The Pride of the Ghetto: a Brief History of the Jewish-American Pugilistic Tradition, 1890-1940

The Pride of the Ghetto: A Brief History of the Jewish-American Pugilistic Tradition, 1890-1940

Ryan Dondero

Introduction The sport of boxing has, for much of human history, been an important cultural institution; one that has its beginnings amongst history’s earliest civilizations. Although the actual “sport” of boxing did not appear as a prescribed Olympic event until 688 BCE, contests which included fisticuffs date back to as far as the third millennium BCE. Mesopotamian stone relief carvings and Egyptian relief statues provide historians with some of the earliest glimpses of pugilists engaging in combat. “Since then,” writes boxing cultural historian Kasia Boddy, “there has hardly been a time in which young men, and sometimes women, did not raise their gloved or ungloved fists to one other [sic].”1 Boxing entered into the modern era in Great Britain toward the close of the seventeenth century, where illegal pugilistic bare-knuckle, no-rules bouts would regularly take place in the Royal Theatre of London. The sport steadily began to grow in popularity throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain, both amongst the “lower orders” and aristocratic nobles of the British Isles, and by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, first penetrated the American cultural lexicon.2 The “sweet science” first entered into the United States with returning aristocratic young Virginians whom, throughout the eighteenth century, were commonly sent to England in order to complete their education. Whilst there, some of these young men witnessed British prize fights, while others even enrolled in boxing academies. Thomas Jefferson, in a letter written to John Banister, feared that in learning about “drinking, horse racing and boxing,” these young men might acquire a “fondness for European luxury and dissipation, and a contempt for the simplicity of [their] own country.”3 Ironically, despite the fact that boxing was seen in the eyes of the young American nation as an un-republican sport, the first American boxers were slaves whom were trained by slave masters in search of gambling opportunities. Although boxing entered into the United States in the late eighteenth century, for much of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, most Americans were unaware of the fact that boxing matches in their country even occurred.4 While pugilism was, according to historian Elliot J. Gorn, slowly becoming “part of an oral culture based on powerful community ties,” for the most part, the sport was looked upon with disdain by the majority of American society due to its “violence and brutality, the gambling associated with the contests, and the nefarious characters that comprised the boxing community.”5 Although boxing remained prohibited nearly everywhere in the United States, the sport was, however, “slowly being woven into the texture of lower-class male street life,” particularly amongst immigrants.6 The Irish, above all these immigrant groups, dominated the “square circle” for roughly the entire nineteenth century; a fact that is well known to those familiarized with the history of boxing in the United States. What is perhaps less well known is that for nearly a half a century, beginning approximately around 1890, there developed a distinct and distinguished boxing tradition amongst second-generation Jewish-Americans.

1 Kasia Boddy, Boxing: A Cultural History (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 7. 2 Encyclopedia Britannica, “Boxing (sport).” 3 Boddy, Boxing, 44. 4 Elliot J. Gorn, The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Fighting in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 40. 5 Steven A. Reiss, “A Fighting Chance: The Jewish-American Boxing Experience, 1890-1940,” American Jewish History 74 (1985), 224. 6 Gorn, The Manly Art, 40. 1

The rise in Jewish-American pugilism found, for the first time, Jewish-American males participating in a professional sport in considerable numbers. American Jews, most of who were of East European descent, absolutely dominated the ring from the end of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century. Despite this fact, it seems to be an area in both the history of boxing and the history of American Jews that is oft-overlooked. This paper aims to provide a brief history of this fifty year period and the unique Jewish-American boxing tradition it helped create. In doing so, I hope to first explore the foundations of this distinctive institution and of Jewish-American involvement in sport. Here I will discuss East European Jewish migration to the United States after 1870 and how the conditions of this migration and subsequent settlement would foster the beginnings of Jewish participation and interest in sport. I will then delve into the start of the actual Jewish-American pugilistic tradition and the circumstances that gave rise to the engagement of Jewish Americans in the sport of boxing. Finally, I would like to briefly discuss the “golden age” of Jewish-American boxing and its effect on the experiences of American Jews in the United States.

