Serving Messianic Jewish And Christian Famlies since 1991

Remembering Jackie Robinson Pg. 4

Seeking Kin Pg. 5

Exciting News about Abraham’s Home and the big Discovery! Pg.6

A fond Farewell to Mr. Koch.

The Awesome cross found in downtown St.Augustine commemorating the site of the

first Mass.

Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messi-ah of Isreal. Certainly it is in the hands of G-d how and

when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of G-d will take place.

Pope Benedict XVI

Don’t forget to thank all the advertisers that make this

publication affordable to all the families, Tell them you

“saw them in the World”

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The Canadian Jewish rapper Drake, seen here performing at the Sound Academy in Toronto in 2011, won his first Grammy Award, for Best

Rap Album. (Creative Commons)

For Drake, 10th time a charm

NEW YORK (6NoBacon) -- For Drake at the Grammys, the 10th time was the charm. The Jewish Canadian singer finally picked up his first Grammy, winning for Rap Album of the Year on Sunday in Los Angeles, on his 10th time being nominated.The indie pop band fun., which fea-tures a Jewish lead singer, Jack An-tonoff, took home two awards at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, for Song of the Year and Best New Artist.Drake was one for three at the Staples Center, winning with “Take Care” but falling short in his other two nomina-

tions: for Best Rap Performance in “HYFR” and Best Rap Song for “The Motto.” Fun. claimed the statue for Best Song of the Year with its smash hit “We Are Young.” Antonoff thanked all the de-voted fans after fun. as Best New Artist.“We’ve been touring for 12 years and we haven’t made money for a very long time,” he told the crowd excitedly, ex-tending a shout-out to girlfriend Lena Dunham.The group also performed, playing its hit “Carry On” in a staged indoor rainstorm.In his introduction of fun., actor Neil Patrick Harris said, “As legendary gang-sta rap icon Katharine Hepburn once said, ‘If you obey all the rules, you don’t have any fun.’”Other notable Grammy winners were the English folk band Mumford & Son’s, for Album of the Year with “Ba-bel”; Gotye, whose hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” was the Record of the Year; and Adele, who captured her sev-enth Grammy for her live performance of “Set Fire to the Rain.”

Jewish version of ‘Downton

Abbey’After numerous complaints about the hit PBS show “Downton Abbey” not having any Jewish characters, Downton makers Carnival Films has confirmed it is developing a similar show with a Jewish family, U.K.’s Jewish Chronicle reports.The new show will be based on Fran-cesca Segal’s book “The Innocents,” which is loosely based on Edith Whar-ton’s classic novel “The Age of Inno-cence.”The book, which won the 2012 Costa First Novel award and the 2012 Na-tional Jewish Book Award, is set in modern-day, upper-crust Temple Fortune, a tight-knit Jewish community in northwest London. The book opens with a scene during Kol Nidre and fol-lows 28-year-old Adam Newman, who is destined to marry his girlfriend of 12 years, Rachel Gilbert, but ultimately succumbs to the attraction of her younger cousin, Ellie Schneider.

24th Anniversary Issue

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Koch eulogized by N.Y. elite as

friend of Israel, Jewish people

February 5, 2013 NEW YORK (JTA) -- Ed Koch was re-membered as a friend of Israel and the Jewish people by a

a cast of political luminaries at the for-mer New York City mayor’s funeral. At a service that filled the cavern-ous sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan -- the crowd included for-mer President Bill Clinton, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- Koch was compared to Moses.“In his own way, Ed was our Moses, just with a little less hair,” Bloomberg said, noting that this week’s Torah por-tion described Moses’ leadership in taking the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.Koch, who died last Friday at 88, is credited with leading New York City out of a debilitating financial crisis in the late 1970s, leading to a renewal that flourished under his successors.Israel’s consul general in New York, Ido Aharoni, recalled in his eulogy that the combative Koch literally “bled” for Is-rael, retelling a famous story about how the mayor was hit on the head with a rock thrown by a Palestinian while on a trip to Israel in 1990. Koch was interred in an Episcopal cem-etery in Manhattan. Also Monday, the Metropolitan Transit Authority denied earlier reports that it was planning to rename a subway sta-tion in Manhattan in Koch’s honor. “We do not rename subway stations after people,” MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said

