Religion and ethnicity

Abstract

Chapter two examines the intricate relationship between sporting participation and the formation and erosion of Jewish identity. It demonstrates that both direct and indirect involvement in sport between the early twentieth century and the 1960s exacerbated a ‘drift’ - a diminishing concern for religious observance, Jewish identity and culture and familial and communal authority – amongst sections of the population. The chapter shows how sport impacted negatively on adherence and attitudes towards the Jewish Sabbath. It illustrates that professional boxing came to both catalyse and symbolise the growing detachment of second and third generation Jewish immigrants from the culture, religion, authority and expectations of their elders. This chapter also demonstrates how attempts by Zionist sporting organisations to ‘re-engage’ Jews with their identity and heritage failed, mainly due to the popularity of sporting over ‘cultural’ activities. Sport was a powerful factor in decreasing the ‘Jewishness’ of immigrant children and grandchildren and in lessening concern for aspects of Jewish religion, community and ethnicity.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 39 citations exist upstream.