East European Migration and the Rise of Jewish Participation in Sport For approximately a half a century following the American Civil War, the city of New York began to drastically and fundamentally change. The city which had, at one time, been a seaport “city of masts and spires” was now transforming into “the skyline symbol of the Western Hemisphere” and a place that inspired awe amongst Americans and foreigners alike.7 While the city was active in altering and renovating its physical landscape, the ethnic and national makeup of the city was also drastically being remade. During this period, according to historian Moses Rischin, New York “more so than ever before…became the gateway, toll station, and hostelry through which immigrants passed in their abandonment of the Old World for a better life in the New.”8 At first, many of the newly arrived were of Irish or German descent, but by 1870, there was a marked change in the makeup of New York immigrants as a major East European migration entered “into the epic of New York’s growth.”9 The factors that lay behind this increase in emigration are many. For one, a decrease in Central European emigration led German trans-Atlantic shipping companies to increasingly seek new passengers for their ships elsewhere. In the Jews of Eastern Europe, these shipping companies found many willing customers. A series of disasters, which included a cholera epidemic in 1868, a Polish famine in 1869 and an Odessa pogrom in 1871, compelled many of East Europe’s Jews to make the cross-Atlantic trip to the New World. The condition of East European Jewry at the time would lead to the spread of “mild emigration fever” amongst Jewish sections of the region, and by the end of the 1870s, some 40,000 East European Jews had migrated to the United States; a number that would eventually grow to approximately two million on the eve of the First World War.10 Upon arriving in New York, the East European Jews of this period, like many immigrants of the day, decidedly settled with those who shared their religion, their culture, and/or their language. The neighborhood in which these newly arrived immigrants largely congregated would, by the close of the century, be seen as a sort of “immigrant Jewish cosmopolis” in the

7 Moses Rischin, The Promised City: New York’s Jews, 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 3. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 19. 10 Ibid., 20. 2

New World. That neighborhood would be the Lower East Side.11 It would be from within this famous Jewish-American neighborhood that second-generation Jewish youths would first discover and pursue the sport of boxing in large numbers, thus sparking the start of the unique Jewish-American boxing tradition. The first-generation Jewish immigrants who made the Lower East Side their home would be far different from the children they would eventually come to have and raise in New York City. For the most part, the men and women who migrated to the United States in the 1870s and beyond were Orthodox Jews of Russian and Polish descent. They came from pre-modern sections of Europe and wished to maintain much, if not all, of their “old world customs, religious institutions, and traditions.”12 When they were not working, these immigrants often spent their limited leisure time with family, “among landsleit at benevolent societies, clubs and saloons” or at the Yiddish theatre.13 They were overall very traditional and displayed little or no interest in aspects of American society and culture that they saw as useless. One such area was American sports. First-generation Jewish parents were strongly opposed to their children taking part in athletics. They brought with them a general unfamiliarity with sports whilst in the Old World, and saw sports as a waste of time that “served no useful function and, if anything, was a dangerous force that taught inappropriate social values, drew children away from traditional beliefs and behavior, and led to overexertion and accidents.”14 As far as these first-generation parents were concerned, nice Jewish boys and girls don’t enjoy or participate in sport and Jewish youths would be better served studying Jewish culture and tradition rather than wasting their time with athletics.15 Though these parents strongly discouraged it, Jewish American youths in the ghettos of the Lower East Side quickly became enamored with American sports. To these second-generation Jewish boys, interest and participation in American athletics offered both increased social acceptance and a refutation of the belief that Jewish kids were “greenhorns.”16 This interest in sports, according to historian Allen Guttmann, “became a central metaphor for the entire process of Americanization of which it was a small but vital part.”17 Because the concept of sports and athletics were so foreign to the Orthodox tradition of many first-generation Jewish immigrants, it provided “an especially powerful metaphor of contrast” for the Jewish boys now welcoming this truly American institution.18 While all of these factors played a large part in Jewish youth’s curiosity with sport, the primary reason for their interest was standard: they found athletics fun. Jewish boys read the sports sections of newspapers and juvenile sports literature, and sports were often a major topic of conversation. When they weren’t reading about, or discussing sports, the second-generation Jewish youths of the Lower East Side played various ball games in the street, joined a number of municipal recreation programs, took

