Review of Muscling in on New Worlds.pdf

(/DZUHQFH/HY\DQG0XVFXODU-XGDLVP²6SRUW&XOWXUHDQG$VVLPLODWLRQLQ1LQHWHHQWK&HQWX HGE\'DYLG0)DKH\DQG0XVFOLQJLQRQ1HZ:RUOGV-HZV6SRUWDQGWKH0DNLQJRIWKH$PHULFDV HGE\5DDQDQ5HLQ'DYLG0.6KHLQLQ UHYLHZ :LOOLDP06LPRQV -RXUQDORI6SRUW+LVWRU\9ROXPH1XPEHU6SULQJSS 5HYLHZ 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI,OOLQRLV3UHVV )RUDGGLWLRQDOLQIRUPDWLRQDERXWWKLVDUWLFOH KWWSVPXVHMKXHGXDUWLFOH Access provided by Tel Aviv University (14 Dec 2016 12:59 GMT) Reviews: Books and promulgation of the Doubleday genesis myth, Spalding, baseball pitcher, executive, and equipment manufacturer, made his game the national pastime and an instrument of cultural imperialism. As for the pursuits of other peoples, J. R. Hildebrand’s 1919 National Geographic commentary and photographs dismissed them as inferior. Andrews, Bustad, and Clevenger contend that the span 1880–1920 was the formative period for new and defining constructs: an American exceptionalism rooted in claims of superiority; a national self-image trumpeting the primacy of “youthful, rugged, creative and dynamic” (227) native-born white males, particularly those from the comfortable classes; and print media’s touting of emergent national pastimes as the exemplar of the preceding. American National Pastimes is an impressive academic work. To engage a larger audience, however, the editors might recast occasional repetitious and turgid writing, include photographs and graphs, and consolidate the overlapping list of references that follow each essay to create a comprehensive bibliography, particularly since detailed endnotes already identify chapter sources. Not all of the sports covered possess the depth or duration of support to qualify as national pastimes. Although the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, and Frederick Jackson Turner receive mention, explicit consideration of a greater range of seminal theories of national character would have enhanced some of the chapters: Michael Kammen’s emphasis on paradox, dualisms, and unresolved American contradictions, for example, might legitimatize the claims of competing pastimes. A concluding synthesis could impose order on oppositional claims. Nonetheless, the essays are uniformly informative, imaginative, and interesting in their exploration of the development of specific sports and their relationship to American society and culture. Scholars of American sport and their graduate students will find the book valuable for its content and as a spur to further work on the relationship between pastimes and national character. —William M. Simons State University of New York at Oneonta Fahey, David M., ed. E. Lawrence Levy and Muscular Judaism, 1851–1932: Sport, Culture, and Assimilation in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Together with “The Autobiography of an Athlete.” Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 538. Photographs, notes, index. $219.95, hc. Rein, Raanan, and David M. K. Sheinin, eds. Muscling in on New Worlds: Jews, Sport, and the Making of the Americas. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2014. Pp. xiii + 203. Notes, bibliography, index. $135.00, hc. The covers of both books under review feature photographs of bare-chested Jewish men displaying powerful physiques. Despite their original publication one hundred years apart, settings on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and divergent author vantage points, a pervasive concern with the bodies of Jewish males pervades the two volumes. Iconic Spring 2016 117 Journal of Sport History American bodybuilder and fitness entrepreneur Dan Lurie, imposing arms flexed and chest extended, fronts Muscling in on New Worlds. No other photograph appears in the book, and the text makes no mention of Lurie, but his outsized, Schwarzenegger-like torso sets the tone for the subsequent discussion. Even more striking, the E. Lawrence Levy and Muscular Judaism cover photograph displays the eponymous memoirist—serious, bespectacled, and bald—with Popeye arms folded across his chest. E. Lawrence Levy and Muscular Judaism relates the transformative tale of an AngloJewish sportsman. The republication of Levy’s autobiography, with a substantive introduction and light editing by historian David Fahey, merits attention. Primarily known for his late nineteenth-century weightlifting triumphs and strongman exhibitions, Levy writes in a cluttered and unreflective manner. In the early 1890s, Levy won British and international amateur weightlifting championships while establishing numerous records. He also excelled at several other sports, most notably gymnastics. Serving as an agent for the brewers’ association provided his vocational