Jewish Basketball playerlooking to improve

, Omri Casspi

BALTIMORE (JTA) -- Even as he sits on the Cleveland Cavaliers bench, watching yet another game proceed without him, Omri Casspi is working to improve.He studies his teammates and his oppo-nents, focusing on the player he’d likely be defending if he were on the court. Casspi uses the time to prepare for whenever he is summoned to partici-pate -- now or the next game or the one

after.For Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA, his fourth season in the elite league for pro hoopsters has been the most trying. The 6-foot, 9-inch forward doesn’t play much -- and he’s not sure why.Casspi believes he’s practicing as hard, working as diligently and is as devoted to his sport as when the Sacramento Kings drafted him in the first round in 2009. And the Cavs’ front office doesn’t disagree.Last month, when Casspi rarely left the bench, Yahoo! Sports reported that Casspi’s agents had requested a trade from the Cavs. But in an interview with JTA, Casspi said he had never made such a request.“It’s not anything that has to do with me, so I have no comment,” said Cass-pi, a native of Yavne, a city in central Israel of some 33,000 people. Cont. pg 5

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Remembering Jackie Robinson’s fight with black nationalists over anti-Semitism

By Ami EdenNEW YORK (JTA) -- Moviegoers who headed this past weekend to the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9 for the open-ing of “42” saw the story of how Jackie Robinson displayed legendary courage, class and talent in the face of immense pressure and racial hatred as he broke down baseball’s color barrier.Less well known is Robinson’s role in a controversy that erupted just a few blocks away, at Harlem’s most famous theater, and underscored his commit-ment to fighting all bigotry, including prejudice emanating from his own community.It was 1962, a decade-and-a-half after Robinson first took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers and just a few years after he retired. Day after day, an an-gry crowd marched outside Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater protesting against its Jewish owner, Frank Schiff-man, and his plan to open a low-cost restaurant with prices that potentially would threaten the business of a more expensive black-owned eatery.The demonstrators carried anti-Semitic posters and hurled racial epithets, reportedly denouncing Schiffman as a Shylock who wanted to extract a pound of flesh from the black community.Schiffman turned to several black lead-ers for help, but despite the increasingly hostile acts of anti-Semitism that were taking place, they all remained silent -- except for Robinson.“I was ashamed to see community lead-ers who were afraid to speak out when blacks were guilty of anti-Semitism,” Robinson wrote in his 1972 autobiog-raphy, “I Never Had It Made.” “How could we stand against anti-black prejudice if we were willing to practice or condone a similar intolerance?”Never one to back down from a cause he believed in, Robinson used his syn-dicated newspaper column to condemn the protesters’ blatant use of anti-

Semitism and compared their actions to events that had occurred in Nazi Germany, drawing the ire of many black nationalists in the process.The nationalists, who had adopted a separatist agenda, retaliated by pro-testing in front of a nearby Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee shop -- Robinson had worked for the chain after his 1957 re-tirement from baseball -- and outside a dinner honoring Robinson’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.In turn, several mainstream black lead-ers -- including Roy Wilkins, the long-time leader of the NAACP -- quickly came to the defense of Robinson and Schiffman.“In their fight for equal opportunity, Negroes cannot use the slimy tools of anti-Semitism or indulge in racism, the very tactics against which we cry out,” Wilkins wrote in a telegram to Robin-son. “We join you in your straight state-ment that this is a matter of principle

from which there can be no retreat.”Other leaders, including the Rev. Mar-tin Luther King Jr. and Philadelphia Tribune publisher Dr. E. Washington Rhodes, also offered their support, according to Robinson. Major League Baseball’s first black player also man-aged to pry a condemnation of anti-Semitism from Lewis Micheaux, the owner of Harlem’s National Memorial African Book Store, though Micheaux had sympathized with the marchers and denounced Robinson’s initial criti-cisms.Soon after, the protests ceased.Some Jewish communal officials have noted that Robinson’s Cont. pg. 12

24th Anniversary Issue

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A baseball signed by Sandy Koufax is displayed in the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. (National Museum of American Jewish History)

