1. Al Lurie in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, April 25, 1947. Cited in Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 153.
2. Baseball-Almanac.com, “Jewish baseball players.”
3. Steven A. Riess, City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. 116.
4. Goldman, Herbert (ed.), The Ring Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia 1985 Edition (New York: The Ring Bookshop).
5. JewsInSports.com, “Boxing.”
6. Arne K. Lange, Prizefighting: An American History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), p. 77.
7. Interview with the author, June 23, 2014.
8. Ron Ross, “Morris Reif Passes Away,” International Boxing Research Journal, Issue 120, December 2013, p. 30.
1. Elliot Gorn, The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 205.
1. Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History (New York, London: Simon & Schuster, 1989), p. 13.
2. Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern, Poverty in Twentieth-Century America, Working Paper No. 7, November 2007, p. 6.
3. Ibid., p. 7.
4. Adam J. Pollack, In the Ring with James J. Corbett (Iowa City: WIN BY KO Publications, 2012), p. 16.
5. David Margolick, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 205.
6. Ibid., p. 38.
7. Ibid.
8. Chicago Jewish News, Online Edition, April 2005.
9. Cited in Hertzberg, The Jews in America, p. 203.
10. Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, p. 152.
11. Quoted by Pete Hamill in the documentary, Boxing in America, ESPN, 2004.
12. Kasia Body, Boxing: A Cultural History (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2008), p. 282.
13. Don Cogswell, “Boxing’s Good Book,” Journal of the International Boxing Research Organization, Issue 91, September 27, 2006, p. 33.
14. Ibid.
15. Murray Rose, “Farewell to Stillman’s,” Boxing Illustrated (February 1962), p. 19.
16. Dara Kahn, “Yiddish: The Mamloshen Lives,” B’nai B’rith Magazine (Spring 2013), p. 23.
17. Allen Bodner, When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), p. 17.
1. Quoted in Pat Putnam, “Benny Leonard: Fabulous Ghetto Wizard,” TheSweetScience.com (September 1, 2005).
2. Documentary: The Gentleman Prizefighter, Fastnet Films, 2013.
3. Mike Silver, The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), p. 19.
4. Riess, City Games, p. 116.
5. Ibid.
6. Nat Fleischer, The Ring Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia, 1960 Edition (New York: The Ring Bookshop).
7. J. J. Johnston and Don Cogswell, Uncrowned Champions, (Los Angeles: Blurb Publications, 2011), p. 102.
8. Ibid.
9. Jeffrey T. Sammons, Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), pp. 48–49.
10. Hertzberg, The Jews in America, p. 140.
11. Riess, Sports and the American Jew, p. 18.
12. Steven A. Riess (ed.), Sports and the American Jew (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1998), p. 62.
13. Christopher Rivers (ed., translator), Jack Johnson: My Life and Battles (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), p. 32.
14. William Schutte, The Fighting Dentist: The Boxing Career of Dr. Leach Cross (Fullerton, CA: Self-published, 1977), p. 19.
15. Ibid., p. 36.
16. Colleen Aycock and Mark Scott, Tex Rickard: Boxing’s Greatest Promoter (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), p. 67.
17. Ibid., p. 66.
18. Ibid., p. 169.
19. Mike Casey, “Benny Leonard: Golden Talent of a Golden Age,” East Side Boxing, www.boxing247.com/ weblog/archives/122454, (January 16, 2009).
20. Pat Putnam, “Benny Leonard: Fabulous Ghetto Wizard,” TheSweetScience.com (September 1, 2005).
21. Franklin Foer and Mark Tracy (eds.), Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame (New York & Boston: Twelve, 2012), p. 24.
22. Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 11.
23. Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, p. 159.
24. Author’s interview with Philadelphia boxing historian Chuck Hasson, January 26, 2012.
25. John D. McCallum, Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions (Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Co., 1975), p. 87.
26. Stanley Weston and Steven Farhood, The Ring: Boxing in the Twentieth Century (New York: BDD Illustrated Books, 1993), p. 31.
27. Herbert G. Goldman, Boxing: A Worldwide Record of Bouts and Boxers, Vol. 4 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), pp. 1482–83.
28. Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, p. 167.
1. Bob Considine and Bill Slocum, Dempsey by the Man Himself (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 11.
2. Figures provided by Boxrec.com and the American Association of Boxing Commissions.
3. Riess, Sports and the American Jew, p. 84.
4. Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America (New York: Vintage, 1993), p. 353.
5. Margolick, Beyond Glory, 2005), p. 38.
6. David Margolick, “Max Schmeling, German Boxer, Is Dead at 99,” New York Times, February 4, 2005.
7. Randy Roberts, Joe Louis: Hard Times Man (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 164.
8. “Jews and Sports in Poland before the Second World War,” by Diethelm Blecking, in Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIII, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn (USA: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 21–22.
