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Jerry Izenberg covered 53 Super Bowls. His memoir covers his Jewish Newark upbringing.
(JTA) — Over the course of an illustrious 72-year career as a newspaper reporter, Jerry Izenberg has just about seen it all.
The longtime columnist for The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, Izenberg covered the first 53 Super Bowls. He’s been to 58 Kentucky Derbies, not to mention numerous Olympics, World Cups and boxing matches. He considered Muhammad Ali a close personal friend.
But the fiery 92-year-old, who still contributes to the paper as a columnist emeritus from his home in Nevada, doesn’t approve of the term “journalist.” He’s a newspaperman.
He dropped the name of Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century British diarist, as a contrast.
“Every day he took his big diary, and he wrote what he did this day, what he was planning to do later — that’s a journalist,” Izenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I’m not in my world. I’m in the world of other people trying to interpret and to repeat what values they have or what lack thereof they have.”
Izenberg’s latest story breaks that rule. His 17th book, which hits shelves on Monday, is a memoir about his Jewish upbringing in Newark. Titled “Baseball, Nazis, and Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark,” the memoir centers on Izenberg’s relationship with his father Harry, a World War I veteran and former minor league baseball player who passed on his love of the sport to his son.
Izenberg’s father emigrated to the United States as a child, leaving Lithuania with his family to escape anti-Jewish pogroms. As his sportswriter son recounts it, Harry discovered baseball even before he could speak English.
The Izenbergs’ love of baseball transcended all. When Jerry got his first baseball glove at ten years old, it was a milestone that in his father’s eyes surpassed even his bar mitzvah. (Maybe unsurprisingly, Izenberg would later skip bar mitzvah tutoring to play baseball after school.)
“He had given me a lifetime gift — a simple game and a simple shared love for it,” Izenberg writes in the memoir. “It remains there, bright and shining in memory eighty-three years later. In the soul of my memory, I see our kind of shared love of baseball again. It never fades.”
Jerry Izenberg and his father Harry shared a bond over baseball. (Book cover courtesy of The Sager Group, LLC; photograph courtesy of Jerry Izenberg)
The pair’s passion for baseball was closely intertwined with their Judaism. Growing up in Newark in the 1930s and 40s, Izenberg was a fan of the New York Giants baseball team (which left for San Francisco after the 1957 season). They featured a lineup filled with Jewish players: Harry Danning, Harry Feldman and Sid Gordon.
But in the pantheon of Jewish baseball during Izenberg’s childhood, there was a clear king, and — much to the chagrin of Izenberg’s father — he played in Detroit. Hank Greenberg, the greatest Jewish hitter in baseball history, was at the peak of his Tigers career from 1935-1940, winning two most valuable player awards on his way to the Hall of Fame.
At the Izenbergs’ dinner table, there were only a few select topics that were allowed to be discussed: baseball and the Nazis.
In 1938, Greenberg was chasing all-time great Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60 home runs, which Ruth had set in 1927 with the Yankees. Greenberg would ultimately reach 58 homers, falling just short of history, while drawing several walks in the season’s final games.
“My dad was convinced that was antisemitism,” Izenberg said. “And I said to him, later on when I got into the business and I knew people, ‘did it ever occur to you that the guys who pitched against him didn’t want to be the guy who threw his 60th home run ball? They’d be linked to him forever.’ My father said, ‘That’s an interesting theory, but you’re full of crap.’”
Of all the anecdotes Izenberg shares of his memories with his father, one non-sports related scene stands out. And it has to do with that second dinner table topic.
One Saturday in 1939, Izenberg and his father went to the Newsreel Theatre in Newark, where audiences gathered to watch news and sports highlights of the week. That day, the theater showed footage of the infamous Madison Square Garden rally held by the German-American Bund, the American Nazi organization.
Izenberg remembers leaving the theater with his father, who was visibly angry. His father talked about how the Nazis — or, as he called them, mamzers, Yiddish slang for “bastards” — had to be stopped.
“I’m an 8-year-old kid, and I say, ‘But dad, they’re in Germany,’” Izenberg recalled. “And he looks at me, he says, ‘They’re not in Germany, they’re here.’ And he was right.” Indeed, following Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi-sympathizers could be seen marching down Newark’s streets.
The move theater incident is illustrated on the book’s cover — and was followed by a frequent father-son ritual: getting hot dogs at the popular chain Nedick’s.
To Izenberg, the virulent antisemitism of his youth — including the Bund, the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the rise of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic “radio priest” — is a corollary for the current state of antisemitism, which is again on the rise in the United States, punctuated, he said, by the 2017 antisemitic white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, which he blames on former President Donald Trump.
