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How Arnold Horween, an unsung Jewish Harvard hero, changed American sports
(JTA) — Decades before Sandy Koufax sat out the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, and 18 years before Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record in the late 1930s, a college athlete made some overlooked Jewish sports history.
Arnold Horween, a burly Chicagoan, became the first Jewish captain of the Harvard University football team in 1920 — an achievement that sent ripples through American culture.
Horween, who would later play and coach in the early years of what would become the NFL, was born to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. He became a star player at Harvard, helping the Crimson go undefeated in both 1919 and 1920 after returning from serving in World War I. (His brother Ralph also played at Harvard and in the NFL, and they were the first and only Jewish brothers to play in the NFL until Geoff and Mitchell Schwartz.)
But it was Horween’s unanimous selection as the team’s captain, and more importantly, his appointment in 1926 as the team’s coach, that would prove unprecedented.
“In American Jewish culture, the only thing greater than being the captain of the Harvard Crimson, the only higher station in American culture might have been the president, or the coach of Harvard, which he eventually becomes,” said Zev Eleff, the president of Gratz College and a scholar of American Jewish history.
Eleff explores Horween’s story and its impact in his recent book, “Dyed in Crimson: Football, Faith, and Remaking Harvard’s America,” released earlier this year. He traces the history of Harvard athletics in the early 1900s, exploring how Horween, along with Harvard’s first athletic director, Bill Bingham, altered the landscape of America’s most prestigious college.
Horween’s ascendance came at a time when Harvard instituted quotas to limit the number of Jewish and other minority students it accepted — a practice the school would employ throughout the 1920s and 30s. His story also took place amid a political landscape that featured the rise of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic “radio priest,” and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan.
As Eleff underscores in the book, Horween did not fit the model of a “Boston Brahmin,” the class of elite, Christian, aspirationally manly men whose supremacy was unquestioned at Harvard Yard. Horween broke that mold, instead instilling a team culture where a love of the sport was almost as important as winning — the Ted Lasso effect, if you will.
“Dyed in Crimson” also uses early 20th century Harvard as an allegory for the broader theme of how sports can change society.
“The theme of the book, something that’s uniquely American, is how the periphery can influence the mainstream,” said Eleff. “How people on the sidelines can really make an influence.”
Eleff spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about how Horween’s story fits into the pantheon of Jewish American sports legends and what it says about Jews’ ability to succeed in America.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s dig into Horween’s story. I liked the idea of him as like an earlier version of Koufax or a Greenberg, but to be honest, I had never heard of him. Why do you think his story isn’t as well known as other Jewish athletes?
I think it has everything to do with the emergence of Major League Baseball. College football was America’s sport in the 1910s and 1920s. It was a big money sport, when there was very little money outside of the New York Yankees. And I think that Horween’s star started to sort of decline with Harvard football, but also the emergence of other sports.
The other reason is because the idea of the Jewish ballplayer loomed large. The New York Giants, for decades, tried to identify a Jewish superstar. They actually passed on Greenberg. There was a thought after Greenberg that there was Jewish DNA for baseball, and the signing of Koufax was directly linked to this notion. It was this eugenics-like link that you need a Jewish ballplayer. For the Giants, it was ticket sales. So the commotion about Greenberg and Koufax is more about Jewish identity. And baseball is, as a professional sport in New York, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, different than college football, particularly in New England at this time. Frankly, Jews lived near the Polo Grounds, they didn’t live near Harvard Yard.
Arnold Horween shown in The Baltimore Sun on November 16, 1927. (Wikimedia Commons)
For Horween, obviously he’s not at the level of a Greenberg or Koufax talent-wise, but he also didn’t seem to care as much personally about his Jewish identity. You write in the book that there were some Jews who took issue with the fact that Horween was not practicing, but there were also many Jews who were simply proud he was Jewish. What do you think about that dynamic?
There becomes a sort of disconnect between lived religion and the perception and what they come to represent — the mantle that they wear almost towers above the practice. Horween eschewed the opportunity to claim the mantle of Jewish leadership, Jewish celebrity. But we do see in its moment that he is the topic of rabbinic sermons, that The American Hebrew and other Jewish press are reporting on him. They are elated. In American Jewish culture, the only thing greater than being the captain of the Harvard Crimson — it’s hard for people to realize, but in the moment when they were part of the big three [alongside Princeton and Yale] — the only higher station in American culture might have been the president, or the coach of Harvard, which he eventually becomes.