11 Ibid., 76. 12 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 226. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 227. 15 Peter Levine, From Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3-4. 16 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,”227. 17 Allen Guttmann, “Out of the Ghetto and on to the Field: Jewish Writers and the Theme of Sport,” American Jewish History 74 (1985), 275. 18 Ibid. 3

advantage of settlement house facilities, and utilized various sports programs offered by the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA).19 Although Jewish youths enthusiastically consumed whatever they could of American sports, the athletic options of these young men were actually quite limited by both social and environmental factors.20 Many of the Jewish boys living in the Lower East Side at the turn of the century needed to work part time after school to help in supporting their families. Of course, this left “little discretionary time for recreation”; time that was even further reduced when the fall and winter months brought about shorter days. When Jewish youths did have time for recreation, they were often limited by the environment in which they lived. The crowded ghettos of the Lower East Side were no place for a baseball diamond or a football field, and it is for this reason that many Jewish youths never achieved any real proficiency in these sports. Although the environmental conditions of their neighborhood discouraged participation in baseball and football, Jewish boys were able to participate in sports like basketball and boxing which did not really require a lot of empty space and “could be enjoyed year-round in the afternoon or evenings at neighborhood settlement houses and gymnasiums.”21 Though many Jewish youths gravitated toward the sport of basketball, many, many more took up the sport of boxing.

The Foundations of the Jewish-American Pugilistic Tradition Professional prizefighting has been, historically, a low status sport “that recruited its participants from among the poorest inner city youths”; youths who generally had “few or no alternate means of gaining fame and escaping poverty.”22 These young men were almost exclusively tied to one of America’s many immigrant groups. In his thesis, When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport, Allen Bodner makes mention of a 1955 Master’s thesis written by Thomas Jenkins entitled “Changes in Ethnic and Racial Representation Among Professional Boxers: A Study in Ethnic Succession,” that aimed to outline the phenomenon of immigrant participation in boxing. Upon delving into his topic and tracing the history of the dominant nationalities in pugilism, Jenkins arrived at the conclusion that “the second-generation of practically all urban immigrant groups gravitated to boxing.”23 The ascendancy of Jewish boxers was thus, according to Jenkins and Bodner, “a natural and predictable phenomenon of the demography of Jewish immigrants.”24 Though this assertion may in fact be true, the Jewish boxing tradition is unique when compared with many of the other immigrant groups who took part in the sport. It is to the start of this distinctive tradition I now wish to turn. Although the parents of Jewish boys on the Lower East Side “universally decried boxing as violent, dangerous, immoral, and dominated by bums and thugs,” Jewish youths developed an eager interest in the sport because “the ability to box was a useful skill which promoted self-esteem and was a possible source of social mobility.”25 Boxing also instilled in Jewish youths a capacity and confidence to defend oneself against physical aggression. Because the

19 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 227. 20 Ibid., 228. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 223. 23 Allen Bodner, “When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport” (M.A. thesis, Hunter College, the City University of New York, 1993), 9. 24 Ibid. 25 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 228. 4

Jewish boys of the Lower East Side were always getting into fisticuffs with boys of other ethnic groups, boxing became a functional tool as well as a source of recreation. The famed Jewish Boxer Benny Leonard, who himself grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, remembered growing up as “a skinny, frail youngster,” and being “the butt of Irish ‘Micks,’ Italian ‘Wops’ and the hoodlums of a dozen different races.” Whether “going to the store or to the public baths,” Leonard and his Jewish friends were often engaged by adolescents of other ethnic groups th in fist fights. It was after one particularly intense beating at the hands of the “6 Street Boys” that Benny’s uncle started taking him to boxing clubs on the weekend in order to teach him how to properly defend himself.26 Benny’s experiences were not unique, and many Jewish youths living in New York (and other American cities with East European Jewish populations), felt it was up to them to combat Jewish stereotypes that labeled their ethnicity as weak and cowardly. As more and more Jewish boxers began working on their craft and stepping into the ring, contemporary gentiles, “who accepted the conventional stereotypes about Jewish manliness,” 27 would increasingly have to readjust their preconceived biases toward American Jews. East European Jews, from New York and elsewhere, achieved rapid success in prizefighting as they increasingly entered into the sport and, by the start of the twentieth century, Jewish-American pugilists were gaining notable recognition for their skills in the ring.28 Lower-East side native Joe Bernstein, duly known as the “Pride of the Ghetto,” was one of the first Jewish fighters to achieve such attention. Bernstein, who began boxing professionally in 1894 at the age of seventeen, fought (and beat) many of the top featherweights of his time. “The Pride of the Ghetto” would be the first Jewish-American boxer to receive widespread attention from the East European Jews of the Lower East Side, who were, by this time, “eager for some 29 30 recognition of their American existence.” Leach Cross, also known as “The Fighting Dentist,” succeeded Bernstein as the pride of the ghetto, and is often credited with being most responsible for popularizing the sport of boxing amongst New York’s Jews. Born Louis Wallach, Cross changed his name early on in his career to keep his father from learning of his passion for boxing. Like many Jewish boys living in the Lower East Side, Cross and his friends first learned to fight in order to defend themselves from Irish youths who used to pick fights with them on their way to school. Though he got his start in the streets, Cross was eventually introduced to boxing via a friend, whose father owned an 31 athletic club. By the end of his renowned career as a boxer, one that gained him a reputation as “an outstanding club fighter who always brought in the crowds and gave them their money’s worth,” “The Fighting Dentist” fought in 154 bouts, winning 43 and losing 10 (the rest were no 32 decisions or draws). More importantly, however, he influenced a whole generation of Jewish-American boxers from New York whom, later on in the century, would continue the boxing tradition Cross helped get off the ground. Although New York remained the mecca of Jewish-American pugilism throughout this period and up until the 1940s, two of the first Jewish-American world champions of the day were