base, but Levy also was a school teacher and founding headmaster, theatrical performer and impresario, newspaper reporter and editor, lecturer, and author of several books, primarily related to his organizational affiliations. A devote of a potpourri of clubs, he devoted much time to conviviality. A denizen of Birmingham, Levy provided ballast for the Conservative Party in his home city and the surrounding Midlands. Levy’s was a busy, energetic life, though not one subject to much autobiographical introspection. Discretion and omissions render his memoir incomplete. Family life remains at a distance. There is limited commentary about the compatibility of an exemplar of physical culture defending the liquor trade. Nonetheless, details and tone yield significant, though incomplete, insight about a once well-known and now largely forgotten AngloJewish athlete. Fahey’s lucid introduction partially fills in ellipses concerning Levy’s family life, contextualizes the memoir, and acknowledges gaps. By intent, Fahey’s introduction is circumscribed. Aside from insertion of informational footnotes about individuals cited by Levy (primarily listing birth and death dates), elimination and addition of a few contemporary photographs, and augmentation of the original index of proper names, Fahey presents the Levy memoir essentially in the form of its original publication. Muscular Judaism pervades Levy’s depiction of his transformation from a narrow framed, 5' 4-½", twenty-five-year-old, with twelve-inch biceps into the powerful “Little Hercules” who measured seventeen inches around the upper arm. While claiming to eschew vanity and punctuating triumphs with self-deprecating wit, he recounts the specific inscriptions on many of the awards he garnered and indulges in ubiquitous name dropping. Published in 1913 when age and gout had ended his athletic career and death taken his wife, Levy took satisfaction in the life that he had made. Savoring memories and legacy, he relished the day a boy spied him on the street and cried out, “That’s Levy, the strong man” (180). While not religiously observant, Levy took pride in his Jewish identity, associated with fellow ethnics, and criticized anti-Semitism. Having won respect in gentile Britain, he sought to provide other Jews with a role model. Levy contradicted the stereotype of the Jewish weakling, and yet “unnatural” overdevelopment called attention to it. 118 Volume 43, Number 1 Reviews: Books Nineteenth-century anti-Semitism fed on negative stereotypes about the Jewish body. Muscling in on New Worlds, an anthology of nine eclectic essays by Jewish sports scholars, finds a recurrent theme in the assumption that past beliefs about the physical degeneracy of overintellectualized Jews continue to have social and cultural resonance among both Jews and gentiles even when contradicted by empirical evidence. For Jewish males, physical stereotypes still heighten anxiety about their masculinity, and Muscling in on New Worlds focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the experiences of Jewish men. Its title introduces both the Western Hemisphere and sports as “new worlds” for Jews, and “muscling in” conveys summoning force against resistance. Even as it heightened ethnic pride, Jewish “muscling in” sport symbolically and substantively reflected the struggle for acceptance and assimilation into the host society. Drawing on sport in the United States and Latin America, particularly Argentina, the articles in Muscling in on New Worlds reveal the multiple, nuanced, and constantly evolving identities of Jewish athletes and fans. Escape and reinvention have punctuated Jewish history, and the physicality of sport provides one platform for such fluidity. Collectively, the Muscling in on New Worlds articles exhibit considerable range. Enlarging the scope of normative discussion about Jewish sport, both by pastime and gender, Eleanor F. Odenheimer, Rebecca Buchanan, and Tanya Prewitt, for example, explore the syncretistic adaption of Hindu-based yoga to a Jewish ethos, with emphasis on the role of women in connecting the two. Jeffrey S. Gurock also augments the discussion, examining the growing acceptance of holiday observance and distinctive clothing—yarmulke head-covering for men and cloth-head covering for married women—of Orthodox Jews in collegiate and international athletic competition. Contemporary Orthodox Jewish athletes, more assertive about their religious rights than their predecessors, seek not integration but retention of their distinctiveness. Moreover, there are those Jews who overtly reject sport and the ethos that surrounds it. Anthology editors Raanan Rein and David M. K. Sheinin, both also contributors, have