Izenberg said he doesn’t believe any law can force people to love or even like one another, but that “you could legislate people and pressure people into keeping their damn mouth shut.”
He went on: “And for 30 years, we had that. We got relief from antisemitism… And then one day in Charlottesville, that son of a bitch gave them the license to say whatever they want. And that was a trigger that lit the flame of antisemitism, which then began to grow all at once. It was always in their minds. But it was not fashionable. They made it fashionable.”
Despite the anti-Jewish sentiment that was ever-present in his youth, Izenberg said he has not faced antisemitism in his journalism career. As a columnist who has covered just about every sport, Izenberg has received his fair share of criticism — most notably having his car windows smashed by two men who did not approve of Izenberg’s defense of Muhammad Ali, when at the height of his career the boxer stirred controversy with his support for the Nation of Islam and his refusal to enlist in the military.
Jerry Izenberg, right, and boxer Muhammad Ali were close personal friends. (The Private Collection of Jerry Izenberg)
Izenberg has written about social issues frequently throughout his career — especially race relations — a tendency that he said is inspired by the value of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world. It’s an idea he learned from Rabbi Joachim Prinz, the famous activist leader who spoke just before Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington.
After leaving Nazi Germany, Prinz settled in Newark, on the same block as the Izenbergs. He would become a close family friend, and even offered to help Izenberg prepare for his bar mitzvah, despite the fact that his family belonged to a different synagogue.
Izenberg said he is guided by tikkun olam, “because I know [Prinz would] want me to keep it in the back of my mind, and my father would, too.”
“I’ve always tried not to fix the world — I don’t overrate myself that much — but I could fix the little part of it, the space that I take up,” he added. “And my job was a pathway to that.”
Izenberg’s decades-long career in sports journalism has earned him numerous accolades, including induction into 17 different halls of fame, among them the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.
Along the way, he’s worked with and alongside a number of notable journalists, including ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap, who previously hosted “Classic Sports Reporters,” for which he invited veteran sportswriters like Izenberg on the show to discuss various topics from sports history.
“For someone like me who really treasures that art form, Jerry was one of its master practitioners, and he’s still doing it, which is amazing,” Schaap told JTA.
Schaap hailed the breadth of Izenberg’s career, which he said epitomized the kind of big-city sports columnist that has become increasingly rare in the digital age.
“He’s a maniac, there’s no other way to put it,” Schaap said with a laugh. “All those Super Bowls, all those fights… the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, all those things, in addition to the skills, makes him unique and has made him unique for decades.”
Schaap added that he and Izenberg shared a sort of unspoken bond over their Jewishness, and that Izenberg has taught Schaap a few Yiddishisms over the years. Izenberg’s tendency to slip Yiddish into his prose is evident in the memoir, from a comical retelling of his bris in the prologue to the frequent frustrated “genug” (“enough”) he heard from his mother as a child.
Ultimately, Izenberg said his parents represent the tachlis — the bottom line — of the memoir, and what he hopes readers take away from it. Izenberg said writing the memoir was cathartic for him, and that it even serves as a sort of love letter to his father.
“We were not, you know, ‘I love you dad,’” Izenberg said. “We were very respectful, but we didn’t express it. I tried to express it in this book. I hope I did.”
The release of Izenberg’s memoir is in no way a sign that the nonagenarian is slowing down. Even though he claims he works less than he used to, Izenberg said he plans to write six columns about next weekend’s Kentucky Derby.
He already has plans for his next few books, too — including a biography of New Jersey’s own Larry Doby, who was the second Black player in the MLB and first in the American League.
“I’ve had a great life, and I’m having a great life, but I ain’t done yet,” Izenberg said.
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The post Jerry Izenberg covered 53 Super Bowls. His memoir covers his Jewish Newark upbringing. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How Hezbollah Terrorists Became ‘Local Residents’ in the Media
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
During an operation earlier this month, the IDF reportedly clashed with Hezbollah operatives and “civilians” in the Lebanese village of Nabi Chit, leaving 41 people dead and another 40 injured.
At least, that is what CNN, the Associated Press (AP), Sky News, BBC, and The Guardian all reported.
But not a single outlet actually questioned who these “civilians” were that clashed with the IDF, or why there were clashes in the first place.
The operation was carried out in an attempt to return the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli navigator who has been missing since his fighter-bomber was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was believed to have originally been captured by the Amal Movement and handed over to Hezbollah, before being presumed dead.
