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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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The post How Arnold Horween, an unsung Jewish Harvard hero, changed American sports appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn
An aspiring authoritarian, who has spent more than a decade shaping his country through a political project of popularist grievance and personal enrichment, may soon meet his electoral end.
That elected leader is not President Donald Trump, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has ruled Hungary consecutively since 2010 (and who previously served as prime minister between 1998 and 2002). Hungarians will go to the polls on April 12, and Orbán’s Fidesz party is polling well behind the conservative, pro-European Tisza. That Trump, who is closely allied with Orbán, this week dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Budapest to campaign for Orbán may not be enough. (While there, Vance baselessly claimed EU interference in Hungary’s elections, turning back to the same old Trump playbook.)
There is much that Americans can learn from the Hungarian experience of years spent under the governance of someone accused of dismantling rule of law, a person whose inner circle has grown rich during his time in office. But American Jews in particular should pay attention. Because Orbán’s administration has used antisemitism as a political tool throughout his time in power, and is desperately turning to this hatred once again on its way, possibly, out the electoral door.
Examining the different purposes for which Orbán has employed antisemitism is instructive. The essential lesson: Antisemitism deployed by powerful people is often an attempt to evade accountability for their own bad actions.
The Orbán administration has tried to rewrite history so as to paint Hungary as a perpetual victim or victor — never a country responsible for misdeeds like, say, allying with Nazi Germany prior to being occupied by it. Orbán, like other politicians interested in historical revisionism, has tried to make adherence to his specific retelling of Hungarian history synonymous with being a true Hungarian. Anyone who challenges his vision is, in it, an enemy of the state.
For no one has that been more true than Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros. In past elections, Orbán has inflated Soros to the status of a political adversary, campaigning against a spectral version of him instead of his actual political opponents. This approach, rife with antisemitic dog whistles, has been alarmingly effective.
“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” he said of Soros in the 2018 campaign, invoking any number of longstanding antisemitic tropes.
When Orbán’s authoritarian efforts extended to cracking down on liberal institutions and civil society, he turned again to antisemitism in the form of Soros conspiracy theories.
Under attack by Orbán, Central European University, the university that Soros founded, has mostly been pushed out of its original home of Budapest. When the Hungarian government passed legislation to criminalize helping those who wanted to claim asylum in the country, it was called “Stop Soros” legislation. NGOs in Hungary have long been smeared for receiving money from Soros’ Open Society Foundations, accused of being proxies through which Soros is “targeting” Hungary.
Recently, Orbán has pivoted, making Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the new scapegoat of his antisemitic conspiracy theories.
He has charged that support for Ukraine is expensive and even dangerous, and pushed the idea that Orbán and Fidesz are all that prevents such support from leading Hungary to disaster. Orbán and Fidesz have erected billboards showing Zelenskyy smirking with an outstretched hand, in a pose reminiscent of the antisemitic “happy merchant” meme. Perhaps most tellingly and menacingly, Fidesz has put up posters with Zelenskyy’s face, blazoned with nearly the same words that, almost a decade ago, accompanied campaign posters with Soros’s visage on them: “Let’s not let Zelenskyy have the last laugh.”
As Hungarians are asking what, exactly, the last decade and a half of autocracy have accomplished for them, their governing party appears to be suggesting that it is the only thing standing between them and the machinations of a nefarious Jew. Antisemitism can be many things, but in Hungary, again and again, it has been an attempt to trick citizens out of asking what good Orbán’s government has done for them.
This playbook has clear resonances in that deployed by Trump.
When threatened, Trump and his allies repeatedly turn to blaming Soros. They have used the idea of Soros as a sort of universal bogeyman to try to explain away Trump’s felony charges and to justify violence against citizens protesting ICE. The Department of Justice has tried to find ways to push for prosecutions of Soros and his allies, on far-fetched charges possibly including material support of terrorism.
What Orbán and Trump have both bet on is that dog whistling about all-powerful Jews will distract enough voters from noticing while they help themselves to their country’s rights and riches. If Orbán is defeated on Sunday, his loss will send an essential message to Americans: that strategy can only sustain a leader for so long.
Flailing about and sowing the seeds of antisemitic conspiracies cannot change the stubborn fact that neither Soros nor Zelenskyy is in charge in Hungary: Orbán is. Hungarians seem to see, now, that all that talk about Soros didn’t make their lives any better. Neither will going after Zelenskyy.
We can hope Hungarians remember that as they go to the polls. We, American Jews, should remind others, and ourselves, of it here, too. We often focus on trying to communicate that antisemitism is hateful and unfair toward American Jews. Perhaps, in addition, we should try to point out that Trump’s antisemitism, like Orbán’s, is not only hateful, but a hateful deflection.
The post Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Expels Spain From US-Backed Gaza Coordination Center as Diplomatic Rift Deepens
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel has expelled Spain from the United States’ Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, a hub established to coordinate humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip, marking a sharp escalation in an already deteriorating diplomatic rift between the two countries.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Spain’s expulsion from the CMCC, framing the move as a response to Madrid’s increasingly anti-Israel stance and what he described as continued hostility toward the Jewish state.
“Spain has defamed our heroes, the soldiers of the [Israel Defense Forces], the soldiers of the most moral army in the world,” Netanyahu said during a press conference. “Anyone who attacks the State of Israel instead of the terrorist regimes … will not be our partner in the future of the region.”
“I am not willing to tolerate this hypocrisy and this hostility,” the Israeli leader continued. “I do not intend to allow any country to wage a diplomatic war against us without paying an immediate price for it.”
