Judaism's Encounter with American Sports by Jeffrey S. GurockMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
An interesting way to look at the history of Jews in America. Gurock tells the story of how Jewish communities approached athletics from the earliest days up through the early 2000s. The first two chapters do also look at Jewish views of sport and athletics from ancient times up through the modern era. The focus is almost entirely on participation in sport, with only a bit here and there about Jewish fandom.
The main theme of the history is unsurprising: the tension between the pull of athletics and the religious laws. From ancient days to the twenty-first century: the main question is does participation in sports conflict with religious duties and if so, what to do about it. The different Jewish movements, orthodoxy, reform, etc., answer these questions differently. These differences, like in may other areas of American Jewry, leads to many intra-Jewish conflicts. The development and differences between the Y, the JCC, and the synagogue as Jewish communal centers was fascinating.
A secondary theme here is how sports participation becomes a marker of acceptance in American society. The negative view of this, from stricter corners of the orthodox world, is that it is a marker of assimilation and loss of Jewishness.
Overall, readable and interesting. Though at times, the minute details of the internecine battles between Yeshivas about how far to go with participation got a bit tedious.
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