As is the protocol with any missing person or soldier, the State of Israel works to recover every body for a proper and dignified burial in their homeland.
Based on intelligence, the IDF believed Arad’s body to be buried in a cemetery in Nabi Chit, a village located close to the Lebanese-Syrian border in the Beqaa Valley.
IDF special forces initiated a raid into Lebanon in an attempt to recover the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman shot down in 1986.
But it wasn’t only Hezbollah terrorists who engaged in a firefight with IDF soldiers on the ground:
@guardian: Hezbollah “fighters ambushed… pic.twitter.com/wOuWa9AXVj
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 8, 2026
On Friday, March 6, well before the operation began, the IDF issued an evacuation warning, urging innocent civilians to leave.
The village has long been a stronghold of Hezbollah, with several past leaders, including the second secretary-general, Abbas al-Musawi, born there. Being that Hezbollah has systematically embedded its infrastructure and operatives into the town itself, many — presumably including a significant number affiliated with or supportive of Hezbollah — appeared to defy the evacuation orders, staying in their homes.
Late Friday evening, Israeli commandos entered the village, hoping to quickly locate the body of Arad and leave without disturbance. According to some reports, the IDF forces arrived undercover. Had the IDF been seeking a battle, it would have entered openly rather than disguised, indicating that the goal was a targeted retrieval mission, not a confrontation.
However, soon after the IDF’s arrival, a firefight broke out between Israeli forces and Hezbollah operatives. This is precisely where international media coverage begins — and where the crucial context disappears.
Hezbollah operatives are suddenly grouped in with the “civilians” or “local residents” who supposedly rushed out to defend their homes against an Israeli invasion, leaving their houses with guns to engage in battle with the IDF.
But the IDF had entered the village on a limited mission: to retrieve the remains of a fallen soldier. There was no broader offensive and no threat to civilian homes. That raises a fundamental question: why did so many outlets lead with descriptions of “residents” or “local fighters” joining Hezbollah in “defending their homes,” when their homes were clearly not under threat?
Following the ensuing battle between the IDF commandos and Hezbollah, the Israeli Air Force provided air cover through targeted strikes to ensure the safe extraction of all troops. Sadly, they were unsuccessful in locating the body of Arad.
By the time the operation ended, the Lebanese health ministry reported that 41 people had been killed and 40 wounded. Yet, when reporting these casualties, the media failed to acknowledge the obvious likelihood that many of those casualties were Hezbollah operatives — or what Sky News and AP described as “local fighters.”
The narrative that Israel intentionally killed innocent civilians was not limited to the international media, but quickly spread across social media.
Posts circulating online framed the operation as a reckless mission designed to target civilians with no clearly defined operational purpose. This is despite the IDF’s clear intention to limit civilian harm while preserving the dignity of all Israeli soldiers, no matter how long ago they fell in battle.
Israelis can be weird. They sent special forces into Lebanon to retrieve the remains of a dude who died 40 years ago, and this against the wishes of his widow. They randomly killed scores of civilians in the process and failed to find any bone, and yet they are bragging about it. https://t.co/DzEutjWCpP
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 8, 2026
Hezbollah’s strategy of embedding its infrastructure and operatives within civilian areas has long blurred the line between civilians and combatants, resulting in armed terrorists who attack Israeli forces being framed in media coverage as innocent “local residents.” The IDF’s operation in Nabi Chit and the ensuing battle illustrate this strategy in full, exposing just how effectively Hezbollah has manipulated the media.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish
As I walked through the exhibit, Envisioning the Sacred: Modern Art from the Collection, at the Derfner Judaica Museum and Art Collection, I wondered aloud which was the more defining element in these 20th and 21st century paintings, drawings, prints and linoleum cuts. Was it the modernist sensibility, which encompassed figurative, abstract, symbolic and metaphorical approaches? Or was it the Jewish-themed content?
In the 49 pieces by 21 artists (including two etchings by Marc Chagall), there were illustrated Biblical characters and stories; depictions of traditions and rituals; and a fair number of the works employed the Hebrew alphabet to evoke emotion and inspire the composition.
“The exhibit shows how artists use a modern visual language to express their Jewish identities,” said Susan Chevlowe, chief curator and museum director who guided me through the light-filled gallery, which is part of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale and set on a shallow hill that slopes down to the Hudson River.
“It’s hard to separate the two elements or say which is more defining,” Chevlowe said. “The majority of these artists were artists early on in their lives, drawing and sketching as children. Some grew up steeped in a Jewish tradition and others came to their Jewish identity later in life, especially in the post-Holocaust years. Percival Goodman is an example. An agnostic, he was best known as a modernist architect. But in the post-Holocaust years he became interested in Biblical figures.”