26 Levine, “From Ellis Island,” 149. 27 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 223. 28 Ibid., 229. 29 Ibid. 30 Levine, “From Ellis Island,” 151. 31 Ibid., 150. 32 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 229-230. 5

from elsewhere. The first was bantamweight boxer Harry “The Human Hairpin” Harris of Chicago, who in 1901, was crowned world champion after defeating Englishman Pedlar Palmer 33 in fifteen rounds. Harris would continue boxing until 1907 when he decided to leave the ring in order to first become a theatrical manager and later a successful Wall Street broker. By the end of his career, “The Human Hairpin” fought 54 bouts in which he won 39, and lost 2 (the rest of 34 his fights registered as either no decisions or draws). The second, featherweight Abe Attell of San Francisco, was, according to historian 35 Steven Reiss, “unquestionably the preeminent Jewish boxer of the early 1900s.” Attell, like many of the Jewish boys living on the Lower East Side, had been a street fighter before beginning his career as a boxer and picked up pugilism as a way to defend himself from other immigrant youths. “I had to fight or be figuratively murdered,” Abe once reminisced, “I either had to hold my own with those tough Irish lads or be chased off the block.” After a brief career as an amateur fighter, Attell turned professional in 1900 at the age of sixteen. Within the year, “The Little Hebrew” was taking part in twenty-round main events and successfully building a 36 career for himself as an extremely effective boxer. In fact, the 5’4”, 122 pound Attell won 23 of his first 29 bouts by knockout. By 1903, Attell was crowned featherweight champion of the world; a crown that he would first hold till 1904 and then again from 1906 to 1912. By the end of his professional career, Attell had successfully defended his championship 21 times and, of the 171 bouts he fought in, won 124, and lost 19 (the rest were either draws, no decisions or no 37 contests). The careers and successes of these early Jewish boxers, in particular Cross and Attell, further propelled the popularity of boxing amongst Jewish-American youths. Many of these tough second-generation inner city Jewish kids saw these successful pugilists as role models; men who worked their way out of the ghetto and were now famous and had money for their 38 efforts. Because going to college and becoming a professional was not an option for many of these poor Jewish youths, boxing provided an alternate avenue for upward social mobility and 39 many began actively following that avenue. As more and more Jewish youths began pursuing pugilism as a career, more and more Jewish contenders could be found in the ring. This increase in Jewish participation in boxing led to, what can only be described as, a “golden age” of Jewish-American pugilism. This “golden age” would go on to produce thirty Jewish-American world champions from 1910 to 1940 and permanently cement the place of American Jews in the history of American boxing.

The Golden Age of Jewish-American Boxing The presence of American Jews in the sport of boxing was growing so increasingly prevalent that, by 1910, Jewish boxers were essentially synonymous with the sport. Jews dominated boxing throughout this period, “not simply as fighters and fans, but as promoters,

33 Boddy, Boxing, 170. 34 “Harry Harris (“The Human Hairpin”), International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/HarryHarris.htm. 35 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 232. 36 Ibid. 37 “Abe Attell (“The Little Hebrew”), International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/AbeAttell.htm. 38 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 234. 39 Bodner, “When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport,” 1. 6