Seeking Kin: Retrieving baseball memorabilia

from attics and memory banks

By Hillel Kuttler

BALTIMORE (JTA) -- Josh Perelman is seeking kin -- but not his own. Rather, Perelman is on a quest for families and individuals who will share memories, arti-facts and pictures that help tell the story of the American Jewish relationship with baseball. As chief curator for the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Perelman is mounting an exhibition that will open next March. Instead of focusing solely on American Jewish baseball icons such as Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, the exhibit is meant to be grass roots and personal, revealing how Jews connected to this country and to each other through Ameri-ca’s national pastime. The connections need not be related to professional base-ball, Perelman said. They could involve memories such as rushing through dinner to make Little League games, reminiscences of playing ball in Jewish summer camps and displays of team uniforms that were sponsored by Jewish businesses.When a caller mentioned to Perelman a friend’s b’nai mitzvah at which guests were seated at tables named for Jewish Major Leaguers -- including Lipman Pike, considered the first Jewish professional baseball player -- Perelman expressed interest in obtaining a seating card from the event.On a website launched last week by the museum, fans are encouraged to alert the museum to what items they might want to donate or lend, as well as to stories about the person’s connections to baseball. Some items to be displayed in the museum might not relate to Jewish ballplayers at all but will help illuminate the exhibit’s theme, “Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Jews in America.” For example, Paul Newman of Philadelphia posted photographs of two baseballs that were signed long ago by Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, stars on the Reds’ championship teams in the 1970s. The players personalized their autographs for Newman’s late father, Rabbi Max Newman, of Cincinnati.Another photo shows former Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine posing in 2011 with a smiling Rebecca Alpert, a professor of religion and women’s studies at Temple University. Alpert wrote in the post that she “grew up believing that rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers was what Jews were supposed to do because the Dodgers integrated baseball and represented the working class.”Erskine had been one of Alpert’s favorite players, and she said she was “thrilled” to meet him at a conference on the Negro Leagues held in Cincinnati, where the picture was taken.Many of the items that respondents mentioned, posted or offered to the curators relate, of course, to Jewish Major Leaguers: a brilliant color image of a very young Koufax wearing his Brooklyn cap as he delivered a pitch against a backdrop of trees and a blue sky; photos from the 1970s of Washington Senators first baseman Mike Epstein fielding and sliding; and a black-and-white shot of Greenberg with boxing champion Joe Louis, under which the unidentified emailer wrote, “Jews have long regarded themselves as a people on the outside looking in. African-American heroes like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson have been part of ‘our crowd.“The story of Jews in baseball has typically been told by Cont. pg. 12

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24th Anniversary Issue

Archaeological find from Abraham’s homeland?NASHVILLE (BP) -- British archae-ologists have discovered a massive complex in southern Iraq that South-ern Baptist archaeologists say may shed new light on the life and times of the biblical patriarch Abraham.The structure, believed to be 4,000 years old, is about the size of a football field and may have been an adminis-trative center for the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, believed to be located about 12 miles away and at the height of its power before the time of Abraham. The new find, announced in early April, includes a complex of rooms around a large courtyard, according to the Associated Press. An “Ur” is mentioned in Genesis. “The find is significant for Mesopota-mian archaeology and history,” Steve Andrews, professor of Old Testament, archaeology and Hebrew at Midwest-ern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., told Baptist Press. “As a result of its excavation and the study of its ruins and artifacts -- es-pecially if inscribed clay tablets are unearthed -- students of Mesopotamia will understand more about the soci-ety and culture that flourished there.”The find, he said, raises two important questions for biblical archaeologists:-- Was the recently unearthed com-plex part of Sumerian Ur, or was it in another city?-- Was Sumerian Ur the same place as the biblical “Ur of the Chaldeans” -- the homeland of Abraham, according to Genesis 11:27-31?The answer to both questions is un-certain, according to Andrews, with some scholars placing Ur of the Chal-deans farther north in modern-day Turkey. But if the new find is deter-mined to be in Abraham’s homeland, he said, it would help Bible students

“If Abraham lived near this site and it served as an administrative or reli-gious center, then it is likely that Abra-ham and his family might have had dealings there,” Andrews said. “But the Bible says Terah took Abram and his family and left Ur of the Chaldees to move to Haran (Genesis 11:31). If evidence should identify this site as