9. Ibid., p. 21.
10. Ibid., p. 27.
11. Michael Berkowitz and Ruti Ungar, eds., Fighting Back: Jewish and Black Boxers in Britain (London: Jewish Museum, 2004), p. 6.
12. Gerald R. Gems, Boxing: A Concise History of the Sweet Science (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), p. 93.
13. Tony Collins, “Jews, Anti-Semitism, and Sports in Britain, 1900–1939” in Emancipation through Muscles: Jews and Sport in Europe, eds. Michael Brenner and Gideon Reuveni (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), p. 149.
14. Figures compiled by British boxing historian Miles Templeton (www.boxinghistory.org.uk).
15. Silver, The Arc of Boxing, pp. 51–54.
16. Ibid., p. 56.
17. Ibid., p. 57.
18. Ibid.
19. Warren Grover, Nazis in Newark (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), pp. 48–52.
20. John Harding with Jack Kid Berg, Jack Kid Berg: The Whitechapel Windmill (London: Robson Books, 1987), p. 103.
21. John Jarrett, Champ in the Corner: The Ray Arcel Story (Gloucestershire: Stadia), p. 42.
22. Harding, Jack Kid Berg, p. 105.
23. www.Jewishfilm.org, website for The National Center for Jewish Film.
24. Marv Moss, “Maxie Berger: Fighter and Referee,” Montreal Gazette, February 23, 1972, p. 19.
25. Ken Blady, The Jewish Boxers’ Hall of Fame (New York: Shapolsky, 1988), p. 133.
26. Robert Trumbull, “AMA, Citing Danger, Asks [for] Abolition of Boxing,” New York Times, December 6, 1984.
27. “Feldman Conquers Lewis in 10 Rounds,” New York Times, July 25, 1935.
28. “Forgotten Men of Boxing,” Boxing & Wrestling (November 1957), p. 60.
29. Ibid., p. 63.
30. Ibid. p. 64.
31. Pollack, In the Ring with James J. Corbett, p. 332.
32. Harvey Marc Zucker and Lawrence J. Babich, Sports Films: A Complete Reference (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1987), pp. 53–144.
33. Ruby Goldstein, as told to Frank Graham, Third Man in the Ring (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1959), pp. 47–48.
34. Ibid., pp. 60–61.
35. Dave Anderson, “Izzy’s Posters,” New York Times, September 26, 1976, Sports Section, p. S5.
36. Blady, The Jewish Boxers’ Hall of Fame, p. 182.
37. “Kaplan Is Victor at the Queensboro,” New York Times, July 18, 1928, p. 17.
38. McCallum, Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions, p. 160.
39. Joseph C. Nichols, “Battering Attack Enables Braddock to Triumph over Lasky at Garden Bout,” New York Times, March 23, 1935, p. 19.
40. Michael Silver, “Ray Arcel: Trainer of Champions,” The Ring, September 1980, p. 76.
41. Robert Ecksell, “Ray Arcel: Dean of Them All,” Boxing.com website, January 8, 2013.
42. Ibid.
43. Gilbert Odd, The Woman in the Corner: Her Influence on Boxing (London: Pelham Books, 1978), p. 33.
44. Ibid., p. 35.
45. Sammy Luftspring, Call Me Sammy (Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice Hall of Canada, Ltd., 1975), p. 180.
46. David Wallechinsky and Jaime Loucky, The Complete Book of the Olympics: The 2012 Edition (London: Aurum Press, 2012).
47. Weston and Farhood, The Ring: Boxing in the Twentieth Century, p. 61.
48. Yossi Katz, A Voice Called: Stories of Jewish Heroism (Jerusalem and New York: Gefen Publishing House, 2010), p. 77.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p. 78.
51. Joseph Siegman, Jewish Sports Legends, Fourth Edition (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), p. 291.
52. Harry Cleavelin, “Augie Ratner: Champ without a Crown!,” Boxing Illustrated (February 1967), pp. 39–40.
53. Peter Heller, In This Corner. . . ! Forty World Champions Tell Their Stories (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), p. 86.
54. Ibid., p. 93.
55. Lester Bromberg, World’s Champs (USA: Retail Distributors, Inc., 1958), p. 72.
56. Ibid.
57. Robert E. Tomasson, “Maxie Rosenbloom Dead; Boxer and Actor was 71,” New York Times, March 8, 1976, p. 27.
58. Douglas Century, Barney Ross (New York: Nextbooks/Schocken, 2006), pp. 66—67.
59. Ibid., p. 59.
60. Martin Abramson, No Man Stands Alone: The True Story of Barney Ross (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1957), p. 167.
