Newspaper Page Text
1 JKWS IN SPORTS by Haskell C ohen
o
Jewish Athletes Shy Away
5 From Jewish Background
g This column is triggered by two
r letters which I have received from
2 regular readers. Writing a column
rr for the English-Jcwish press rarely
^ results in mail unless the writer
_ pulls a boo-boo. In this case, one
reader from Florida wants to know
> who the Jewish ballplayers are in
P the major leagues and has sub-
23 mitted a list of about twenty
W names. Obviously, there aren't
> twenty Jewish ballplayers in the
« major leagues, and in due time we
S shall answer him and advise him
who are the players of the Jewish
faith.
3 The second reader compliments
us on the fact that we devote so
much time and effort to delineate
what’s going on in the sports field
in Israel.
We hold that there is an inter
relation between the two letters.
As a youth I, too, was interested in
knowing which ballplayers were
Jewish, and, as a matter of fact,
which athletes in all fields of sports
were of the Jewish faith. I got over
this obsession once I began to
cover the sports beat some 25
years ago when I got to mingle
with Jewish athletes. Basically, I
found them a nice bunch of guys,
but that’s where it stopped. It
seemed to me that they weren’t
overly enthralled with their
Jewishness and did little to help
out in Jewish communal affairs.
My romance with Jewish
athletes, as a result of experiences
with them, trying to activate them
in a variety of communal areas,
quickly terminated when I saw how
little interest they evinced in the
pertinent causes of the day. Here
and there you will find a Jewish
athlete who is militant, such as
Ronnie Blumberg of the Yankees,
who takes no guff from anybody
concerning his ethnic background.
Voii don't hear too many
ballplayers yelling “kike,”
“Sheeney" and "Jew bastard” at
Blumberg. If they did, big Ronnie
would be after them with his swing
ing bat.
In the past this was common in
the major baseball leagues. The
Jews fell prey to the insults and
slurs of enemy players, and in
many cases, fellow performers on
the same nine added their epithets.
Once the Black athlete came into
his own, the target shifted from
Phone (404) 874-6505
Nino's
Italian Continental
Restaurant
1931 Cheshire Bridge Rd., N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30324
Jewish players to Black players,
and with so many Blacks now per
forming in baseball, basketball
and football, the overall thrust of
conversation in dugouts has chang
ed considerably.
Over the years I have found only
a handful of Jewish athletes who
really cared about their religious
background and practiced some of
the tenets. The outstanding ex
amples I can think of is Ramy Gat,
captain of Israel's national basket
ball team seven or eight years ago,
who was one of the few Israelis I
encountered who conducted his
daily life more like a Jewish in
dividual than a Jewish athlete even
in the State of Israel where a lack
of religiousity is very common.
The second athlete, who is also a
basketball player, is Aaron Gran-
dinson of Columbia University, a
Black who graduated from Queens
Yeshiva and currently is playing
basketball in the Israeli national
league. For the most part,
however, you don’t find too many
Jewish athletes who think of
themselves as Jewish or contribute
to Jewish causes.
One of the most exploited and
most successful basketball en
trepreneurs, who is gone now,
rarely acknowledged his
background, and I always felt that
if he had his choice to be born all
over again he would have preferred
to be born into another faith. This
man made millions with his exhibi
tion basketball 'team and was
known in all corners of the earth.
Yet 1 could never get him to do
much to aid Jewish sports
endeavors, although, to a certain
extent, he was gallant in other
areas by the lending out of his
team for charitable causes. He did
on one occasion play his team in
the Polo Grounds in conjunction
with an invading Israel soccer
team shortly after the State of
Israel was formed. To the best of
my knowledge this was the only ef
fort he ever made in this direction.
On the other hand, in basketball,
Eddie Gottlieb, owner of the
Philadelphia SPHAS, which stood
for the South Philadelphia Hebrew
Athletic Society, used to uniform
both his basketball and baseball
teams in Hebrew lettering. Eddie
has been active over the years in the
United States Committee Sport for
Israel and has helped in a quiet way
to promote Jews in sports whenever
possible.
The strangest occurrence in this
area happened to me while I was
Public Relations Director for the
National Basketball Association.
One of my associates was one of
the greatest all time Jewish basket
ball players and a very decent
fellow. He was thoughtful, kind,
considerate, even tempered and
creative. Unfortunately, he had a
very poor Jewish background,
-TURN TO PAGE 12
PHOTOGRAPHY
Personal, commercial or scenic.
Portraits done in your home, office,
natural setting or my studio.
Alan Bedingfield
; 633-2702
Twenty Minutes at Auschwitz
to
by RABBI EDGAR E. SISKIN
The author is rabbi emeritus. North Shore Cong. Israel, Glencoe, III.,
and professor of history and literature of religions, Northwestern Universi
ty. This material is reprinted from the Sentinel, Chicago. — Editor.
^Some of President Ford’s ac- Hence the need to play down the
.« j ew j s h connection with Auschwitz.
The Press, some influential sec
tions of which have shown little un
derstanding of Israel’s cause,
might easily go along with such a
view.