Ur of the Chaldees, then it would locate a biblical site.” The biblical phrase “of the Chaldees” (or Chaldeans, depend-ing on the translation) is what makes it difficult to identify this site with Abra-ham’s homeland of Ur, he said. There was definitely a Sumerian city named Ur near the new discovery, but during Abraham’s life Chaldeans are believed to have lived farther north, suggesting this may not have been the same city referenced in Genesis 11. Evangelical scholars are divided on whether the site in southern Iraq was Abraham’s home-

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homeland, according to Andrews.Even if this site was not Abraham’s home though, it still contributes to scholars’ understanding of ancient Mesopotamia, the general region where the book of Genesis occurred.In assessing this and other archaeologi-cal finds related to Scripture, Andrews urged Christians to be cautious about claims that a new discovery either “proves” or “disproves” the Bible. Most of the time, archaeology’s chief con-tribution to biblical studies is to illu-minate the background and context of Scripture, he said.“We must remember that the field of archaeology is an art as well as a sci-ence,” he said. “Much of it is interpre-tation, and those seeking to disprove something will always find a way to do so. But the ruins and artifacts are there for all to ponder and study. With proper study, the biblical text comes alive as it is illustrated, illuminated and confirmed by archaeological evidence.”Daniel Warner, associate professor of Old Testament and archaeology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, La., agreed that “it’s still too early to tell” the significance of the recent discovery in Iraq. But he noted archaeology’s importance at times in confirming the truth of Scrip-ture. ”To me is the only

‘science’ that is contributing any new information to the study of the Bible,” Warner told Baptist Press. “It can affirm biblical events or people at times -- like the Tel Dan inscription confirming King David -- but its major contribu-tion is illuminating and illustrating the biblical world.”The discovery of an inscription at Caesarea that affirmed the existence of Pontius Pilate is another example of ar-chaeology affirming the Bible, Andrews said. Previously there was no evidence for Pilate outside the Bible.Other important finds in recent years, according to Andrews and Warner, include:-- The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include some of the earliest surviving manu-scripts of the Old Testament.-- The Pools of Siloam in Jerusalem with water systems from the reign of Herod the Great.-- King Herod’s tomb at the Herodium.-- An inscription of the alphabet at Tel Zayit which demonstrates that writ-ing may have been more advanced in the time of David than some scholars believe.Digs still in progress, including some by Southwestern and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary scholars, could unearth additional informa-tion about Canaanite engineering, the City of David and the Canaanite city of Gezer mentioned in the book of Joshua.Thanks to biblical archaeology, Scrip-ture “becomes more real and personal,” Warner said. “Reading about some-thing only takes one so far, but tangible things come alive.”David Roach is a writer in Shelbyville, Ky. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@Baptist-Press), Facebook (Facebook.com/Bap-tistPress ) and in your email ( baptist-press.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

This photo taken on April 1, 2013 provided by Manchester University archaeologist Stuart Campbell shows a clay plaque, which shows a

worshipper approaching a sacred place. Credit: AP

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24th Anniversary Issue

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misprints, etc. unintentionally contained herein.

2013/Lucky Lion Publishing

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May the Schwartz be with you

Nathan Schwartz, 12, of Miami has been attending rap concerts with his father since he was 6. After the shows, the boy has made it a habit to take pictures with the artists and upload them to his lively Instagram account (@natedoggschwartz). Schwartz has photos with artists such as Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and T-Pain, not to mention Bill Clinton -- the ex-president, not a rapper.Vice magazine interviewed him Friday and revealed that Nathan has a bodyguard because he gets some threats -- “ It’s a cold world out there,” Nathan told the magazine, adding that he “respects the haters.” He also wants to be a big music ex-ecutive. A glance at the photos reveals a goofy-looking kid with an evolving jewfro and an awkward grin. Basi-cally all of us when we were 12, but Schwartz is just doin’ it right.