One of the parts of this book that I enjoyed learning about is the extent to which college football in the early 20th century was all about honor, masculinity, gentlemanliness. And at the time, that kind of stands in contrast to how Jews were viewed — that Jews were not masculine, Jews couldn’t fit into that mold of the “Harvard man.”
Being on the sports team, that was probably far beyond Jewish expectations. Not to say that Jews could not be athletic, but very often the varsity players weren’t picked for their talent but rather their surnames. What the sea change at Harvard is, [within] gentlemanly culture — in which “gentlemanly” is a Protestant, Christian masculinity — Horween is not Protestant. What allows him a pathway into that elite group is that drive to win. And as a player, he’s good luck. He never loses. He becomes a signature player for victory who even wins the Rose Bowl.
But as a coach, he subverts that. What he and Bill Bingham do is their campaign isn’t necessarily for winning, it’s for having fun, it’s for enjoying the game.
In the 1910s and 20s, college football was the peak of American sports, but that’s certainly not the case anymore. What do you think would be the modern comparison for someone like Horween?
Is Becky Hammon with the Spurs, the first woman [to act as] head coach in basketball, something like that? Or the very important discussions about people of color as coaches in the NFL? Sports and education are, for some reason or another, where change is made in American life. Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 ends, at least officially, segregation. Title IV, what is basically American law for anti-discrimination based on sex, is based on women’s college sports. You have the breaking down of color barriers and Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Vietnam. You have the first [openly] gay athletes, you have questions of breaking the glass ceiling for women and Serena Williams.
It’s absolutely 100% true that sports doesn’t matter. Who wins the World Series is of no great consequence to most people’s lives. Although it’s interesting, if you drive up I-95 on a Sunday, you will see that the bumper stickers and the flags change. There is some sort of passion, obviously, about sport. But it’s absolutely true that for some reason or another in the 20th century and 21st century in American sport, really important social and cultural decisions, and political decisions, are made in American sport.
Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College and author of “Dyed in Crimson.” (Courtesy)
Another main topic in the book is that the goal for immigrants, especially Jews, was Americanization, assimilation — that to become part of the mainstream was the marker of success. But that seems to be the case for Jews in a very different sense than it is for Catholics and for Blacks.
The major contribution of this book to American Jewish history beyond telling this story is to complicate notions of Americanization. Jews and Catholics in particular view Americanization very, very differently. The Catholic experience is to create parallel systems. If you’re a good Catholic boy with immense football talent, play for Notre Dame, play for Boston College. Don’t play for the Protestant mainstream. Cream them on the football field. Create parallel systems.
The Jewish experience is not so. Outside of Orthodox day schools in the early 20th century, it was anathema, it was considered almost heretical, for American Jews to [go] to private schools. To the contrary, the so-called golden citadels of the public schools — that is the agent of Americanization. Jews don’t establish their own educational systems. They somehow Americanize and acculturate into the mainstream. We don’t compete with Harvard, we get into Harvard.
Thinking about the antisemitism of that time — the quotas, Father Coughlin, all of that — how do you think that compares to what we’re seeing today?
Historians disagree about the 1920s. Was it a time of great prominence of American Jews? There was affluence in the roaring ’20s. There were institutions that were created, there was creativity, from the Orthodox and Mordecai Kaplan certainly, across the board, the Jewish Theological Seminary. American Judaism was at a certain high point in the 1920s. At the same time, there were quotas, and there was rising antisemitism. I think today we also have to deal with the tension of, on the one hand, there are great opportunities for Jews in the United States; at the same time, there is antisemitism. And so from the 1920s to the 2020s, 100 years later, you see a model for how to grapple with those tensions.
What do you hope, more than anything else, someone takes away or learns from your book?
It’s a book that begins like a punch line: a working class Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew walk into a football field. But it ends with something I think a lot more pronounced, which is, it’s a story about change. As a historian, I study change, particularly in American Judaism, broadly in American religion and Jewish Studies. Change is the best asset that a historian has to study. I wasn’t interested in just finding another Sandy Koufax story, replicating that story. This is a story that isn’t just about a Jew who happened for his moment to become quite successful and quite famous, or a Catholic or a former mill hand turned first athletic director in college history. It’s really about how people on the periphery influence the mainstream.
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Primaries prove it: In New York, pro-Israel politics are now a liability
(JTA) — A little more than a year ago, thousands showed up for the annual Paul Feig z”l Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, an all-night bonanza of eclectic Jewish learning. The program featured dozens of rabbis, scholars, journalists and artists. Yet the unquestioned star of the night was Ritchie Torres, the congressman from the Bronx who has become a beloved figure in the pro-Israel community.
