses and 26 draws over the course of his career, which ended in 1938. He was dominant in the ring and a celebrity outside of it at a time when boxing was at the forefront of the American sports world. Rosenbloom was beloved for the unorthodox style that inspired his nickname. He didn’t have an overwhelming punch — often, he instead employed an open-handed slap to attack his opponents. Although he only recorded 19 knockouts in 210 wins, Rosenbloom was one of the great defensive fighters, avoiding strikes at all costs.
AJ Edelman
Let’s take it to the modern day. AJ Edelman is an American-born Israeli who became the first Orthodox Jewish man to compete in the Olympics when he suited up in the blue and white at the 2018 Winter Games in the skeleton event. What makes his story even more incredible is that he is largely self-taught. He tried the sport for the first time in 2014, and couldn’t afford a coach, opting instead to learn from a dozen hours of YouTube videos a day. He was a long shot to make the games until he surprisingly placed fifth at the North American Cup races and secured a spot in PyeongChang, South Korea, for Team Israel. While he didn’t medal at the 23rd Winter Olympic Games, he has gone on to use his platform for good as an advocate for Judaism and Jewish athletes, Israel, anti-bullying, mental health and LGBTQ rights in sports.
Abe Saperstein
Abe Saperstein, the shortest member of the Basketball Hall of Fame at 5 feet, 3 inches tall, was not a player. He was an innovator. At a time when professional basketball was segregated, Saperstein helped take the Harlem Globetrotters from a small-time act to a commercial and basketball powerhouse. Today, people know the Globetrotters for their ball-handling and spinning wizardry, but in 1948, Saperstein’s team beat the Minneapolis Lakers of the all-white National Basketball League, a predecessor of the NBA. Saperstein was a clever businessman who helped basketball, which at the time was a relatively new sport, become a major business in the United States. Saperstein also invented the three-point shot as a way to mimic the excitement of baseball’s home run. ■
There are plenty more names to list, but we’ll save those for another time. Who are some Jewish sports stars that you think are worth writing about? Send names to [email protected] and keep the conversation going!
