Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame

This is an entertaining and enlightening collection of essays about the lives and exploits of many influential Jewish sports figures that gives the lie to the jokes about Jews and sports that have been told by everyone from Don Rickles to Jon Stewart. The 50 figures profiled by such writers as David Remnick and Deborah Lipstadt cover a wide range: Benny Friedman and Sid Luckman, who together “invented the quarterback position as we know it” for the Chicago Bears; Barney Sedran, ”the shortest player ever inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame”; and Howard Cosell and Marvin Miller. Dahlia Lithwick observes Sandy Koufax—perhaps the greatest Jewish sports hero ever, who stymied the New York Yankees’ Mickey Mantle while leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 1963 World Series. None of the essays are purely biographical or hagiographic—the authors consistently deliver fascinating insights into the highs and lows of Jews in sports. Ron Rosenbaum, for example, notes that what Arnold Rothstein, the mob gambler blamed for fixing the 1919 World Series, “reminds us about sport in America is that it has never been the pure refuge from everyday grimy and gritty realities like greed.” (Oct.)