Shia LaBeouf’s (nice) wish for Baldwin

Shia LaBeouf apparently wasn’t through with Alec Baldwin or the Broadway play “Orphans.” Last week, LaBeouf was on hand for the first preview of the show from which he was forced out following a feud with Bald-win as they prepared for the produc-tion.LaBeouf sat in the first row and watched his replacement, Ben Foster. And he was the first person to rise for the standing ovation. He says he bought a ticket and showed up “as a fan.”It remains unclear what he was trying to accomplish, but during a Monday in-terview with David Letterman, LaBeouf decided it was time to set the record straight.When Letterman confronted him about the feud, suggesting a scenario in which “Alec went to the producers and said, ‘I can’t take it another day, fire him,’ ” LaBeouf confirmed the “Late Night” host’s suspicions. Afterward, showing a somewhat apologetic side, LaBeouf called Baldwin a great actor and wished him the “best of luck.”So is that the end? Ball’s in your court, Baldwin!

Joan Rivers won’t apologizeA few weeks ago, television host/big mouth Joan Rivers stirred more contro-versy than usual when she commented on Adele’s weight during an interview with David Letterman. One of the more memorable quotes was when Rivers quipped, ”What is her song? ‘Rolling in The Deep’? She should add fried chicken!”

From Amy Winehouse’s dad, a suggestion to Beyonce

Beyonce will be covering the hit Amy Winehouse hit song “Back to Black” for the soundtrack to the upcoming film adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” it was announced a few days ago. Mitch Winehouse, the father of the late Jewish singer, decided to share his thoughts with Amy’s fans on Twit-ter. Despite the protest of many fans, Winehouse admitted that the Beyonce version is “not bad at all,” but suggested an interesting way for Queen B to honor Amy.“What if Beyonce gave 100,000 pounds [about $153,000] to Amy’s foundation,” he said. “Do you know how many kids that would help? Just putting it out there.”No response so far from Beyonce’s side, probably because she is still dealing with the backlash of her recent visit to Cuba.

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24th Anniversary Issue

Acclaimed filmmaker turns camera on his own Holocaust

experience for ‘Frontline’By Penny Schwartz

BOSTON (JTA) -- When he was 5 years old, Marian Marzynski’s parents hatched a plan to smuggle him out of the Warsaw Ghetto.It was 1942, and Marzynski and his family were among the 400,000 Jews rounded up two years earlier by the Nazis, confined to the 1.3-sq.-mile ghetto in the heart of the city. To stay alive, Marzynski’s parents warned him, you must forget who you are.That lesson in survival shepherded the young boy over the next three years as he hid from his tormentors, separated from his parents. He eventually became one of the few child survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto.Marzynski (born Marian Kuszner) would go on to become an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmak-er in the United States. Now, 70 years later, after a career in which he made acclaimed films about Polish Jewry and the Holocaust, Marzynski has trained the camera on himself, telling his own story and those of other survivors in “Never Forget to Lie,” a film scheduled for nationwide broadcast on April 30 on the PBS series “Frontline.”In the hourlong film co-produced with Jason Longo, Marzynski retraces his early years, chronicling his parents’ secular lives in prewar Warsaw, their confinement in the ghetto, his escape to the Aryan side of the wall, and his jounrey to the Catholic orphanage where he embraced life as a dutiful altar boy.With an artful, empathic hand, he tells the stories of other survivors as well, capturing their childhood memories as they grapple with the trauma and loss of their early lives. There are uplifting scenes, too, of Jewish culture and

Marian Marzynski

heritage being celebrated in the streets of Krakow. “If there is news in this film, it’s about a new perception of the Holo-caust,” Marzynski told JTA in an inter-view in his suburban Boston home. “It’s basically a question of unfinished busi-ness. We are coming back to our child-hood -- a story of stolen childhood.”Most Holocaust films have focused on the harsh realities of life in the concen-tration camps, not child survivors, so Marzynski views his film as a corrective of sorts, and a timely one. Child survi-vors are the last witnesses, and Marzyn-ski says they have reached a point in their lives where they are ready to share their stories with the world.

“Other directors come in and tell the stories of other people,” said Sharon Pucker Rivo, an adjunct associate pro-fessor of Jewish film at Brandeis Uni-versity. “Marian is a native insider. He knows the language, the territory. He didn’t need intermediaries.” After the war, Marzynski reunited with his moth-er. His father, who escaped a transport train to a death camp, was murdered in the forest outside of Warsaw. Unlike most survivors, See next pg.