Hundreds packed the gym to hear from Torres, with many others turned away at the door. Eventually the discussion turned to the upcoming mayoral primary that was just weeks away. Many in the crowd were alarmed by the surging popularity of Zohran Mamdani, but still skeptical that a staunchly anti-Israel lawmaker could be elected in the city with the world’s largest Jewish community outside of Israel.
Instead of reassurance, Torres, who was backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral primary, issued a warning: If Mamdani pulled off his improbable upset, it would quickly become open season on pro-Israel Democrats like himself.
As it turned out, Torres didn’t have to worry. He won his primary race Tuesday night in a landslide, securing around 70% of the vote in New York’s 15th Congressional District against an anti-Israel challenger. But his prediction was still spot on: The primaries were a Mamdani wave, with all three of the mayor’s endorsed congressional candidates winning their primaries – and knocking off two solidly pro-Israel incumbents, Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, in the process.
In November, Mamdani’s ascension to City Hall felt like a political earthquake, putting an exclamation point on the reality that being staunchly anti-Israel was no longer a road block to success in Democratic politics. Yet Tuesday’s results feel more seismic – this is the first time that incumbent congressmen have lost their seats in campaigns in which they were repeatedly attacked for being too supportive of Israel. Whatever other issues were at play in the individual races, the success of candidates with an outsized focus on criticizing the Jewish state and groups that support it – in particular, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – sends the message that their approach is a winning strategy.
There are still plenty of districts where Democrats can win with pro-Israel positions and pro-Israel support, for example the congressional seat being vacated in Marylan by pro-Israel stalwart Steny Hoyer. Hoyer’s pick to succeed him, Adrian Boafo, won Tuesday in a crowded 24-candidate primary with major backing from AIPAC.
But suddenly, for a widening swath of the Democratic congressional caucus, backing Israel has gone from being the politically safe move to a potential career-ender.
Goldman, who won his first reelection primary with about 65% of the vote in 2024, ended up on the wrong side of a similar landslide this time around in his race against former City Comptroller Brad Lander. Espaillat, who has served in Congress for nearly a decade and is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th Congressional District, which includes Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.
Following Mamdani’s lead, Lander and Avila Chevalier both sought to turn their opponent’s support for Israel into a defining moral failure and painted backing from AIPAC as the dictionary definition of being in the pocket of special interests.
Lander kicked off his campaign by making clear he wouldn’t be “doing AIPAC’s bidding” and made Goldman’s support from the pro-Israel lobby group a central issue throughout the campaign. Though Lander describes himself as a liberal Zionist, he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and promised to oppose U.S. weapons sales to Israel.
Just last year, Cuomo and then-Mayor Eric Adams thought Mamdani’s stance on the Jewish state was a major political liability, so they did all they could to play up his anti-Israel bona fides in their race against him. In a sign of how quickly the political winds have shifted in New York, Goldman this spring sought to minimize his differences with Lander on Israel, noting that they both received endorsements from J Street, the dovish group that advocates for more U.S. pressure on Israel to achieve a two-state solution. Goldman, in the final debate, even offered his own criticism of AIPAC, saying the pro-Israel group “has some real problems and is harmful in many ways.”
In contrast, Espaillat took aim at Avila Chevalier on Israel. “She went to celebrate the death of innocent people in Israel right after the attack,” Espaillat said during a recent televised debate, referencing her participation in an anti-Israel rally, which the Democratic Socialists of America had promoted, the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Like Mamdani, Avila Chevalier’s early anti-Israel activism was a key aspect of her political biography: She was part of the Students for Justice in Palestine group during her years as an undergraduate at Columbia Univeristy and later helped organize the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment as an alumna in 2024. During the campaign, she criticized Espaillat for his response to the detainment of Columbia University encampment leader Mahmoud Khalil, whose arrest last year became a rallying point for pro-Palestinian activists.
What should really alarm the pro-Israel community, however, is that this progressive playbook contributed to victories in two very different races. In the case of Lander versus Goldman, you had two Jewish self-described Zionists running in a very Jewish district. Avila Chevalier, on the other hand, was a non-Jewish anti-Israel challenger taking on a non-Jewish incumbent with strong pro-Israel credentials in a district with relatively few Jews (at least by New York’s standards).
