{"id":2909,"date":"2009-06-22T15:26:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T15:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html"},"modified":"2009-06-22T15:26:58","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T15:26:58","slug":"jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html","title":{"rendered":"Jews in Sports? It&#8217;s a Fantasy&#8230;Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The famous joke goes: &#8220;One person asks, &#8216;did you hear someone published a book about Jews in sports?&#8217; and the other person says, &#8216;yeah, it&#8217;s a pamphlet.'&#8221; With a few exceptions, Jews are not so well-represented on the athletics side of the sports field. Sandy Koufax made a stir by refusing to play ball on Yom Kippur, but for traditionally observant Jews, there are other days of the year that provide conflict for the would-be professional sports player.  I can tell you that the yeshiva boys I went to elementary and high school with weren&#8217;t encouraged to pursue sports as a profession for lots of reasons, chief among them was that it was impossible to stay traditionally Jewish during a traditional sports season: there would be travel and games on Shabbat and holidays, and food wasn&#8217;t likely to be kosher. Why put yourself in that kind of position?<br \/>\nNow <a href=\"http:\/\/jta.org\/news\/article\/2009\/06\/17\/1005956\/for-sabbath-observant-fantasy-campers-play-ball\" target=\"_blank\">the JTA reports<\/a> about one fantasy camp is opening its doors to kosher and Shabbat-observant fans, and of course, this could only happen in New York:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe camp schedule was adjusted so that the minor league facilities would be available Monday when everyone arrives for workouts. The last game will be on Friday morning &#8212; no one wants to play a doubleheader on Friday because we are so sore &#8212; and some Dream Games will be held Friday afternoon for those teams that have the kosher campers.<br \/>\nReligious services will be provided by the local Young Israel\/Chabad at the hotel with strictly kosher Shabbat meals. Speakers during the Shabbat program will be Blomberg, Irwin Cohen (the first Orthodox Jewish executive to win a World Series ring), David Fishof (the original Orthodox sports agent), and Paul Cohen (an Orthodox sports agent).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What do you think?<br \/>\n<strong>Related Features:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Entertainment\/2009\/06\/Inspirational-Sports-Quotes.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Motivational Sports Quotes<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Entertainment\/2008\/09\/Top-10-Sports-Miracles.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Top 10 Sports Miracles<\/a><\/li>\n<li><A href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Entertainment\/Movies\/2008\/09\/Top-20-Inspirational-Sports-Movies.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">20 Inspirational Sports Movies<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The famous joke goes: &#8220;One person asks, &#8216;did you hear someone published a book about Jews in sports?&#8217; and the other person says, &#8216;yeah, it&#8217;s a pamphlet.&#8217;&#8221; With a few exceptions, Jews are not so well-represented on the athletics side of the sports field. Sandy Koufax made a stir by refusing to play ball on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jews in Sports? It&#039;s a Fantasy...Camp<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jews in Sports? It&#039;s a Fantasy...Camp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The famous joke goes: &#8220;One person asks, &#8216;did you hear someone published a book about Jews in sports?&#8217; and the other person says, &#8216;yeah, it&#8217;s a pamphlet.&#039;&#8221; With a few exceptions, Jews are not so well-represented on the athletics side of the sports field. Sandy Koufax made a stir by refusing to play ball on&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-22T15:26:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Esther Kustanowitz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jews in Sports? It's a Fantasy...Camp","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jews in Sports? It's a Fantasy...Camp","og_description":"The famous joke goes: &#8220;One person asks, &#8216;did you hear someone published a book about Jews in sports?&#8217; and the other person says, &#8216;yeah, it&#8217;s a pamphlet.'&#8221; With a few exceptions, Jews are not so well-represented on the athletics side of the sports field. Sandy Koufax made a stir by refusing to play ball on&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2009-06-22T15:26:58+00:00","author":"Esther Kustanowitz","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html","name":"Jews in Sports? It's a Fantasy...Camp","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-22T15:26:58+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-22T15:26:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/fcb22915d0c12856ef1a8541aadbf3a8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/06\/jews-in-sports-its-a-fantasyca.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jews in Sports? It&#8217;s a Fantasy&#8230;Camp"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/fcb22915d0c12856ef1a8541aadbf3a8","name":"Esther Kustanowitz","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/db5\/db5e38b5fe16a4bf4c9c481909dc528ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/db5\/db5e38b5fe16a4bf4c9c481909dc528ax96.jpg","caption":"Esther Kustanowitz"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/ekustanowitz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}