Beyond Stereotypes

American Jews and Sports

Ari F. Sclar

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781612493565
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Jewish Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In the decades after the Civil War, sports slowly gained a prominent position within American culture. This development provided Jews with opportunities to participate in one of the few American cultures not closed off to them. Jewish athleticism challenged anti-Semitic depictions of Jews supposed physical inferiority while helping to construct a modern American Jewish identity. An Americanization narrative emerged that connected Jewish athleticism with full acceptance and integration into American society. This acceptance was not without struggle, but Jews succeeded and participated in the American sporting culture as athletes, coaches, owners, and fans.

The diversity of topics in this volume reflect that the field of the history of American Jews and sports is growing and has moved beyond the need to overcome the idea that Jews are simply People of the Book. The contributions to this volume paint a broad picture of Jewish participation in sports, with essays written by respected historians who have examined specific sports, individuals, leagues, cities, and the impact of sport on Judaism. Despite the continued belief that Jewish religious or cultural identity remains somehow distinct from the American idea of the athlete, the volume demonstrates that American Jews have had a tremendous contribution to American sports and conversely, that sports have helped construct American Jewish culture and identity.

“The Disadvantage Far Outweighs the Benefits”:
How the Rise and Fall of “the Jewish Game” at the 92nd Street YMHA Exemplified Jewish Conceptions of Athleticism

by Ari F. Sclar

In 1891, in the midst of America’s transformation into an urban, industrial society, basketball was invented at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) as a way to teach the “right kind of manhood” through clean, amateur play.¹ In the ensuing decades, as Jews found their own space within American sports, Young Men’s Hebrew Associations (YMHAs) and Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) hoped in a similar fashion to use sports to serve the dual purpose of Americanizing the children of immigrants and dispelling stereotypes of Jewish physical weakness and inferiority (Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field; Riess). Jewish institutional basketball paralleled the rise of a Jewish basketball culture that peaked during the interwar period and then rapidly declined in the post-World War II era. But at the height of its popularity, basketball came to be viewed by many as the “Jewish Game,” due to the large number of Jewish players in public schools, colleges, and professional leagues.² Institutions, such as the 92nd Street YMHA, in particular, used basketball to promote themselves as well as to finance their athletic departments, especially prior to World War II. The standard and somewhat simplistic explanation for the decline of Jewish basketball after the War is that Jews no longer needed to produce top athletes, because they had already successfully integrated into mainstream society. This explanation helps explain the rise and fall of institutional Jewish basketball, at least in part, but it does not take into account the complex, cultural dynamics that shaped the arc of Jewish basketball from success to its decline.

A close look at the unpublished files of the YMHA and other related archives indicates that the actual circumstance was more nuanced and, in fact, reveals a good deal about how Jews thought (and continue to think) about their role, both on the court and off. Rather than existing solely as a positive force, basketball at the 92nd Street YMHA and elsewhere came to be viewed as a mixed bag. Jews at the YMHA had an idealistic concept of what sports—in particular basketball—should be, and this had to be weighed against the competitive and commercial pressures inherent to what a sport like basketball really was. The inability of the directors of the YMHA and its related institutions to resolve the basic dilemma of their dual-vision of basketball would be partly responsible for the downfall of the institutional culture. And as a result, basketball, which had been the quintessential sport at the YMHAs and JCCs, was the “Jewish Game” no longer.

Founded in 1874, the New York YMHA (renamed the 92nd Street YMHA in 1900) developed an extensive program of literary, social, educational, and religious classes and clubs in its early years. Physical activity, however, remained only a minimal part of the broader program, and in May 1890, YMHA director H. Pereira Mendes addressed “our failure to provide attraction for our young men.” The YMHA could not compete with organizations such as the “German Halle near our institution,” which offered “gymnastic instruction and that active exercise in which all healthy men take delight.” Mendes believed that sports and recreation needed to become a more prominent component of the Association and would function as a means to attract Jewish young men (Mendes, Letter to the President and Directors of the YMHA, May 24, 1890). The YMHA briefly established a Committee on Physical Culture and offered billiards, checkers, and chess to its membership. In 1897, officials suggested “forming of a baseball or bicycle club for the summer to attract the Jewish young men of the neighborhood” (Board of Directors, YMHA, “Minutes,” June 1893–January 1898). Some “young men,” who wanted a more formal athletic environment, formed the YMHA Athletic Club in 1898 as a member-controlled but subordinate organization within the larger YMHA. Within weeks of the club’s founding, however, the YMHA’s superintendent suspended a prominent member “for boisterous conduct in the Gym,” and for “refusing to stop his tomfoolery” (“William Mitchell Journal,” September 21, 1898). Despite this incident, Association officials recognized the club’s importance since it “promotes good-fellowship among the Gymnasium members and helps maintain the grade of work.”³ Nonetheless, Mendes’ plea did not directly lead to the development of competitive sports in the 1890s, as the athletic club focused exclusively on gymnastics, and there was no mention of basketball at the Association during the decade. This may have been due in part to the limitation of the facilities, and the YMHA eventually did expand beyond the general gymnasium work of calisthenics and gymnastic exhibitions after the construction of a new building on 92nd Street in May 1900. Interestingly, at least to judge from the data in the YMHA’s own files, the emergence of the stereotype of the weak unathletic Jew during the 1890s seemingly had little initial impact on the institutional thinking in developing the athletic program.