As Mamdani’s handpicked squad heads to Washington, the pressure on other congressional Democrats to speak out strongly against Israel and back measures such as end to U.S. arms sales will only intensify. That was clear from the election night victory speeches.
During Avila Chevalier’s speech, the crowd erupted into cheers of “Free Palestine.” She couched her victory as a rejection of funding from AIPAC, crypto and other corporate interests.
Lander promised in his victory speech to be “one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up loud for Palestinian human rights.”
“We cannot keep paying for Netanyahu’s wars with our tax dollars,” he added. “Democratic voters across the country are saying this loud and clear.”
It’s possible that Lander’s wrong and that Mamdani’s rise and coattails are an only-in-New York thing. But based on several other results this election cycle and polling in upcoming races, that hope increasingly feels like betting against the Knicks.
For the pro-Israel community, there’s at least one bright spot: At least for now, they still have Ritchie Torres.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Primaries prove it: In New York, pro-Israel politics are now a liability appeared first on The Forward.
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Pro-Israel Adrian Boafo beats crowded field to replace Maryland’s Steny Hoyer
(JTA) — Pro-Israel candidate Adrian Boafo won Maryland’s Democratic primary to fill longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer’s seat on Tuesday, after waging a campaign supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at a time when other members of his party are disavowing the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Boafo, 32, is a state delegate who entered the contest with low name recognition. Hoyer hand-picked his former staffer, who managed some of Hoyer’s recent campaigns.
The octogenarian worked hard to get his protege past the finish line in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, garnering the support of much of the state’s Democratic establishment and appearing in an ad for him. Hoyer, who was for decades the number two Democratic leader in the House, is a staunch Israel advocate and AIPAC ally who will retire this January after 45 years. Boafo won with 32% of the vote in the crowded Democratic field, with 68% of votes counted on Wednesday morning.
Boafo thanked his supporters and Hoyer late Tuesday night and said that he was Hoyer’s natural successor. “At first glance it might not seem obvious, but our stories are actually very similar,” he said. “Steny and I are both the sons of immigrants. We grew up believing in an America that drew our parents from across the sea.” Boafo’s parents are Ghanaian and Hoyer’s father was Danish.
His victory offered a glimmer of hope to the party’s pro-Israel wing, coming on the same night that three progressives who ran hard against AIPAC and the war in Gaza swept New York’s primaries, toppling powerful pro-Israel Democrats. Boafo sent a message that AIPAC still has the power to buoy Democratic candidates even as criticism of Israel surges in the progressive wing of the party and the Democratic electorate. The lobby, once seen as a necessary bipartisan stamp of approval, has become a stand-in for Israel’s influence on U.S. politics.
AIPAC poured $5.7 million into Boafo’s campaign through its super PAC, United Democracy Project.
Boafo pledged during the campaign to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” and “mobilize humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians,” as well as to “ensure Israel has the security assistance it needs.” Military aid packages to Israel have increasingly divided Democrats amid the deeply unpopular wars fought by Israel in Gaza and Iran.
AIPAC celebrated Boafo’s victory on Tuesday night. “Boafo has made clear his vision to carry forward the strong pro-Israel legacy of Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of Congress’s most steadfast champions of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” the group said on X, adding that it was proud to “help ensure this seat remains represented by pro-Israel leadership.”
Boafo also benefited from crypto money. Protect Progress, a super PAC affiliated with the crypto industry, spent $5.5 million on the race largely to boost Boafo, who previously worked as a federal lobbyist for the technology firm Oracle.
The deluge of outside spending sparked a rebuke from Boafo’s opponents during the race. Candidates Harry Dunn, Quincy Bareebe and Rushern Baker teamed up to denounce the outlays last week, with Baker saying on a press call, “Special interests don’t spend money out of civic goodwill. They spend the kind of money that we see because they expect someone to work for them.”
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also criticized the spending this month and accused the pro-Israel and crypto groups of attempting to “buy this congressional seat.”
“Voters need to understand that these groups are not investing in this race out of charity,” Van Hollen said in a press conference this month. “They are spending because they believe the beneficiary of their spending — in this case, one candidate, Adrian Boafo — will be a dependable vote in support of their special interests.”
Boafo will face small business owner Chris Chaffee, the winner of the Republican primary, in November’s general election. Boafo is all but assured to win the deep-blue district.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Pro-Israel Adrian Boafo beats crowded field to replace Maryland’s Steny Hoyer appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Mensch of Manhattan’ Lasher wins over Bores in fight for Nadler’s seat, media projects
(New York Jewish Week) — Micah Lasher has defeated Alex Bores in the battle for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s Manhattan congressional seat, according to media projections Tuesday night.