Perhaps the most plausible ex
planation for what happened at
Auschwitz is to be found in the
current government fear of offen
ding Soviet sensibilities. The ad
ministration policy of detente
seems to call for acquiesence to
every request for aid and repudia
tion of any gesture which the
Russians might construe as an un
friendly act. Grain is sold to them
even though it result in higher
bread prices for us. Surveillance
technology is shared with them
even though it build higher walls of
confinement for their beleaguered
dissidents. Meanwhile, at the
White House, Solzhenitsyn is per
sona non grata. And in Helsinki
Mr. Ford approves the inviolabili
ty of boundaries annexed by Soviet
armies.
tions during his recent visit
Auschwitz were puzzling.
The President’s original
schedule called for a three minute
visit to Auschwitz. According to
the New York Times, Mr. Ford
had been "pressed” to go there.
Reporters were "discouraged”
from accompanying him. When
requested by the guide and Prime
Minister Gierek to enter one of the
barracks, the President seemed
reluctant to comply. Only “When
Mr. Kissinger nodded solemnly,”
did he go inside. Eventually the
visit lasted for twenty minutes and
"Mr. Ford and . . . Kissinger . . .
appeared moved. “There was an
air of ambivalence,” sum
marized the Times, “about Mr.
Ford’s brief stop in Brzezinka.”
Even more puzzling were the
press reports of Mr. Ford’s visit.
Some correspondents made no
mention of the connection between
Auschwitz and the Jews. The rest
made only passing reference to it.
From the newspaper stories you
would never have known that
Auschwitz was planned and built
' by Himmler and Hess in order to
consummate Hitler’s “final
solution” — a euphemism for the
extermination of the Jews of
Europe. Nor would you have
known that the vast majority of the
four million who perished there
were Jews. No TV report men
tioned the word Jew.
We wonder why the visit to
Auscbwitz was marked by these
hesitations and omissions on the
part of the President and the press.
After all, many men look upon
Auschwitz as symbolic not only of
man’s depravity, but also of the
Jew’s martyrdom. For them
Auschwitz is synonymous with the
Holocaust, and to speak of
Auschwitz without mentioning the
Jew is to distort history and de
mean the suffering of its chief vic
tims. It is to strip the Jew of the
dignity which enfolds every victim
of tragedy.
A variety of reaspns has been
propounded for the strange
equivocations at Auschwitz.
A government official declared
that “the White House preferred
not to underline the visit, in
diplomatic deference,” to West
Germany. Are we to conclude that
Mr. Ford was so sensitive to the
feelings of Germans that he
hesitated to show his sympathy for
the human prey of Nazi butchery?
The ways of international
diplomacy may be tortuous, but
we are reluctant to credit this in
terpretation for the President's
behavior at Auschwitz.
It has been suggested that a con
cern with the attitude of the Arab
world may have determined the
american posture at Auschwitz. To
call attention to the supreme mar
tyrdom of Jews in World War II
might underscore the justification
for establishing a national home in
Israel for the surviving remnant.
Moreover, a world reminded of
Auschwitz might rekindle its sym
pathy for the Jews and rediscover
its support for Israel. This may not
fit into the diplomatic game plan,
of international power brokers.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hank
Bayer, a young Dutchman study
ing forestry for four months in the
Galillcc has donated his entire ear- .
nings for tbrs period .to his ■
employees, the JNK, ’
The Russians have never
acknowledged the reality of Jewish
martyrdom in the struggle against
Hitler. At Babi Yar, where Nazi
executioners machine-gunned
100,000 Kiev Jews into an open
ravine, there is still no marker
identifying the victims. Outside
Vilna, scene of an equally brutal
slaughter, there was such a marker
until 1956, when it was replaced by
another from which all Jewish
reference had been eliminated. The
Russian policy had been to sever
the connection between the Nazi
Holocaust and the Jews. At
Auschwitz the American press,
perhaps unwittingly, became
partners in this policy.
In the Auschwitz guest book,
Mr. Ford wrote that the monu
ment reared there to the dead
would “inspire us further to the
dedicated pursuit of peace,
cooperation and security for all
peoples." We would echo these
sentiments. We would also bear in
mind that these goals will be
achieved only if we learn the
lessons of history, discern the face
of the enemy and respect not so
much the sensibilities of the power
ful as the rights of the weak.
English Estate
AUCTION
Plus Additions
By order of T. Glyns, Commercial
Executor, London. Berry Galleries has
been commissioned to offer to the
highest bidder various antiques in
Atlanta at Auction, in association with
Derek Heaton-Davies, U.8. Represen
tative.
Sun., Aug. 24th • 1:30 P.M.
Mon., Aug. 25th • 7:30 P.M.
Including. . .
• Fine English porcelains: Ridgeways,
Derby, Swansea, Mason, Chamberlain
Worcester, Coalport, Spode, Minton, Daven
port, Newhall, Copeland.
• Oriental porcelains: Rose Medallion, Imari,
Export, etc.
• Furniture: sets of Queen Anne and Chip
pendale chairs, chests, tables, desks, ar-
moires, stools, linen presses,"- display
cabinets, writing boxes, brass and iron
beds, oak roll top desks, etc.
• Unusual oriental screens, paintings, cloi
sonne, bronzes, mirrors, etc.
ALL ITEMS ON VIEW
Starting Monday, August 18 • 10-5 P.M.
Tarim: All tolas final • Charkt occaptad with propar I.D.
• BonkAmarkord, CAS and Malta, Chargo
deques
aucSon
4AUCBK/
3455 Paachtrao Rood, N.E. Atlanta, Go. 30319
(404) 262.2623