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Frontline, HolocaustMarzynski remained in Poland with his mother, who remarried another survi-vor, and took his stepfather’s name.Growing up under Communist rule, Marzynski said he understood the po-litical realities. The message was, “We all suffered from the Nazis. Everyone’s equal. Don’t brag about being Jew-ish, that you suffered more than other people.”Marzynski became a journalist and a successful radio and television per-sonality. But in 1969, during a wave of politically motivated anti-Semitism in Poland, Marzynski fled to Denmark with his family. Later, they resettled in the United States.“We did not want our son to have to live the lie that I had to live,” he says.In “Never Forget to Lie,” Marzynski ventures for the first time into the forest where his father was murdered. The camera lingers on the filmmaker as he holds his father’s watch, tell-ing viewers that it is the first time he is wearing it. For a few moments, the otherwise voluble, opinionated director can hardly speak. Marzynski hopes the film reaches a wide audience, espe-cially non-Jews. The survivor stories reflect the universal human experience, he says. Marzynski got a taste of that broader resonance in January, when he and his wife were invited to join a group of 560 European high school students and 85 teachers on a trip from Tuscany to Poland on the Treno della Memoria (“train of memory”), an Ital-ian Holocaust education project. After visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau and seeing his film, many students approached him, fascinated to meet a survivor. He says he was impressed by how eager they were were to learn about this history, “I want non-Jews to know the Holocaust in such a way that they can apply it to their own lives,” Marzynski said. “This is the job I am doing, trans-ferring the Holocaust experience to a new audience.”“Never Forget to Lie” will air on Tuesday, April 30, at 10 p.m. on PBS.

Bieber’s Anne Frank comments

create a furor!NEW YORK (6NoBacon) -- Justin Bieber, no stranger to controversy, stirred another one with his visit to the Anne Frank House.Biebs, visiting the Netherlands over the weekend for a concert in Arnhem, visited the landmark on Friday night for two hours. Afterward he wrote in the guestbook, “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”Of course, the comment made the Internet explode, since so many online already are dedicated to either loving or hating Bieber. Here was one com-ment: ”I just can’t believe that he would turn something that important into a publicity platform for himself. What a dirtbag.” That was just the tip of the iceberg.True Beliebers (who did not spend their childhood hiding in the attic from Nazis) said in his defense that he

is “just a human” and that it was “ironic that all of you are spewing hate. Isn’t this why Anne Frank and countless others had to go into hiding?”Missing the point a little, but a good thought.The authority on offensiveness, the ADL’s Abraham Foxman, said Frank was a fan of celebrities and pop culture, so he doesn’t ”see anything wrong” with what Bieber wrote. At least Biebs dodged that bullet.

Anne Frank and Justin Beiber

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Robinson from pg. 4strong stance during the 1962 Apollo incident stood in stark contrast to the silence from black leaders during the 1995 protests outside Freddy’s cloth-ing store on 125th Street. For months, large crowds gathered in front of the Harlem store to protest the efforts of its Jewish owner, Fred Harari, to expand into an adjacent storefront that was occupied by a black-owned business. The condemnations came only after one protester, Roland Smith Jr., shot and killed seven store employees before burning down the building and tak-ing his own life. Robinson was always quick to criticize anti-Semitism in the black community, according to Stephen Norwood, a professor at the University of Oklahoma who co-wrote a scholarly article on Robinson’s relationship with Jews. In a 1997 interview timed to the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s integra-tion of baseball, Norwood pointed out that Robinson was the first to condemn and call for the removal of a Congress of Racial Equality official in 1966 after he shouted at a group of Jews, “Hitler made a mistake when he didn’t kill enough of you.” While raising funds for the NAACP and bail money for impris-oned civil-rights marchers, Norwood said, Robinson witnessed the valuable contributions that Jews were making to the black community’s struggle. When Robinson took part in the legendary march on Washington and stood by King in Birmingham, Ala., he saw that some Jews also were placing their bod-ies on the line for civil-rights causes.According to Norwood, when black na-tionalism emerged as a powerful force during the 1960s, Robinson rejected its separatist agenda and continued to include Jews in his major efforts to eco-nomically empower the black commu-nity with the Freedom National Bank and the Jackie Robinson Construction Company.