In a press release, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar confirmed that the United States had been informed ahead of time, adding that the decision followed Spain’s serious harm to the interests of both Jerusalem and Washington.
The Spanish government has also been informed of the decision, though it has yet to issue any public statement or official response.
“Spain’s obsessive anti-Israel bias under [Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez]’s leadership is so egregious that it has lost all capability to serve a constructive role in implementing US President Donald Trump’s peace plan and the center operating under it,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
For a long time, the government of Spain under @sanchezcastejon has been operating against the State of Israel in every way possible. Sánchez and his ministers level false blood libels against Israel and its army, defame and incite against Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The…
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 10, 2026
Established in October 2025 as part of US Central Command, the CMCC was set up to coordinate and manage the flow of humanitarian, logistical, and security assistance from the international community into Gaza under Trump’s peace plan for the enclave.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, and increasingly amid the war with Iran and broader regional escalation, Spain has launched a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
Earlier this week, Sánchez publicly condemned Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the widening regional escalation tied to the Iran conflict, renewing calls for the European Union to suspend its association agreement with Israel and urging an end to “impunity for [Israel’s] criminal actions.”
The Spanish leader also accused Netanyahu of breaching basic humanitarian norms, saying his “contempt for life and international law is intolerable.”
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has also publicly condemned Israel’s military campaign, describing the conflict as “the greatest assault on the civilization built upon the humanist ideals of reason, peace, understanding, and universal law over the abuse of power, brute force, and arbitrariness.”
In a phone call with his Spanish counterpart on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi praised Spain’s “principled and honorable” stance on what he called “US-Israeli aggression against Iran,” urging countries to take a firmer stand against what he described as war crimes.
“Spain’s valuable stances in defending international law and human values have been noted and praised by the Iranian nation and the international community, and will never be forgotten,” the top Iranian diplomat said.
Even though Spain welcomed the recently announced US–Iran ceasefire, Albares said, “Madrid will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket to put out that fire.”
As part of its broader anti-Israel campaign, Spain had recently closed its airspace to aircraft involved in what officials described as a “reckless and illegal confrontation” – another move welcomed by Iran’s Islamist government.
In one of its most controversial recent moves, Madrid also announced this weej the reopening of its embassy in Tehran.
According to data from Spain’s Ministry of Trade reported by Servimedia, the Spanish government exported more than €1.3 million worth of dual-use materials to Iran in 2024 and the first half of 2025, including explosive components, laboratory reagents, and specialized control software.
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DNC Fails to Pass Resolutions Condemning AIPAC, Pushing for Conditioning Aid to Israel
Crews prepare the stage at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC, March 6, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Brian Snyder
A panel at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Thursday voted down a resolution to condemn the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, in Democratic primary elections. The panel also deferred a decision on resolutions to push for conditioning military aid to Israel and to recognize a Palestinian state.
The resolutions, which were considered within the newly created Middle East Working Group, were introduced into the agenda by Florida DNC member Allison Minnerly, who saw it as an opportunity to bring those who have not been “seeing their party support Palestinian rights or stand against military conflict” back into the fold of the Democratic Party, she told The Intercept.
Minnerly’s effort comes as the gap continues to widen between the official stance of the Democratic Party, which has largely supported aid to Israel in recent decades, and the views of the Democratic base, which now has an overwhelmingly unfavorable view of Israel, according to recent polling.
In recent months, a number of potential Democratic presidential hopefuls — including some who were former donors and speakers at AIPAC conferences — have been distancing themselves from AIPAC, saying they would not take money from the bipartisan group in the future.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, for example, recently said he abandoned his support for AIPAC when it “began to lean much more to the right and much more pro-Trump.” Another prominent Democrat, US Sen. Cory Booker (NJ) told Politico in March that he is no longer going to receive funds from AIPAC.
Others who have made sure to have no association with AIPAC include California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
Aside from the fact that Israel is now seen less favorably by Democratic voters, AIPAC has also become a hot topic on the left as its allied super PACs have become increasingly influential in Democratic primaries, spending millions to back candidates aligned with their positions. Critics within the party argue that this influx of money, including donations from Republican-aligned contributors, risks distorting Democratic contests and elevating outside influence.
Even so, the resolutions specifically calling out AIPAC, aiming to condition aid to Israel, and pushing to recognize a Palestinian state did not pass. Meanwhile, a separate resolution calling out all dark money went through.
“Let’s be clear on what really happened: Today, the Resolutions Committee voted to pass a resolution condemning the corrosive influence of ALL dark money in Democratic primaries,” DNC chair Ken Martin posted on X. “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Majority for Israel President & CEO Brian Romick said in a statement that the Democratic pro-Israel group was “pleased” with the outcome of the vote.
“We’re pleased that the DNC Rules Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” he said. “These measures would be a gift to Republicans, would further fracture our party, and do nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to peace.”
“DMFI will continue to stay engaged with the DNC and its Task Force on the Middle East as it relates to these harmful resolutions,” he added. “The DNC and party advocates need to keep focus where it belongs — on building a united Democratic Party that can win back Congress this November.”
AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement to Politico that the DNC “made clear today that all Democrats, including millions who are AIPAC members, have the right to participate fully in the democratic process. And we plan to do just that.”
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America — an organization that aims to bring Jews into the Democratic Party — told Politico that the DNC “as a whole has not shifted from where it has been … which is an organization that is inclusive of Jewish Americans and is supportive of the US-Israel security relationship, as well as Israel’s future as a Jewish and Democratic state.”
She argues that “misconceptions” about this have been driven by “a vocal, far-left faction of our party.”
“But they are in no way leading here,” Soifer said.