[ARETE] Review of Siegman Jewish Sports Legends

Tue Feb 16 15:34:53 CST 2021

All,
Please find below and attached Alan Zaremba's review of Siegman's *Jewish
Sports Legends*
Stay Well,
Duncan

*Jewish Sports Legends: The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame*

Fifth Edition

Joseph Siegman

Reviewed by Alan Zaremba, Communications Studies, Northeastern University

*Jewish Sports Legends* is the official publication of The International
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame*. * The book is a composite of information that
can be found at the *Hall of Fame *website*. *This includes biographical
information about those persons who have been enshrined in the Hall: Jewish
athletes, members of the sports media, a group called Contributors, those
who have been honored for Lifetime Achievement, and individuals who have
won the Chairman’s Award for Excellence.  In addition, the book--like the
site-- includes a history of the Maccabiah games, a listing of Jewish
Olympic medalists, as well as a tribute to the slain 1972 Israeli athletes.
 With some minor editing, the exact same biographical profiles that one
finds on the site appear in the book.   The advantage of the book is that
all the information is relatively easy to access, particularly for those
who enjoy holding a book in one’s hand or might just want to thumb through
the volume as opposed to click into, and then exit out of, the various
links. Readers of the book may serendipitously discover meaningful or at
least interesting stories that could be missed by searching for a
particular inductee on the website.

*Jewish Sports Legends* is likely intended not to be read cover to cover,
but rather to be an encyclopedic resource.  However, to write this review I
did read it cover to cover as one would a book, and I am glad I did.  This
was a valuable read in many respects.  If one is interested in sports
history and ethnic groups’ contributions to sports, particularly Jewish
contributions, there is a wealth of information here.

The book has a number of positive features. It presents information about
athletes from many eras and consequently will acquaint readers with
athletes unfamiliar to a particular generation. This is, as the IJSHOF name
suggests, an organization and publication with a global perspective. Those
who know a good deal about their country will learn about athletes from
many.  There is a historical perspective to the book as well, with several
of the inductees across sports being affected by, and in some cases
destroyed by, the Nazis.  There are also stories that reflect social
inequities and how sport can serve to facilitate change. A number of
entries are about women who could not play their sport and had to fight to
be recognized or had to pose as men in order to compete.

In addition, some of the profiles are just fascinating.  A 19th century
baseball player named Lip Pike was so speedy that he beat a racehorse in a
sprint. The woman basketball player (and later coach), Orna Ostfelt once
scored 108 points in a basketball game. The 1935-1936 LIU Blackbirds’
basketball team, that was supposed to represent the United States in the
Olympics voted as a team to boycott the 1936 games because of Hitler. A
prize fighter named Benny Leonard was said by a scribe to have “done more
to conquer anti-Semitism than a thousand textbooks.” Another prize
fighter-- appropriately named “Battling” Levinsky--fought thirty-seven
times in 1919 and nine times in a single month. Rena Glickman posed as a
man in order to compete in a judo competition and won the 1959 YMCA judo
championship. (She subsequently had to return her medal when it was
discovered she was a woman). Benny Lom, an American football player, once
tackled an opponent causing the player to fumble but then had to chase down
his own teammate who had picked up the ball but galloped toward the wrong
endzone. Lom managed to temporarily prevent disaster when he tackled his
teammate near the endzone.

The book is filled with stories like this which sport enthusiasts and
perhaps just interested readers will enjoy. I was regularly writing notes
in the margins like, “I did not know that” or “find out more” about an
event or person.

I do have some constructive suggestions.

It would have been good in the introduction of the book to explain the Hall
of Fame selection process. What makes a legend a legend? In a prefatory
section there is a reference to a group of electors and a slate of
nominees, but what specific criteria are applied; how are nominations
solicited?  Moe Berg, a back-up catcher, is a “legend” but Julian Edelman
who was a super bowl MVP and made one of the greatest catches in super bowl
history is not.  Berg was also a spy, so were his beyond the field
activities what made him a legend. Are athletes eligible if they are still
playing?  It would have been good to read the criteria for legendary status.
It would also have been good to indicate if the identified author, Joseph
Siegman, was the editor of this compendium or if he had indeed written each
of the blurbs.     Academics, at least, would like to look at sources that
were used for providing information about those enshrined. In an
Acknowledgements section there are references to sources that were used to
gather information for the profiles, and a long list of individuals who
assisted with research.  A comprehensive list of sources would be valuable,
as would be an indication of authors who wrote particular profiles, if not
all entries were authored by Mr. Siegman.

There is an important footnote that begins on page 315. It refers to the
very real difficulty of determining who is or who is not Jewish.  The note
explains the challenges well, and the criteria employed, but it should
appear in the beginning of the book.  Also, the note is placed after the
section that lists athletes who won Olympic medals. It is not clear if the
note and criteria apply only to the athletes identified as Jews who won
medals, or if that criteria was applied when determining who was eligible
to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Finally, there are a few errors that I could identify because I happened to
know some things about the athlete or sport involved. These errors made me
wonder if other entries contained similar inaccuracies. Dolph Schayes is
said to have coached the 1965-66 Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA
championship. The Celtics won the championship in the 1965-66 season. The
76ers won in 1966-67.  An entry refers to the college football platoon
protocol that existed into the mid 50s. While some changes were made
beginning in the fifties, the platoon system actually did not end until
after the 1964 season.  Abe Saperstein is said to have founded the
ill-fated American Basketball League which lasted only one and half years.
The entry indicates that the ABL would eventually merge into the NBA. The
ABL did not merge with the NBA. The ABA merged with the NBA. Some of the
innovations of the ABL found its way eventually into the NBA, but teams
from the ABL did not become part of the NBA. (Interesting while most
entries in the book are, with maybe a few edited words, verbatim from the
entries on the IJSHOF site, the information about the ABL merging with the
NBA is not on the website entry). As an author myself I know how errors,
despite painstaking proofreading, can nevertheless surface.  Given the
enormity of this project I don’t see these errors as a major drawback.

In sum, I wondered what I had gotten myself into when I volunteered to
review the book. When it arrived and I thumbed through it and saw all the
entries, I assumed that the job of reading and reviewing the book would be
a slog and a chore.  On the contrary, I found the book to be an interesting
read.  It was engaging, included valuable information from both historical
and social issues perspectives, provided stories about dozens of
fascinating individuals, and encouraged at least this curious reader to
want to learn more.
Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past

Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.
Professor of History
Book Review Editor
*AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature*
Ashland University
Ashland, OH  44805
USA
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