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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Ted Kid Lewis His Life and Times by Morton Lewis Ted "Kid" Lewis: His Life and Times by Morton Lewis. The icons of boxing which are most powerful in the public mind today are probably Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, or Muhammad Ali. For the British, the images of Frank Bruno and, still, Henry Cooper are hard to avoid. But there was a time, before World War II, when many of the world's best and most famous boxers were Jewish. There was Abe Attell, known as The Little Hebrew, from San Francisco, who was the world featherweight champion, Rueven "Ruby" Goldstein from New York, Battling Levinsky, Maxie Rosenbloom and the peerless Benny Leonard. In Britain there was Jack 'Kid' Berg, Ted 'Kid' Lewis, Harry Mizler - all from London, Joe Samuels from Liverpool and many others. "If you didn't fight, you didn't eat," said Morton Lewis, whose father Kid Lewis was world welterweight champion. Lewis was followed by others such as Berg and Mizler. Mizler's nephew, Tony, said: "They were the Beckhams of their time. They had the trappings of wealth and they were real working-class heroes." Of all the Jewish boxers none was finer than Berg, who reigned as light-welterweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1931. Tough upbringing. Berg - real name Judah Bergman - was born in London's East End but became a huge star in the United States and combined a heady mix of good looks, controlled brutality and showbiz charisma. Now his cousin Howard Fredrics has penned an opera called The Whitechapel Whirlwind. Mr Fredrics, a senior lecturer in creative music technology at Kingston University, has used old tapes of Berg talking in his distinctive transatlantic accent to work out how the fighter's singing voice would have sounded. He has donated several of these specially restored audio interviews to the British Library. It covers his tough upbringing in Whitechapel, where he was born in 1909, and his glorious career in the ring, when he defeated all the big names of the time, including Tony Canzoneri, Kid Chocolate, Mushy Callahan and Mizler. Another scene depicts the infamous Battle of Cable Street in 1936 when hundreds of East End residents came out on to the streets of Stepney to prevent a march by Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts. Ironically Mosley employed Lewis - real name Gershon Mendeloff - for a time in the early 1930s as his bodyguard. One apocryphal story suggests Lewis eventually wised up to Mosley's anti-Semitism and beat him up in his office. Mr Fredrics was naturally drawn to Berg's story: "When I learned about my cousin's life it just seemed such an incredible story and it seemed to naturally lend itself to opera. He has taken some artistic licence with it - for example, a scene in which Kid Chocolate is shot dead in a Havana nightclub. But overall he has stuck to the facts of Berg's extraordinary life. Berg had an affair with Mae West and was friends with another East End legend, gangster Jack Spot, who was also Jewish and born in the same Whitechapel street. In the ring Berg was awesome and his "whirlwind" nickname referred to his non-stop punching style. In one famous anecdote, his opponent was replaced by an identical twin and he beat them both. Brotherly icon. His sister, Marie Stephany, remembers him as a modest and gentle man who looked after her. She says: "It was only later that I grew up and realised what an icon he was, not just to the Jewish community, but to the whole of Britain." Mr Fredrics hopes it will be picked up by the English National Opera, after its preview performance on Tuesday. Before the curtain rises, the Jewish East End Celebration Society is conducting seminars on Jewish boxers. But amid the nostalgia for the sepia-tinted stars, one question keeps popping up: "Where are the great Jewish boxers of today?" Morton Lewis says: "Nowadays most young Jews can earn more money with their brains. In the old days [they wanted] any kind of work to earn some money and boxing was the easiest way to make it." A special preview of excerpts of The Whitechapel Whirlwind takes place at the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre on Tuesday 29 March. Ted "Kid" Lewis: His Life and Times by Morton Lewis. The Boxing Glove Sunday Book Review by Peter Silkov. “Ted Kid Lewis: His Life And Times” by Morton Lewis. This week we are reviewing a book that was first published in 1990. “Ted Lewis: His Life And Times” by Morton Lewis. Ted Kid Lewis has good cause to lay claim to being Britain’s greatest ever boxer. His career, which spanned from 1909 to 1929, is one of the most impressive of his time. Beginning his career as a bantamweight, Lewis would climb the weight divisions all the way to the light-heavyweight class, even though he would never weigh much more than a middleweight himself. Born Gershon Mendeloff, on October 28, 1893, in London, as Ted Kid Lewis, he would become one of Britain’s most exciting and respected fighters, taking America by storm, with a style that would gain him the nickname ‘The Crashing Dashing Bashing’ Ted Kid Lewis. Morton Lewis has written a fascinating biography about his father, a man who is a genuine ring legend, who won titles at multiple weights, and during the years 1914 to 1920, became Britain’s most popular and successful export to America. “Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis: His Life And Times” is a captivating account of Lewis’s life and boxing career, from his earliest days growing up, to the ups and downs of his great boxing career, and finally his post boxing life. It is a tale of rags to riches and then back again. Because of Lewis’s strength of character and popularity, he and his wife Elsie lived in relative comfort into their later years. Lewis career is a stark reminder of just how drastically boxing has changed in the last 100 years and how much harder the ‘hardest game’ used to be in Lewis’s time. In 1912, at the age of just 18 years old, Lewis had no less than 39 contests, of which he lost only 4. In his prime, Lewis thought nothing of fighting every two weeks, at least. Indeed, he was of the old school of fighters who kept in fighting shape by fighting regularly, rather than spending months between fights toiling in the gym. Lewis was a fearless man, always ready to fight anywhere and at any time, with no worry about the reputation or the size of his opponent; the bigger, both in size and reputation, was always the better for ‘The Kid.' Even in today’s era, where weight jumping is common place and there are more titles than contenders, Lewis’s achievements are still unmatched, certainly by any other British fighter. He won British and European titles at Featherweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, and also won a British title at light heavyweight. It is his feats at welterweight, which are most remarkable. In all, Lewis fought 28 times for the World welterweight title, 15 of them against his archrival, Jack Britton. The rivalry between Britton and Lewis has gone down as one of the greatest in boxing history, with the pair fighting no less than 20 times between 1915 and 1921, with 15 of these fights being for the World welterweight championship. The two men dominated the World welterweight title for over half a decade, as they duelled against one another, again and again, for the title. Lewis first won the world title in his 2nd fight with Britton, then lost it in his 6th fight with Britton, regained it in his 13th fight with Britton, only to finally lose it once more to Britton in their 18th meeting. Lewis was the first British fighter to regain a world title, a feat that stood unequaled until the 1980s, when Dennis Andries won regained the World light-heavyweight championship. Although by this time, there were already multiple ‘world champions.’ This book offers a fascinating insight into the boxing world during the 1910s – 1920s. The reader has to marvel at the toughness, determination, and courage of the fighter of this time. These boxers entered the rings week after week, months after month, often carrying injuries of fights, which they had received in previous fights just recently. In such a world, it took very special breed to come out on top and dominate, and Lewis was indeed a very special fighter. He is also shown to have been a man of great integrity throughout his life and career. Taking the ups and downs of his career without bitterness, or self pity, even though he often had to deal with the darker side of the hardest game. Like many of the greats of the ring, Lewis went through his money as quickly as he made it. He fought on long past his prime, but he never fell into bitterness or regret and instead, lived an active and contented life until his death in 1970, at the age of 76. Although Morton Lewis is writing about his father, this biography is a well balanced account of one of Britain’s greatest fighters. This is recommended reading for anyone who wants to read about a time when boxing was bursting at the seams with activity, and when champions were few, but contenders were many. “Ted Kid Lewis: His Life And Times” has a good collection of photos, many of them rare, and never seen before in print.

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