40 trainers, managers, referees, journalists, and sporting goods manufacturers.” “It wasn’t long” wrote boxing cultural historian Kasia Boddy, “before the story of the Jewish boy who broke his father’s heart by becoming a boxer became a bit of cliché.” A 1925 film about Jewish life on the Lower East Side entitled His People provides us with an archetypical illustration of this cliché. The film tells the story of Sammy and Morris Cominsky; two brothers whom “stray from the ways of their Orthodox parents.” While Morris takes up law and becomes a lawyer, his brother Sammy picks up boxing and becomes a prizefighter. When Sammy is expelled from his parent’s home by his father for taking up such an unsavory profession, his father gives him these parting words:

A box-fyteh!? So that’s what you’ve become? For this we came to America? So that you should become a box-fyteh? Better you should be a gangster or even a murderer. The 41 shame of it. A box-fyteh!

His People is a great example of the enormous role Jews began to play in the sport of boxing. The fact that Jewish-American boxers and their individual stories even lent themselves to being clichéd proves the enormity of that role. Although Jewish participation in American boxing was already significant throughout the first decade of the century, after 1910, Jewish-American pugilism would enter into its “golden age.” This era would produce many, many great fighters and many, many great contests, but of all the boxers who succeeded during this thirty year period, none were as successful as Benny Leonard and Barney Ross. In many ways, these two pugilists typified this “golden age” and it is for this reason I wish to now focus on them. The rise and subsequent successes of Benny Leonard, as well as several of his contemporaries, represented in many ways “the coming to manhood of a large cohort of second-generation East European Jews who had grown up in poverty and deprivation and would 42 use whatever means necessary to escape the ghetto.” Leonard was one of the most successful pugilists of his day and is today, “universally regarded as among the best professional boxers in 43 any weight division in the twentieth century.” “The Ghetto Wizard,” as he was sometimes called, would, more than any other Jewish fighter of his day, dramatically leave his mark on the Jewish-American boxing tradition, and on the history of boxing itself. Benny Leonard was born on April 7, 1896 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Gershon and Minnie Leiner, a tailor and homemaker respectively. The neighborhood in which Benny grew up was an “ethnic amalgam of Italians, Irish and Jews” and, as previously mentioned, Leonard’s first introduction to boxing was through street fights with the boys of other 44 ethnic groups. After being introduced to boxing by his uncle, Leonard eventually turned professional in 1911 where, unfortunately, his career got off to a slow start. His weak punching

40 Boddy, Boxing, 170. 41 Ibid. 42 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 235. 43 “Biography of Benny Leonard,” Biography Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/servlet/BioRC?vrsn=149&OP=contains&locID=cuny_h unter&srchtp=name&ca=1&c=1&AI=U14135599&NA=Benny+Leonard&ste=12&tbst=prp&tab=1&docNum=K34 36500343&bConts=35. 44 Ibid. 7

style and frailty cost him his first professional bout and several more over the next two years, 45 earning him the unsavory moniker of the “Powder Puff Kid.” Though he got off to a less than spectacular start, Leonard’s career would take a significant upward turn by 1914 under the management of Billy Gibson, the owner of the 46 Fairmont Athletic Club and a Bronx politician. Gibson, in turn, hired trainer George Engel to work with Benny on his defensive and offensive skills and Engel eventually turned the receptive and intelligent Leonard from the “Powder Puff Kid” to a “scientific” and powerful pugilist. Under the watchful eye and training of Gibson and Engel, Leonard rapidly turned into an impressive lightweight contender; one that not only had more power to his punch, but also had “a 47 remarkable gift for avoiding and countering the attack of stronger opponents.” In May 1916, Benny’s hard work finally paid off when he was crowned lightweight champion of the world 48 after defeating Freddy Welsh in the ninth round of a New York fight. As champion, Leonard became an idol of the boxing world and a favorite of fight fans due to his willingness to both fight often, and against anyone. He was known as a “fighting 49 champion” and fought in over 80 contests as the lightweight champion of the world. At the peak of his fame, Leonard called it quits (much to the relief of his mother), and in 1924 fought his last bout, a ten round, no-decision fight against Pal Moran. He retired, at the age of 50 twenty-eight, as the undefeated lightweight champion of the world, and a millionaire. Although he would later make an unsuccessful attempt at a comeback after losing much of his fortune during the Great Depression, Leonard held on to the universal respect given to him by 51 boxing fans for his integrity, his gentlemanly character and his exemplary conduct. Benny Leonard’s retirement from the sport of boxing left a void that was difficult to fill, despite the fact that Jewish fighters, many from New York, continued to dominate the square circle. It wouldn’t be until the Great Depression that another Jewish fighter, originally from the Lower East Side, would come along and attempt to fill the shoes left behind by Leonard. That fighter would be Barney Ross. Barnet Rosofsky was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on December 23, 1909 to Orthodox immigrants of Russian descent. Though born on the Lower East Side, Barnet spent much of his youth in the poor and impoverished Maxwell Street area of Chicago, where the Rosofsky’s moved in 1911 and his father opened up a general store. The neighborhood in which Barnet grew up was primarily inhabited by Orthodox Polish and Russian Jews who had escaped religious oppression in the Old World and “sought to reestablish as much of the shtetl life as they

