Since we personally know a couple of badass Jewboy fighters, our hearts swelled with pride to learn that Jewish boxing had a “golden age” between 1910-1940, boasting 26 Jewish champions with names like Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom and Daniel Peltz.
They tell this story about Benny Leonard, fighting Irish Eddie Finnegan in a dusty coal-mining town, early part of the last century. The crowd, fueled by booze and bigotry, screamed for Finnegan to ‘kill the k*ke.’ Leonard, furious, lashed at Finnegan, staggering him repeatedly. Grappling into a clinch, Finnegan pleaded for mercy, gasping in Yiddish that his real name was Seymour Rosenbaum.
Read the whole article or better yet, check out the exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
Photo by Charles Miller of jewishboxers.com.
Rocky was jewish
i was just surprised to see that you hadn’t already heard about this – you know there was a Jewish Bullfighter as well, right?
There are also a couple of of Jewish cagefighters in Ultimate Fighting.