Still, outside the Association’s walls, this was very much a live issue. Sports’ widening popularity in the late nineteenth century led to comparisons of the athletic abilities of different nations, and some commentators noted Jews’ absence from the annals of sports history. In 1892, George Alfred Townsend argued in The Chatauquan: “the law of Moses, omitting social and athletic amusements … weakened his [the “Hebrew’s”] moral influence while making him commercially eminent and superior.” Three years later, the North American Review celebrated Anglo-Saxon physical superiority in comparison to other “civilized nations” and charged: “The Jews, who alone refuse active exertion, either as a means of livelihood or as a source of amusement, are perhaps the sole instance of a successful people … who explicitly or implicitly reject the duty of exercise; this no doubt is a survival of the oriental feeling that the burden of labor should fall on slaves.” Similar in tone, though with less derogatory rhetoric, the elite sporting magazine Outing noted in 1899 that, “the Jews in all nations and times have produced … their share of leaders in art, in drama, in music, in literature, and in law; in fact, in all those walks of life in which intellectual acumen and close application to books, and to the study of mankind, is the main force; but they have hitherto, as a people, shown little aptitude for, or application to, the sports of the field and of sustained interest in outdoor recreation” (Jones 639–40; Turner 452).

In these articles, one can see the depiction of “the Jews” as a group of “90-pound weaklings” (to borrow a term made popular by body-builder Charles Atlas) who had developed intellectual and commercial abilities that compensated for their lack of physical ability. Outing’s isolation of Jewish “intellectual acumen” conceded a certain element of praise, but also left the unmistakable implication that traditional Jewish culture simply did not include a physical component. Outing praised members of an elite Jewish country club who had “somewhat broken away from tradition” due to the “more settled conditions resulting from their civic and religious freedom in America.”⁴ The author also indicated that American freedom allowed Jews to overcome perceived negative cultural components that had opposed “outdoor recreation.” These articles brought no response from Association officials, and there was minimal attention given to the stereotype in the Bulletin in the early 1900s. It is unclear whether such rhetorical condemnation of Jewish athletic inferiority directly impacted and influenced the leadership policy of the YMHA, but what is clear is that basketball initially served an institutional purpose that had little to do with the stereotype of the weak Jew.

Institutional basketball is often portrayed as being used by the leadership as a way to dispel stereotypes, but at the YMHA it was the members rather than officials who initiated the formation of a basketball team.⁵ The initial notice of YMHA basketball occurred in the November 1900 issue of the institution’s YMHA Bulletin, and simply noted, “a basket-ball team is being formed.” The following month, the Bulletin expanded its coverage and declared that the squad “appeared in their new uniforms, and the effect was dazzling.” The Bulletin also noted that a series of victories was “the best evidence of the pluck and grit of our players” (YMHA Bulletin, December 1900). Yet, “pluck and grit” were not necessarily the attributes that YMHA officials wanted its members to learn through basketball. They had a more idealistic vision of what role basketball should play in the development of Jewish manhood. In January 1901, for example, the Bulletin again featured the basketball team and stated:

Our men are beginning to realize the great possibilities for physical improvement to be derived from the game and are doing all in their power to make it clean, healthful, and sportsmanlike. The captain, George Hyman deserves the credit for his endeavors to eliminate all rough playing and make the sport one in which players can win a victory with becoming modesty or accept a defeat without bitter feeling. It rests with the players to make the game all that it should be, and they can then depend upon the good will and active co-operation of the officials of the YMHA. (YMHA Bulletin, January 1901)

This passage illustrates a number of issues central to basketball’s early development at the 92nd Street YMHA. The importance of keeping the game clean and without “rough playing” was essential to the belief that basketball should impart correct values and behavior when played according to its original intentions. As an instructional game, basketball was intended to teach self-control and cooperative team play, while competitiveness was simply a means to accomplish these ends and not an end unto itself. The clean play of amateur basketball ensured that the game would remain free from the taint of professionalism, which physical educators believed inevitably led to detrimental behaviors such as gambling, disrespect toward officials and opponents, and—the most destructive force of all—victory for its own sake (Horger 40–45). While the Bulletin did not explicitly link rough play with professionalism, the passage insinuates that YMHA officials were watching closely and ready to intervene to discourage what they deemed to be improper behavior. When problems arose at the end of 1901, the YMHA quickly moved to eliminate basketball games with outside teams, and while it is unclear whether rough play caused this abandonment, the 1902 Annual Report declared that “intense rivalry and limited quarters” influenced the decision.⁶ This suspension lasted almost two years, but the attempt to tightly control basketball at the institution proved to be more difficult and required more than the temporary elimination of games against outside teams.