Seeking Kin from pg.6focusing on Major League Baseball, and counting up how many Jews played in Major League Baseball and disputing who’s a Jew and who’s not a Jew: Was Elliott Maddox Jewish? Was Rod Carew Jewish?” John Thorn, the lead consul-tant for the exhibition, said by tele-phone. “To me, the far more interesting story was on the other side of the tele-vision set: What was the ordinary Jew’s experience with baseball? How did baseball become a binding, integrating, assimilating force in Jewish life?”Aside from his professional qualifica-tions as Major League Baseball’s official historian, Thorn is in a unique position to examine the issue. Thorn, who is Jewish, was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany after World War II and settled with his parents in New York. Baseball, particularly the experi-ence of collecting baseball cards, was how the young Thorn made his way in his adopted country -- his “visa to America,” Thorn said

“The story of baseball being more than a game, which is a cliche, of course, resonated for me particularly,” he said.Up to 200 artifacts will fill the 2,400 square feet on the museum’s fifth floor. After closing at the end of the 2014 baseball season, the exhibit will tour nationally, with smaller versions visit-ing Jewish community centers, syna-gogues, historical societies, libraries and stadiums, Perelman said.Besides the general public, items will come from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Ameri-can Jewish Historical Society and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Mu-seum of American History. What item would Perelman most like to acquire for display? A bat, glove or personal item relating to Pike would be nice, he said The ultimate catch, though, would be the High Holy Days ticket that Koufax didn’t use after making his celebrated decision to sit out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series against the Min-nesota Twins because it fell on Yom Kippur.

24th Anniversary Issue

‘Jewish Jocks’—plenty of Jews, not enough jocks (What would Howard Cosell say?)

By Ami EdenBOOK REVIEWNEW YORK (JTA) -- Near the end of 2012, during the showdown over the fiscal cliff, The New York Times pub-lished a profile of Bernie Sanders and his fight to keep Social Security benefit cuts out of any budget deal.The article described Sanders as an unlikely member of the world’s most exclusive club (aka the U.S. Senate), cit-ing several details: He’s the brusque son of an immigrant father; he has a thick Brooklyn accent; he is a self-described socialist who carries around the key chain from the early 20th century pres-idential campaign of Eugene V. Debs; and he once led a sit-in back in 1962 at the University of Chicago to protest discriminatory housing policies.One thing the article didn’t mention was that Sanders is Jewish. Perhaps it was implied (have you ever met a non-Jew fitting even half of that de-scription?). Or perhaps the newspaper thought his being Jewish just wasn’t worth a mention (after all, the Senate has more than a minyan of Jews).But the New York Yankees tapping a Jewish slugger to play third base -- now that’s news fit to the print. Just a day before publishing its no-direct-men-tion-of-his-Jewishness profile of Sand-ers, the Times devoted a full page and multiple articles in the sports section to the signing of Kevin Youkilis (the fam-ily name was changed several genera-tions back, from Weiner).So it’s not just Jewish media and a few Jewish sports obsessives who think an athletically gifted Member of the Tribe is a big deal. If the Semitic roots of one fading slugger attracts such treatment in the Times, how much ink do the rest of the Jewish athletes out there deserve?Enough to fill an entire book, accord-ing to Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy, editors of the anthology “Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame”

Corey Pavin, one of the greatest Messianic Jewish atheletes of all time

I hated this book. Not in the way one hates a bad book. More like the way I, as a Philadelphia sports nut, grew up hating the Boston Celtics and the Dal-las Cowboys. You only boo the great teams; the cellar dwellers aren’t worth the effort. As far as Jewish sports books go -- yes, there’s enough of them to constitute a genre -- this is a great one. It features plenty of great writers and great writing. Then why heckle “Jewish Jocks”?Because this anthology has so much trouble staying on topic. Yes, the sub-title of the book is “an unorthodox hall of fame.” So I welcomed the essays on all-time greats in areas of competition

