Women, Sport and American Jewish Identity in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries1 Linda J

5 Women, sport and American Jewish identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries1 Linda J. Borish Introduction The American Hebrew in January 1915 printed an article titled ‘Jews in sport’ and commented on Jewish women athletes: ‘In any mention of golfers, the name of Miss Elaine Rosenthal of the Ravisloe Country Club [Illinois] should be included. Miss Rosenthal’s sensational play on the Nassau links last summer [the site of the USA Women’s Amateur Golf Championship] is still a favorite topic in golfing circles, and we expect great things of her next season’. The American Hebrew also commented on other Jewish women in sport: ‘In the tennis world, too, our women players show great promise. Miss Erna Marcus, paired with Mrs Pouch, won the Long Island doubles championship’.2 Other sports featured the athletic skills of Jewish American women; from the basketball courts of Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Associations to the swimming pools in competitive swim clubs and even national level events, Jewish women have played a part in the sporting culture in American history. The story of Jewish women in American sport remains scarcely explored in women’s history, sport history and American Jewish history, yet Jewish American females, as participants and administra- tors, altered and expanded sporting opportunities for Jewish American women and girls. In some cases, Jewish women even pushed for greater access to sports for women generally, increasing sporting pursuits for Jewish and non-Jewish women and girls alike, whilst maintaining and at times strengthening their Jewish identity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at Jewish settlement houses and at Young Men’s/Young Women’s Hebrew Associations, middle-class reformers designed programmes to promote Jewish American women’s physical health and sport as part of the Americanisation of lower-class female immigrants within Jewish social and religious contexts. Whether engaging in sports for physical health, competition between Jewish or non-Jewish teams, or representing athletic prowess on national teams, Jewish American women’s sporting activities provide a valuable lens through which to investigate the multifaceted place of sports for women in American culture and history as well as offering insight into the ways that 72 Linda J. Borish gender, ethnicity, religion and social class shape sporting experiences. Jewish organisations in the USA and other countries, formed for various reasons including immigration aid, the promotion of Jewish religiosity, and the preservation of ethnic practices in leisure and foodways, also provided opportunities for women and girls to participate in a range of sports. Jewish women themselves campaigned for physical culture and sporting activities despite limited autonomy and control of resources at some Jewish settlements and Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Associations. Yet most studies on immigration and ethnicity, such as those focusing on Jewish men and sports, corellate with historian Donna Gabaccia’s characteri- sation of gender and immigrant life: ‘most histories of immigrants in the United States begin with the experiences of migratory men disguised as genderless human beings’.3 By probing materials about Jewish immigrant women, however, it becomes evident that some Jewish American women demonstrated extraordinary leadership and shaped women’s sports in their local communities, Jewish and mainstream organisations and even the Olympics, influencing sport in the larger American culture and interna- tional athletic environments. For Jewish immigrant women in the USA, the tension between maintaining Jewish ethnic and religious practices and becoming oriented to new American traditions emerged in the way some women experienced sporting activities. This historical research expands understandings of intersections of gender, ethnicity, class and religion within sporting contexts. Yet sports historical studies often focus on Jewish men in sport, to explore how Jewish immigrant men, from the 1880s to the 1920s, ‘through sport … could be more American and not any less Jewish’, especially in urban areas with large Jewish populations.4 Jewish women coming to America encountered new cultural values and practices; however, the preservation of Jewish identity became part of nego- tiating their places as Jews within the process of adapting to American culture. For Jewish women their life in America encompassed elements of their religion within the context of exposure to sporting practices as they participated in Jewish organisations and associations designed to aid them in the transition to American society. These separate Jewish associations, such as the Young Women’s Hebrew Associations and ladies’ auxillaries of the Young Men’s Hebrew Associations, or Jewish settlements such as the Young Women’s Union or Irene Kaufmann Settlement, provided a forum for preserving religiosity for Jewish women and autonomy to create a Jewish environment whilst incorporating physical activities and sport for their physical wellbeing and to gain access to American practices. The Young Women’s Hebrew Association, the oldest existing organisation for Jewish women, founded on 6 February 1902 in New York City by Mrs Israel Unterberg, was organised ‘for Jewish working girls and students’ and when the YWHA’s building was dedicated at 1584 Lexington Avenue, ‘here classes, clubs, religious services and recreational activities attracted a large number of members’.5 As the number of Jewish girls at this YWHA Women, sport and American Jewish identity 73 increased, so too did the need for greater space and expanded programmes in religion, education and recreation. The new home for the YWHA was dedicated on 22 November 1914 at 31 West 110th Street. The new YWHA encompassed the Jewish identity of the girls as the building ‘contained a synagogue’, in addition to a ‘gymnasium, swimming pool, class and club rooms, dining room, and residence quarters for more than 170 girls’. Over the years this impressive YWHA ‘served the spiritual, education, recreational and housing need of Jewish girls in New York City’.6 Sport, under the auspices of these kinds of organisations, served to enhance and uphold the spiritual and religious identity of women and girls as members of a Jewish team, organisation, or club, yet at the same time offered occasions for them to participate in the growing sporting culture in American society. Jewish women in America pursued a broad spectrum of sporting activities from physical culture training to competitive endeavours. In various venues, at times affiliating with other Jewish young women in the new American environs, and for some interacting with non-Jewish women in society, Jewish women athletes gained access to American cultural knowl- edge and activities. Yet these women learned about sport within dedicated Jewish organisations and forged an American Jewish identity. Using diverse primary materials, including archival sources, the American Jewish press and the American press, reports from Jewish associations and material culture evidence yields information about the ways Jewish American women played sport and pursued physical activities. Jewish American women and girls engaged in sport and expressed interests in promoting their physical health, deriving enjoyment from sports participation and participating in competitions with both Jewish and Gentile women. The Jewish organisations for women, emphasising both religion and recreation as part of their mission, provided access to sports such as calisthenics, basketball, swimming, tennis, track and field events and bicycling for Jewish women and girls, revealing the need to look beyond Protestant Anglo-Saxon ideals of sport for white, middle-class women in the early twentieth century. As sports studies scholar Jennifer Hargreaves has written: ‘There is a tendency for generalizations to be made about all women in sports from examples of white women’, and these stereotypically refer to white, western bourgeois women.7 Moreover, some American Jewish women at times challenged traditional gender boundaries in sport to secure sporting opportunities for women in American Jewish ethnic institutions, as well as in more mainstream sites in American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Settlement houses and physical exercise programmes For Jewish immigrant women, exposure to American life and sporting forms occurred at settlement houses and immigrant aid associations in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. East European immigrants came to 74 Linda J. Borish America and populated urban areas such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia. German Jews, who by the 1880s had become wealthier and oriented to American culture and institutions, sought to help the newest Jewish immigrants to adjust to American culture; German Jews opted to promote assimilation rather than nurturing the ethnic identities and religiosity of these Jewish immigrants.8 For example, reformers wished to solve urban problems of poverty, poor sanitation and overcrowding in urban areas. Some of these women reformers organised playgrounds for immigrant chil- dren in cities. Reformer Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago, and Jewish Americans such as Lillian Wald, founder of Henry Street Settlement in New York City, Lizzie Black Kander, founder of The Settlement in Milwaukee, and Lina F. Hecht, founder of Boston’s Hecht House, were alarmed at the vice and danger they

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