In the race for the 12th Congressional District, the most Jewish in the country, Lasher had 40,106 votes, or 39.1 percent, and Bores collected 35,822 votes, or 35 percent, with 87 percent of the ballots counted.
The crowded field in the Democratic primary also included John F. Kennedy grandson Jack Kennedy Shlossberg, public health expert Nina Schwalbe, and George Conway, a Republican-turned-Democrat and Trump antagonist. All three were trailing well behind Lasher.
During his victory speech, Lasher pointed to both his and the district’s Jewish identity.
“It is an enormous point of pride that I will be representing the most Jewish congressional district in the country,” Lasher said. “I will always stand up for our community with pride.”
He also received a loud ovation after he thanked “the rabbis and Jewish community leaders” who helped the campaign.
A number of Lasher’s political allies and former bosses spoke, including Nadler, who’s represented the upper West Side since 1992, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Comptroller Mark Levine, and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who told the JTA that Lasher would be a bridge between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Jewish community.
Holyman-Sigal called Lasher the “mensch of Manhattan.”
Lasher thanked Nadler for his decades of service and mentorship, saying he taught Lasher things like “vision, compassion, and how to canvass voters outside Zabar’s.”
Nadler is “as much an institution in Manhattan as Central Park and pastrami on rye,” Lasher said.
The House seat — which covers the Upper West and Upper East sides and midtown Manhattan, and is seen as a crown jewel in New York politics — opened up after Nadler announced last fall that he would retire at the end of this term.
Nadler’s preferred heir was Lasher, a Jewish State Assembly member who has worked for the progressive stalwart and other prominent politicians such as Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Lasher has the support of those former bosses, plus much of the West Side political establishment.
Fellow Assembly member Bores, meanwhile, has built a coalition that includes both pro-Israel moderates and progressive groups critical of the Jewish state by emphasizing that he will be tough on artificial intelligence companies. Former congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who represented much of Manhattan’s East Side from 1993 until 2023, is among Bores’ supporters.
On the subject of Israel, the makeup of the NY-12 race has been unlike other contested New York City races: Elsewhere, at least one of the two leading candidates has accmused Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza and supports placing conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel.
But Lasher and Bores both describe themselves as pro-Israel and anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and neither one supports blocking weapons sales to the Jewish state.
Mamdani is himself a voter in the district as a resident of Gracie Mansion and who cast his ballot a few days ago, during the early voting period, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has declined to weigh in publicly on the race. The mayor endorsed two democratic socialist candidates and Brad Lander — his Jewish ally who accuses Israel of genocide, and has positioned himself against both offensive and defensive military aid to Israel — in other races.
Lasher and Bores have both consistently advocated for universally applying the existing Leahy Law, which bars the U.S. from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity.
Schlossberg has criticized Lasher and Bores for their stance, calling it an “insufficient answer,” and advocates for blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel while still funding the Iron Dome defensive missile system. He is the only of the top-four candidates to call for conditions on aid to Israel and halting any weapons sales. After initially leading in early polls, Schlossberg’s support appears to have fallen amid questions over his lack of experience.
Conway, an anti-Trumper and longtime attorney who was married to former Donald Trump staffer Kellyanne Conway, rounds out the top four in the polling.
Throughout the election, candidates convened for forums at numerous synagogues in the heavily Jewish district — 23.3% of constituents are Jewish, according to a 2024 study — and answered questions related to antisemitism, Israel and other Jewish-related issues.
Lasher has said at multiple forums that he doesn’t see anti-Zionism as being precisely the same thing as antisemitism, but that “often when you see one you see the other.”
He and Bores have both touted their support for a statewide “buffer zone” bill — which Lasher introduced in response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside synagogues — that would curb protests outside houses of worship. Meanwhile, Schlossberg has pointed out at Jewish forums that the first policy his campaign released was “Jack’s Fast-Track Plan,” which would fast-track a doubling of funds for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program that funds security at houses of worship and community centers.
During a June forum at Upper West Side synagogue B’nai Jeshurun, Lasher said he felt “exhausted” by how much the political dialogue — both in the NY-12 race and more broadly — is “obsessed” with Israel.
Lasher is sure to win in November’s general election in the heavily Democratic district where he will face only token Republican opposition.
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