61. Century, Barney Ross, p. 119.
62. Ibid., p. 122.
63. Century, Barney Ross, p. 146.
64. New York Times, “Abe Simon, Who Lost to Louis For Championship Twice, Dies,” October 25, 1969, p. 33.
1. Bill Goodman, interview by author, July 17, 2007.
2. Kevin Baker, “The Case for the Draft,” American Heritage, Vol. 54, Issue 3 (June/July 2003), p. 16.
3. Riess, City Games, p. 116.
4. John R. Tunis, “Sad State of the Boxing Business, New York Times, Sunday Magazine section, November 6, 1949, p. 26.
5. Bill Goodman, interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 40.
6. Sammons, Beyond the Ring, p. 149.
7. Ibid., pp. 139–40, 149–52.
8. McCallum, Encyclopedia of World Champions, p. xix.
9. Arthur Daley, “Is Boxing on the Ropes?” New York Times, Sunday Magazine section, January 31, 1954, p. 25.
10. Nat Fleischer, Fifty Years at Ringside (New York: Fleet Publishing, 1958), p. 274.
11. Alter F. Landesman, Brownsville: The Birth, Development, and Passing of a Jewish Community in New York (New York: Bloch Publishing Co., 1969), p. 96.
12. Yossi Katz, A Voice Called: Stories of Jewish Heroism (Jerusalem and New York: Gefen Publishing, 2010), p. 106.
13. Ibid., p. 107.
14. Seymour “Sy” Brody, Jewish Heroes in America (Delray Beach, FL: RSB Publishers, 1995), pp. 139–40.
15. Manchester Guardian, May 23, 1936, cited in A. J. Sherman, Island Refuge: Britain and the Refugees from the Third Reich 1933–1939 (London: Elek Books, 1973), p. 112.
16. Anthony Hughes, Sport and Jewish Identity in the Shanghai Jewish Community 1938–1949, International Sports Studies, vol. 21, no. 1 (Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales, 2001), p. 49.
17. Ibid., p. 48.
18. Yaacov Lieberman, My China: Jewish Life in the Orient 1900–1950 (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 1998), p. 140.
19. Ibid., p. 137.
20. “Vic Herman,” www.HeraldScotland.com.
21. Gabriel N. Finder, “Boxing for Everyone: Jewish DPs, Sports, and Boxing,” in Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry: vol. XXIII, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn (USA: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 36–37, 45.
22. See www.spielbergfilmarchive.org.il.
23. Phillip Grammes, “Sports in the DP Camps, 1945–1948” in Emancipation Through Muscles: Jews and Sports in Europe, eds. Michael Brenner and Gideon Reuveni (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), p. 187. Reprinted in Ezra Mendelsohn (ed.) Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Judaism Vol. XXIII, p. 49.
24. Bodner, When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport, p. 172.
25. Sugar Ray Robinson with Dave Anderson, Sugar Ray (New York: Viking Press, 1969), pp. 139–40.
26. Alan Scott Haft, Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006).
27. Anat Helman, “Sports in the Young State of Israel,” in Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Judaism, Vol. XXIII, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn (USA: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 104.
28. “Israel’s Boxing Association Unites Arab and Jewish Youths,” AP Online, July 5, 2012.
29. James P. Dawson, “Beau Jack Halts Reif in 4th Round,” New York Times, Sports Section, January 6, 1946, p. 8.
30. Transcript of Mogen David kosher wine commercial.
31. Eric Lax, Woody Allen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 47.
32. YouTube Broadcast of Jackie Mason (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgE2AXkanR8).
33. Hank Bordowitz, Billy Joel: The Life and Hard Times of an Angry Young Man Revisited (New York: Billboard Books, 2006), p. 39.
34. Fred Schruers, Billy Joel (New York: Crown Archetype, 2014), p. 30.
1. Silver, The Arc of Boxing, pp. 51–52.
2. Jack Newfield, “The Shame of Boxing,” The Nation (November 12, 2001), p. 14.
3. Jim Brady, Boxing Confidential: Power, Corruption, and the Biggest Prize in Sport (Lytham Lancashire, UK: Milo Books Ltd., 2002), p. 165.
4. Tony Arnold, interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 207.
5. Michael Capriano Jr., interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 119.
6. Ibid., p. 100.
7. Wilbert “Skeeter” McClure, interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 64.
8. Bill Goodman, interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, pp. 100, 120.
9. Bill Goodman, unpublished interview by author, November 2, 2013.
10. Teddy Atlas, interview by author, in Silver, The Arc of Boxing, p. 120.
11. Philip Roth, The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), p. 28.