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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 5, 2005 / 25 Adar II, 5765

Unsettling diversions

By Jonathan Tobin


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We look to sports for escape, but grim controversies are hard to elude



http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A few years ago, when the controversy over Native American nicknames for sports teams was first boiling over, a rather politically incorrect thought popped into my head.


Whether silly or just stupid, most of the names all seemed to denote a symbol of strength, or at least, of ferocity. So when some wondered aloud how Jews would feel if teams were named the "rabbis," for instance, or the "Jews," I had a different reaction.


It occurred to me that if, in the Western imagination, the word "Jew" had conjured up images of ferocity and fearlessness in battle the way Indian names always did, then maybe the history of at least the first half of the 20th century would have been less unpleasant for the Jewish people. I still think that's an interesting possibility, but it appears that a Dutch soccer team is answering my supposition in a way I didn't quite anticipate.

SOME SOCCER ‘JEWS’
According to a March 28 story reported by The New York Times, supporters of Amsterdam's Ajax soccer team call themselves "Jews," wave Israeli flags at games, and flaunt Star of David tattoos to prove their allegiance to their team. The origins of the identification of the team with Jews is somewhat hazy. But fans of other teams have always referred to Ajax as "the Jewish team," and Ajax's non-Jewish rooters have, apparently in defiance, taken the term as a badge of honor.


Lest you think this is merely a harmless manifestation of a sports subculture, it appears that Ajax's opponents are prepared to take the "Jews" at their word. Rooters for clubs from Rotterdam or the Hague have been known to chant "Hamas" at matches with Ajax. Even worse, they chant "Jews to the gas" or, as Times' correspondent Craig S. Smith ominously noted, simply hiss "to simulate the sound of gas escaping."


The team is trying to get its fans to drop the Jewish stuff to avoid these disgusting scenes, but both Ajax partisans and their rivals seem unlikely to drop either the Magen Davids or the anti-Semitic jeers.


All of which just exemplifies that European anti-Semitism is so virulent and adaptable a virus that it can find a haven even in the playing of games, where virtually no Jews compete.


Spectator sports are supposed to be havens from the travails of the real world. That's why so many of us, male and female, rely on them so heavily. For example, what else would unite a people as divided as the population of Israel (the real "Jews") as sports? Indeed, it is arguable that most Israelis are at least as obsessed with the possibility that their national soccer team will be able to win a coveted birth in next year's World Cup as they are about Knesset votes on disengagement from Gaza. After ties against favored France and Ireland this past week they might be on their way to a minor miracle.


To get into the World Cup tournament, the Israelis have to fight an uphill battle by playing against the more established European teams instead of their Middle Eastern neighbors. That's because Arab countries still won't play Israel, a prejudicial practice that has been accepted by soccer's international institutions.

SMALL FAVORS
Closer to home, for those who feel that the long winter is merely a prelude to a spring that brings us a new baseball season, even that sacred preserve of Americana is very much under attack. Some players may well have taken illegal steroids calling into question the legitimacy of their statistical achievements.


Some have compared the use of steroids to the infamous "Black Sox" scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series. That dismal chapter of history is unfortunately associated in some minds with Jews because of the accusation that New York gangster Arnold Rothstein was behind the fix.


Let us be grateful for small favors. After digesting the vile goings-on at Ajax soccer games and the obstacles placed in the path of the Israeli soccer team, it is at least some relief to note that no one appears to be blaming the use of steroids on the Jews.


Rothstein notwithstanding, the longstanding Jewish love affair with baseball was honored last summer when the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., noted the achievements of Jews at a ceremony that highlighted the publication last year of a set of baseball cards of all Jewish players in history of the Major Leagues (it is still available for a contribution to the American Jewish Historical Society at: www. ajhs.org).


While the number of Jewish players has indeed been small (142 Jews were honored with cards in the set), as set creator Martin Abramowitz has pointed out, the collective batting average of Jewish hitters is three points higher than that of all Major League players, and the collective earned run average of Jewish pitchers is .11 lower than that of all hurlers.


All of which proves nothing about Jewish life or baseball, but it does testify to the fact that we need not rely on fake identifications with teams, such as those in Holland, to participate in our national pastime.


Some scribes, not to mention grandstanding members of Congress, would like us to focus entirely on steroid use, which is illegal and perhaps even immoral, but it hasn't yet been established with certainty exactly how its use has affected the game.


You'll have to forgive me, but I would rather discuss whether former All-Star and top current Jewish player Shawn Green's gradual decline will be reversed by his trade from the Los Angles Dodgers to the Arizona Diamondbacks.


Or will the departure of Gabe Kapler for Japan mean that the mazel he brought to the Boston Red Sox last year as a reserve on a World Champion team go with him? Along with other fans of the New York Yankees, Jew and non-Jew alike, I certainly hope so.


Either way, the return of baseball is a welcome break from the endless news cycle. This weekend, some of us will pause from our nonstop worrying about the world and instead begin to concentrate on runs, hits and errors. So let's rise for the national anthem, place our Hebrew baseball caps over our hearts, and silently give thanks to the G-d of Israel that it's time to play ball again!

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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.

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© 2005, Jonathan Tobin