45 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 238. 46 Ibid. 47 “Biography of Benny Leonard,” Biography Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/servlet/BioRC?vrsn=149&OP=contains&locID=cuny_h unter&srchtp=name&ca=1&c=1&AI=U14135599&NA=Benny+Leonard&ste=12&tbst=prp&tab=1&docNum=K34 36500343&bConts=35. 48 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 238. 49 Ibid. 50 “Biography of Benny Leonard,” Biography Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/servlet/BioRC?vrsn=149&OP=contains&locID=cuny_h unter&srchtp=name&ca=1&c=1&AI=U14135599&NA=Benny+Leonard&ste=12&tbst=prp&tab=1&docNum=K34 36500343&bConts=35. 51 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 240. 8

52 could” in the New. As it was in many urban inner cities, the ghetto in which Barnet grew up was surrounded by poor Irish, Italian and Polish sections who, for their part, did not take too kindly to their Jewish neighbors. Because of this, the ability to fight well was greatly valued among the second-generation Jews of Chicago’s West Side, who used fighting as a means of both “showing the gentiles that Jews were as brave and manly as anyone else” and “defending 53 life, limb, property and turf.” Though Barnet’s father routinely encouraged his son toward more scholarly pursuits, Barnet spent much of his youth in the streets getting into trouble and fights with his friends. In 1924, Barnet’s father was murdered as two men attempted to rob the Rosofsky family store; an event that would badly scar the now fourteen year old Barnet. In anguish, Barnet quit school, renounced his Orthodox faith and “sought revenge on the world by becoming a petty thief, numbers runner and brawler.”54 Eventually, Barnet began to develop an interest in boxing and ambitions of becoming a prize fighter.55 He began frequenting Kid Howard’s Gymnasium and eventually developed into an excellent amateur fighter under the name of Barney Ross (a name he had assumed so his mother would not find out about his boxing). As an amateur, Ross became famous throughout the city of Chicago, particularly amongst the city’s Jewish population. He was regularly followed by neighborhood youths, and often drew large crowds at his fights. Like many Jewish boxers of the day, Ross sewed a Star of David on his trunks to emphasize and show pride in his ethnic identity; a gesture which only strengthened his popularity throughout Jewish sections of Chicago.56 Although Ross was an excellent amateur, when he turned professional at the age of nineteen, his career got off to a shaky start. Bad training habits, a fascination with the nightlife and shoddy work at the gym made Ross a mediocre fighter, but not much else. Like Benny Leonard before him, Ross’s boxing improved significantly under the watchful eyes of manager Sam Pian and trainer Art Winch. By 1932, Ross had begun to be recognized as one of the preeminent lightweight contenders in American boxing. In 1933, he proved he was the real deal by securing both the lightweight and junior middleweight championship titles from Tony Canzoneri in his hometown of Chicago.57 Barney Ross would continue to fight until 1938, retiring from the sport with 74 wins, 4 losses, 3 draws and one no-decision. Throughout his career, Ross fought in some of the most memorable fights in boxing history, including a set of three brutal fights against welterweight champion Jimmy McLarnin in 1934 and 1935, and the final fight of his career against Henry Armstrong.58 When World War II broke out and the United States entered into the conflict, Ross volunteered for the Marine Corps where, while serving his country overseas, he became a heavily decorated war hero at Guadalcanal. Unfortunately, while recovering from wounds sustained at war, Ross became addicted to morphine; an addiction that would later cost him nearly $500 dollars a week and, for a time, his marriage.59 After admitting himself to a federal

