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{"id":847,"date":"2001-04-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-04-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmatt\/2001\/04\/25\/reading-the-sporting-jews\/"},"modified":"2013-01-30T15:29:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T20:29:12","slug":"reading-the-sporting-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2001\/04\/reading-the-sporting-jews\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Sporting Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When scribe Jonathan Tobin selected his all-Jewish baseball team, it was tempting to pencil in Rod Carew at second base. <\/p>\n\n

This would have given his fantasy Maccabees squad its third Hall of Famer, with Hammerin\u2019 Hank Greenberg and southpaw Sandy Koufax. When you\u2019re talking baseball holy writ, it\u2019s impossible to overlook Carew\u2019s 3,053 hits and seven American League batting titles. <\/p>\n\n

The Baseball Online Library took a leap of faith and put Carew in its Jewish All-Star Team. After all, he married a Jew and they raised their children in the faith. But Carew never converted, despite years of rumors. Thus, Tobin sent his team into cyberspace competition without Carew\u2019s .328 lifetime average. <\/p>\n\n

One passionate reader reacted to the column (at JewishWorldReview.com<\/a>) by saying: \u201cOK, so he never converted. What\u2019s important is that he\u2019s still a better Jew than most of the Jews today who are not even raising their children in the faith. I say we should count him!\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Truth is, there\u2019s more to this than pundits seeking another excuse to argue about baseball and culture while enjoying a ballgame and kosher hot dogs. The search for what the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent editor calls \u201cThe Sporting Jews\u201d offers intriguing insights into the puzzle of American Jewish identity. <\/p>\n\n

Jewish immigrants once yearned \u2014 like members of any religious or ethnic minority \u2014 to find their own heroes and role models in a new land. Thus, Tobin said Jews grew up watching their elders point in history books while saying, \u201cLook! Eddie Cantor is a Jew. Look! Irving Berlin is Jewish.\u201d It was important to thrive everywhere from Main Street to Hollywood and Vine. And then there was the sports page. <\/p>\n\n

Athletics wasn\u2019t even on the \u201cradar screen\u201d in the old Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, he said. But it was impossible to deny baseball\u2019s role here, especially in the thriving urban neighborhoods into which Jews moved in the cathartic, agonizing decades before and after World War II. <\/p>\n\n

Millions of Jews cheered when Greenberg opted out of a 1934 World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur. Decades later, Koufax declined to pitch on the opening game of the 1965 World Series, once again on Yom Kippur. Who could have imagined living to see such open displays of pride and Jewish identity? <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhat could be a better symbol of this new Jew, this Jew who was finally living in a land where he could be comfortable in his own skin, than to be able to find Jewish heroes at the ballpark? \u2026 I think it\u2019s hard for us to grasp how important someone like Greenberg was at that time. He was an icon of this new Jewish experience in America,\u201d said Tobin. <\/p>\n\n

That was then. <\/p>\n\n

Today, American Jews live in the age of Jerry Seinfeld and Joe Lieberman. Today, it\u2019s hard to imagine a time when the word \u201cassimilate\u201d would have sounded good to Jewish leaders. A century ago, millions of Jews were anxious to claim a new sense of identity \u2014 as Americans. Today, the question is how many will choose to claim an old identity \u2014 as practicing Jews. <\/p>\n\n

The statistics are now familiar. Jews have declined from 4 percent to 2 percent of the U.S. population. While a 1990 survey \u2014 currently being updated \u2014 found 5.9 million Jews, researchers said 1.3 million practice another faith and 1.1 million claim no faith. Only 484,000 American Jews regularly attend temple or synagogue services. <\/p>\n\n

While doing assembling his Maccabees roster, Tobin researched whether he could list current Philadelphia catcher Mike Lieberthal, who has a Jewish father. In the Phillies yearbook, he saw that the Lieberthal family picture showed them posed in front of a Christmas tree. He took that as a sign. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThere is a phrase that we use these days to describe people who convert to Judaism or step forward to publicly claim their Jewish identity. We call them \u2018Jews by Choice,\u2019 \u201d said Tobin. \u201cWhat we need to realize is that, in 2001, all Jews in America are \u2018Jews by Choice.\u2019 That is the reality of our situation. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThat seems humorous, when we\u2019re talking about hunting for Jews in the major leagues. But it isn\u2019t funny, otherwise. This is serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"