Celebrating 80 years ...

Go Canada go! Go Israel go! ’Tis the season for cheering on Olympic athletes. In the Feb. 3, 1939, issue of the Jewish Western Bulletin, new Sporting Spiel columnist Hy Nemetz – taking over from Dave Levi – highlighted an Olympian.

Former Olympic speed-skating champion Irving Jaffee had competed in the 1928 and 1932 Games. According to the somewhat nonsensical column, Jaffee “[s]tarted skating as a newsy to speed up his delivery and although his skates were rather over-size, he found he could get best results wearing nine pairs of sox.” Jaffee was, in 1939, “writing a series of articles on ‘How to Ice Skate’ with illustrations.”

The next Sporting Spiel item was about the “first ‘Jewish Lightweight Championship Belt’ (brain-cheeild [sic] of Promoter Bill Johnston) is gonna be hung on the winner of the bout ’tween Al Davis and Mickey Farber, February 6th.... Watch Baby Yack, young up-and-coming Toronto Bantam, he’s mighty popular in the East and the Garden isn’t so far from Toronto.... Modest Maxie Bear is still challenging the world at large but so far he’s failed to settle down for any legitimate fight. (At present, he’s wrestlin’ bronchoes and rescuin’ heroines for Grand National Pictures.)”

The column concludes with Nemetz, “ye lil ole Sports Spieler,” wondering why “Kingfish Levinsky took up wrestlin’?

“The Y.M.H.A. didn’t have a team in the basketball league this winter (there’s plenty of material and the fellows were rarin’ to go)?

“Abe Saperstein doesn’t try the field of all-Jewish teams.

“Well! In the words of the radioman, it’s 73 for the day and we’ll be seein’ you in the next edition.”

For those of us not as familiar with basketball history, Saperstein (1902-1966) was a founder and coach of what became the Harlem Globetrotters, and he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970.

Another weekly column, the “Y” Corner, gave all the latest news from the Young Men’s Hebrew Association gym, which was growing in popularity: “The average classes were running around twenty each week, but so fast have these classes been growing that at the last workout over forty members were in attendance.” Activities included “badminton, physical exercises, basketball, swimming in a heated pool, steam rooms, showers, etc.,” all “under the capable supervision of Oscar Mohl and Dave Berman.” The bowling league, “under the chairmanship of Max Barzman,” takes up most of this column, with all the scores from the previous two weeks, though it does mention the success of a recent “Y” ice-skating party, which was “held at the Forum and was enjoyed by approximately thirty people of both sexes.”

^TOP