In January 1902, the same month the YMHA suspended competitive basketball, the Association clearly stated its attitude toward sports in a Bulletin article entitled “Athletic ‘Specialists’.” The article declared that members would “derive great benefit” from physical activities, and warned, “the gymnasium was not to be used for training athletes, but rather for developing the physical condition of its members” (YMIHA Bulletin, January 1902). Such an attitude meant that YMHA officials initially desired to keep their distance from the competitive basketball world. Nonetheless, in November 1903, the resumption of outside competition was accompanied by an admission-charge to all games. Unlike the initial admission fee established in 1901, whose aim had been to decrease attendance, the new admission charge served purely financial ends and thus was a tacit nod to the commercial advantage that could be offered by basketball for the benefit of the YMHA. Officials requested that “since the money is to go toward the vacation camp fund everybody ought to patronize them [basketball games]” (Sperling).

The same month that the YMHA resumed outside games, it joined the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which had taken over as amateur basketball’s ruling body after the YMCA stopped trying to control the sport.⁷ Basketball was originally viewed by physical educators as an instructional game to shape behavior toward a positive social end by teaching its participants team work, obedience, and what was ambiguously defined as “American” values. Before the end of the 1890s, however, professionalism, commercialism, and rough play intruded on the game’s supposed purity and decentralized the sport (Horger 1–35). The AAU realistically understood it could not eliminate professional basketball, but the Union sought to contain it and prevent it from spreading into amateur competition by banning non-registered players and teams from all AAU competitions. In the 1890s, the AAU Basketball Committee had implemented a registration plan to combat the influence of professionalism in basketball and forbade AAU teams from playing even independent, or non-AAU, amateur teams (Horger 67–72).

For the 92nd Street YMHA, membership in the AAU made competitive basketball more visible but, in doing so, it also introduced new pressures that necessitated some practical measures. More serious competition led to organized practice, representative teams, and a hierarchical athletic structure. After the YMHA’s representative team went winless in five games at the 1904 Metropolitan AAU championship, the Association hosted the tournament in 1905. The tournament “attracted several thousands [spectators] … many of whom had never heard of the Association,” and generated almost $150 from tournament receipts for the YMHA. Despite this financial benefit, Association officials maintained the idealistic stance that the AAU tournament was held because of the “belief that all amateur sport should be put on a high plane and kept free from professionalism” (“The Recent Basketball Tournament”; Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Thirty-First Annual Report, 1905). These same officials also claimed that the AAU tournament directly increased basketball’s popularity at the YMHA, as reflected by the presence of more than twenty teams by 1906.

Association officials recognized the sport’s popularity and appeal to spectators, but they continued to try to restrain competitive basketball. A 1906 Bulletin article entitled “Basketball and Morals” stated:

A boy who learns by his athletic life to do everything he can honorably to win, but to submit cheerfully to defeat rather than indulge in trickery and meanness, will carry the same spirit in all his recreation, in all his after life … it is not simply a question of physical exercise and physical development, but that a great moral question is involved … character must be put above victory. Basketball is a splendid game for the making of character one of the best [sic]. (“Basketball and Morals”)

Attempts to minimize the importance of athletic specialization conflicted with some members’ aspirations, especially those who formed the Atlas Athletic Club, which had changed its name from the YMHA Athletic Club in order to function “without being interfered with by the YMHA.” The club had been formed ostensibly to encourage physical culture, but members primarily focused on competitive sports in the early 1900s. They found the YMHA generally unwilling to cater to their desires, and when the club was refused the use of the gymnasium for basketball practice in November 1906, Atlas president Henry Lang informed YMHA officials that the club had decided “to sever its connection … it was a case of existing without advancing … we have been fully cognizant … of the inability of the Association to specialize in the direction of and cater to athletics.” At the formal opening of Atlas’ new clubhouse, YMHA superintendent William Mitchell told the club, “it is necessary that you stick to your resolution to do purely athletic work, to the end that you may draw to your club the many young Jewish athletes who at present are barred from other clubs” (YMHA Bulletin, M...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Editorial Introduction
• A Stack of Jewish Baseball Cards: Some Thoughts on Jews and the Roles They Have Played in the Major Leagues
• Racial Attitudes towards Jews in the “Negro Leagues”: The Case of Effa Manley
• American Jewish Women on the Court: Seeking an Identity in Tennis in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century
• Answering to a Different Authority in Sports: The Trials of Coach Jonathan Halpert and the Limits of Yeshiva University’s Athletic Success in Basketball
• “The Disadvantage Far Outweighs the Benefits”: How the Rise and Fall of “the Jewish Game” at the 92nd Street YMHA Exemplified Jewish Conceptions of Athleticism
• From Suburbanites to Sabras and Back: How Jewish Americans Established Lacrosse in Israel
• About the Contributors
• The USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life