52 Ibid., 244. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., 245. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., 246. 58 “Barney Ross,” Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ross.html. 59 Ibid. 9

drug treatment facility, Ross quit “cold turkey” and emerged some four months later, a man no longer addicted. Though he constantly lived in pain from his wounds, both physical and emotional, Ross spent the remainder of his life speaking out against drug abuse.60 He died, at the age of 57, a man who was fiercely proud of both his Jewish and American identities. This intense pride brought him “honor and attention both as an American patriot and as a standard-bearer of Jewish strength and survival.”61

The Jewish-American Experience and the Sport of Boxing The retirement of Barney Ross in 1938 essentially marked the end of the Jewish pugilistic tradition in the United States. The 1940s found fewer and fewer Jewish boxers in the ring as the rate of social mobility amongst America’s second-generation Jews increased drastically. This increase in the ability to move socially upward led to a gradual exodus of second-generation Jews out of the inner city ghettos in which they were raised, and to suburban or other outlying urban areas. This movement away from the city allowed third-generation Jewish youths to participate in “more bourgeois sports and pastimes” and Jewish participation in boxing, for the most part, died out.62 Although Jewish-American pugilism essentially ended after 1940, Jewish prizefighters nevertheless played an extremely important role in developing Jewish-American identity during the first half of the twentieth century. Novelist Budd Shulberg, highlighting this point, once said of Benny Leonard, “To see him climb into the ring sporting the six-pointed Jewish star was to anticipate sweet revenge for all the bloody noses, split lips and mocking laughter at pale little Jewish boys who had run the neighborhood gauntlet.”63 Barney Ross’s mother, who had first so strongly disapproved of her son’s boxing, supported him as a symbol of Jewish strength when during one of his brutal matches with Jimmy McLarnin, press reports broke out over Adolf Hitler’s mistreatment of the Jews of Germany. When Mrs. Rasofsky found out that the Ross-McLarnin match was being broadcast internationally, she told one of her grandsons, “Hitler will know about it then. Maybe he’ll learn something from it about our people. He should know that he can kill millions of us but he can never defeat us.”64 Shulberg and Rasofsky’s pride in American Jewish boxers was generally widespread throughout the American Jewish community, particularly amongst Jews living in the nation’s urban areas and ghettos. “In New York, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles,” wrote historian Peter Levine, “every Jewish neighborhood boasted its own heroes whose names frequently appeared on posters in neighborhood store windows, on the marquees of local boxing clubs, or in newspaper stories describing their fights.”65 Though boxing was at first seen as antithetical to Judaism, it increasingly became an intense source of Jewish-American pride; one that drastically challenged anti-Semitic stereotypes and helped East European Jewish immigrants further develop uniquely American roots. The Jewish-American boxing experience is, despite the fact that it is oft-forgotten, a unique one; one that reflected, in many ways, “the social conditions of a subcommunity of

60 Ibid. 61 Levine, “From Ellis Island,” 180. 62 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 247. 63 “Natie Brown, Jewish Boxer,” American Jewish Historical Society, http://www.ajhs.org/hai/entry.cfm?id=62. 64 Levine, “From Ellis Island,” 178. 65 Ibid., 157. 10

marginal second-generation new immigrants.”66 Boxing provided, for Jewish youths of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a chance to earn money, and gain fame. But more importantly, it provided Jewish youths with a way to both stand up for their race and integrate the Orthodoxy brought over by their parents into American life. Jewish boxers “proclaimed American Jews as a strong people capable of defending themselves against anti-Semites and doing what was necessary to protect their own country and the Jewish people.”67 Although the American Jewish pugilistic tradition is oft-overlooked by both historians of boxing and many American Jews, Jewish boxers remain today as both a symbol of Jewish strength and as a significant part of Jewish-American historical memory.68

66 Reiss, “A Fighting Chance,” 253. 67 Levine, “From Ellis Island,” 189. 68 Ibid. 11

For Reference:

The Traditional Eight Boxing Divisions 69 Flyweight (112 lbs.) Bantamweight (118 lbs.) Featherweight (126 lbs.) Lightweight (135 lbs.) Welterweight (147 lbs.) Middleweight (160 lbs.) Light Heavyweight (175 lbs.) Heavyweight (175 lbs.+)

69 "Weight divisions - Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia," BoxRec Boxing Records, http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Weight_divisions#Traditional_Eight_Divisions. 12

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