Chevlowe pointed to Goodman’s painting “Rebekah and Jacob,” presenting two large, sharply drawn flat heads. The bold colors outlined in stark black stripes summon forth figures that border on the cartoonish, yet are also strikingly beautiful. Here, the matriarch Rebekah beams at her younger son Jacob with whom she is scheming to steal her older son Esau’s birthright.
A number of the works reflect, in subtle and layered ways, Jewish traumas coupled with homage and pride and in some instances a touch of the elegiac.
Adam Muszka’s “Sabbath Meal,” painted in the 1960’s is a nostalgic look back at the lively Polish shtetl that he grew up in and that no longer exists. With its sentimental tone, the painting evinces distortion. Two figures in the foreground are over-sized, while the homes in the background are shrunken and lopsided — an indication, perhaps, that this is a falsely rosy memory.
In the seemingly more realistic 2003 painting, “Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg, Russia,” one of the more recent works on display, Joyce Ellen Weinstein brings to life the massive temple entrance and the decorative gate in front of it, “which is slightly off kilter,” Chevlowe pointed out. “Notice the barbed wire on top of the gate. The painting suggests the dignity of the synagogue and its people and also the difficult position of Russian Jews throughout history.”
Chevlowe was hard pressed to pick a favorite, though she admitted a special fondness for Jane Logemann’s 1996 “Alphabet,” a series of pale blue and purple ink wash panels adorned with repeated pairs of Hebrew letters, in pen and ink, which create a vertical pattern from the top of the page to the bottom. The series is poetic, lyrical.
“Logemann is interested in patterns and structures of nature,” said Chevlowe. “Some letters are large, others small. There’s a randomness here. Her choices are intuitive. For many artists the abstract is spiritual. For some mysticism and spiritual quest are essential in their work.”
One of the better known artists in the group is Mark Podwal. In his 2002 “Dreidel Hanukkia,” an acrylic painting, we see a menorah balanced on a dreidel and on the opposite side of the page there’s a less readily definable bench lamp.
“It’s modern and old and very playful,” said Chevlowe. “And each Hanukkah light, the menorah and the bench lamp, is cut off by the frame, cut off by the rest of the world. It’s a fragment. We often see that in Degas too.”
Some of the painters are more deeply embedded in or influenced by particular schools of art than others. In Jacques Yankel’s joyful and expressionistic “Torah,” one can see the Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine lineage. Yankel’s emigre artist father lived in Paris and was very much part of the Paris school of art, which included Chagall and Soutine.
In New York, Ben-Zion, a Russian-born painter who arrived in the United States in 1920, was a recognized member of “The Ten,” abstract painters that consisted of, among others, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, though curiously enough Ben-Zion was never really an abstract painter.
Moses was a frequent subject of his. In his 1962 “Moses Looking Down to the Promised Land,” our title character is viewed from the back, an imposing, heavily draped figure perched on a rocky terrain. He is staring out at Jericho, at once so close to and yet so far away from The Promised Land.
Abraham Rattner also employed Moses as the central figure and theme in his vibrant Picassoesque “Moses,” which features the Prophet clutching two blank tablets, devoid of the commandments or, indeed, any writings. His head twisted to the side and an integral element in a wild abstract design is as unsettling as it is thrilling. It is perhaps my favorite in the collection.
“I would like viewers to appreciate the richness in stylistic range and to be aware that these are highly trained, skilled and knowledgeable artists who come from a rich cultural tradition that includes all of art history,” Chevlowe told me. “At the same time they create something that’s original, authentic and beautiful.”
The post In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish appeared first on The Forward.
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Forverts podcast, episode 8: Israeli voices
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם נײַנטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „ישׂראלדיקע שטימעס“.
אין דעם קאַפּיטל וועט איר הערן צוויי אַרטיקלען: מיכאל קרוטיקאָווס רעצענזיע פֿון שירי שאַפּיראַס בוך דערציילונגען, וואָס אַנטפּלעקן דאגות פֿונעם „מילעניאַל“ דור, וואָס איר קענט אַליין לייענען דאָ, און בני מערס פּערזענלעכן עסיי, „דאָס אײַנפּאַקן אַ טאָרבע פֿאַרן לויפֿן אין שוצקעלער האָט עפּעס דערוועקט אין מיר“, וואָס איר קענט לייענען דאָ.
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
שירי שאַפּיראַס דערצײלונגען
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