assembled an impressive collection of cutting-edge articles. The title of Sheinin’s boxing article, “What Ray Arcell Saw in the Shower,” references the discovery by a noted trainer that muscular showman Max Baer, briefly heavyweight champion (1934–35), was not circumcised despite the Star of David emblazoned on his trunks and his public marketing for Jewish fans. Following World War II, upward social mobility out of tough workingclass neighborhoods, asserts Sheinin, atrophied both the once notable Jewish ring presence and boxing fan base. In “My Bobeh Was Praying and Suffering for Atlanta,” coeditor Rein analyzes the strong, enduring identification of Buenos Aires’ Atlético Atlanta as a Jewish football (soccer) team even when demographic change no longer clearly validates that perception. Rein reports that rival fans hurl anti-Semitic epithets even at gentile partisans of Atlanta and that some of the oppositional spectators shouting ethnic slurs are themselves Jewish. Still, Jewish partisans of Atlanta have found their identification with the team’s victories both an integrative trajectory into Argentine society and a powerful source of vicarious power. Two articles explore popular culture. Focusing on the animated films Madagascar (2005) and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), which chronicle the journey of four escaped New York zoo animals back to their natural habitats in the wild, Nathan Abrams emphasizes that three of the main characters are voiced by Jewish actors associated with Spring 2016 119 Journal of Sport History urban nebbish roles. In particular, Abrams finds the difficulties encountered by Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) when confronted by the physical demands of nature a metaphor for the experience of Diaspora Jews. Alejandro Meter examines two Latin American novels, Isaac Goldemberg’s Play by Play and Ricardo Feierstein’s Mestizo, the former set in Peru and the latter in Argentina. Both novels, burnished by Meter’s nuanced analysis, illuminate the struggle of Jewish soccer players and fans to negotiate multiple identities. With the United States as their canvas, Gerald Gems and Rebecca Alpert provide companion articles. Gems synthesizes Jewish-American sport history over the past 150 years, contextualizing efforts by German Jewry to assimilate East European coreligionists through sport, women’s basketball, the emergence of notable Jewish athletes, the recruitment of elite Jewish athletes by non-Jewish organizations, Olympic controversies, obstacles to the attainment of “whiteness,” the melding of Jewish and American identities in postwar suburbs, and other core phenomena. Alpert conceptualizes the “macho-mensch” (108) model of the ideal Jewish-American athlete who combines athletic excellence, exemplary morals, and affirmation of Judaism. By “blending traditional Jewish and American masculinity into one” (109), the narratives of baseball Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax epitomize the macho-mensch. Conversely, through his use of performance-enhancing drugs and ambiguities of Jewish identity, contemporary baseball star Ryan Braun does not meet macho-mensch criteria. In the concluding article, “Redefining Jewish Athleticism,” Ari F. Sclar offers comparative treatment of the preceding articles. Sclar notes that trumpeting the few truly iconic Jewish athletes underlines the persistence of anxiety about ethnic masculinity and underscores for gentiles that these standard bearers are atypical of the Jewish experience. Exhorting future scholars, Sclar calls for emulation of the offerings in Muscling in on New Worlds by continuing to move beyond celebration of elite standard bearers and to probe further the complex, diverse meanings of Jewish participation in sport. If patient with digressive material, specialists in Anglo-Jewish sport history will find E. Lawrence Levy and Muscular Judaism a useful primary source. Given its originality, cross-culture perspective, challenging analysis, and proposals for new directions in future research, Muscling in on New Worlds comes highly recommended to sport scholars. The anthology does not pursue closure; rather it employs original paradigms, topics, and sources to advance the discussion of Jews and sport. —William M. Simons State University of New York at Oneonta Goldberg, Jeff. Unrivaled: UConn, Tennessee, and the Twelve Years That Transcended Women’s Basketball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + appendix, illustrations. $27.95, pb. In the summer of 1994, ESPN programmer Carol Stiff pitched an idea. Her concept was simple; however, it would prove revolutionary. She suggested the network create a marquee 120 Volume 43, Number 1