Bernie Sanders U.S. Senate

that many people would not think of as sports -- ping-pong champ Marty Reis-man; world-class fencer Helen Mayer; professional wrestler Bill Goldberg; ultimate Frisbee player/pioneer Joel Silver; handball great Jimmy Jacobs; bullfighting legend Sidney Franklin; martial arts expert Harvey “Sifu” Sober; enigmatic chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer; and competitive eater Don Lerman. And in the spirit of the big tent, I’m also embracing the essays on mediocre players worth remember-ing -- like Mose Solomon, who the New York Giants and their legendary manager John McGraw had hoped to turn into the Jewish Babe Ruth. In some cases, their sports might not be sports. Or their talent might not be so great. Or their Jewish bona fides not so Jewish. But at least they’ve all put on the uniform -- or in Lerman’s case, the bib -- and competed Cont. Pg. 14

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Unfortunately, For, the editor of The New Republic, and Tracy, formerly a writer-blogger at Tablet and now a member of Foer’s TNR staff, don’t stop there when it comes to stretching the definition of Jewish jocks.Nearly a third of the 50 essays in their anthology center on figures who simply are not jocks. They include owners (Al Davis, Mark Cuban); coaches (Red Au-erbach, Red Holzman); a commissioner (Bud Selig); two sportswriters (Shirley Povich, Robert Lipsyte); a broadcaster (Howard Cosell); a labor leader (Mar-vin Miller); a boxing cutman (Whitey Bimstein); a bookie (Arnold Roth-stein); and an early Zionist leader (Max Nordau).Worst of all is the decision to include the first public editor of The New York Times, Daniel Okrent, for creating Rotisserie baseball. So what we have now is a book that purports to celebrate Jewish jockdom but somehow confuses poring over stats on a computer with hitting home runs, knocking down jump shots and scoring touchdowns in real-life games. Feh. How do you in-clude Theo Epstein, for using his perch as general manager of the Boston Red Sox to embrace an increasingly stats-driven system of player evaluation, but not Youkilis -- the embodiment of the revolutionary approach, whose effi

Jewish Jocks from pg. 13

Howard Cosell, during the ABC years

ciency at the plate helped Boston end its legendary World Series schneid and whose fielding inspired the greatest anti-Mel Gibson rant of all time (cour-tesy of Red Sox diehard and standup comic Dennis Leary).All these non-jocks, but no room for Lenny Krayzelburg? A year after win-ning gold at the Olympics in 2000, he skipped the World Championships to compete in the Maccabiah Games?What about Ryan Braun? OK, he may have juiced, but he also won the Na-tional League MVP in 2011. Or hoop-ster Jordan Farmar, whose multiracial background reflects the changing makeup of the Jewish community (not to mention his having led UCLA to the Final Four, winning back-to-back NBA

titles with the L.A. Lakers and play-ing for Tel Aviv Maccabi in 2011)? Or Farmar’s teammate in Israel, Jon Schey-er, who played a lead role in helping Duke win the NCAA title in 2010?Foer and Tracy insist they’re just crack-ing a “Jewish joke” by reserving slots in their pantheon for non-jocks, with the punchline seeming to be: What do you expect from two journalists (pre-sumably with no game) who went to the same progressive Jewish day school (with no football team)? “It would be as absurd to ask us to enjoy sports without engaging our Jewishness as it would be to ask us to live our lives without engaging our love of sports,” the duo writes. “So we have gone ahead and made Howard Cosell a Jewish Jock. If you want to blast that out of the park, be warned: it’s our curveball, the only kind we know how to throw -- in part because when we were kids, we never did learn the traditional kind.”Cosell hated the idea of ex-jocks serv-ing as broadcast analysts. And presum-ably he’d give Foer and Tracy a Cosell-style talking-to about applying the jock label to a man of such intelligence and erudition. By blurring the lines, Foer and Tracy end up contributing to the perpetuation of a mass Jewish psycho-sis -- that we are fated to stink at sports. And that’s too bad. First, because the book is a great read, with compelling and creative takes on well-known stars and folks you’ve never heard of. But, more importantly, because a people that can lay claim to all-time greats like Sandy Koufax and Mark Spitz has no business suffering from a sports inad-equacy complex.

Kevin Youkilis

24th Anniversary Issue

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St. Augustine Beach Peir, April 13