Anti-Semitism In Sports: An Often Overlooked Issue

By Michael Paniagua

JRN-100 News Reporter 

Recent anti-Semitic episodes in athletics highlight ignorance and hate in the sports world, reflecting an increasing number of incidents against Jews in the wider world.

This spring, NBA player Meyers Leonard was recorded using an anti-Semitic slur while live-streaming himself playing the popular video game Call of Duty: Warzone. The incident sparked attention from the public, the media, and Leonard’s team.

On March 9, 2021, the Miami Heat suspended Leonard indefinitely, and the NBA fined him $50,000. Eight days later, Leonard was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder from Miami, just to be released from this new team. 

Leonard has apologized, and is working with Jewish communities to restore his image and heal the hurt, but the example is only one among many. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in the United States.  

Alan Freedman is the director of the Jewish Sports Heritage Association, an organization dedicated to educating the public about the history of the roles Jews have played in sports. He said he believes that the root of recent extremist and hateful instances actually stems from an modern politics. 

“You know, if you were to ask me a few years ago, I’d say anti-Semitism in the United States was on the decline, but our past administration didn’t really do a good job in handling such things, so I can’t really say it is now,” said Freedman. 

Freedman also said education is key to combat ignorance and hate, and praised athletes who stand up against incidents such as the Leonard case.

“You know, I think with this situation, what’s needed is that we see more people like Julian Edelman, who try to educate these people in regards to their ignorance.”

Edelman, rather than criticizing and putting down Leonard, wrote an open letter to him that discussed his ignorance and said that he wished to educate him on why what he said was wrong.

Freedman went on to discuss how he thought the situation was handled for Leonard across the league.

“Personally, I think the way that the two teams penalized him was a little harsh,” said Freedman. Yes, it was wrong, but I don’t think he should have to lose his livelihood just because he was miseducated and not actually showing blatant signs of a passionate hatred.” 

While Jewish athletes have made significant contributions in sports, Freedman said they have often had to face anti-Semitism, especially many decades ago. 

He recalled such an example almost as far back as a century ago, with efforts to reconcile it not coming until many decades later.

Marty Glickman, a well known sports announcer in New York for teams such as the Giants, Rangers, and Jets, was once a world class sprinter at 18 who, at just the age of 18. He qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, during a time where the Nazis ruled over Germany. Glickman and another man were the only two Jews on the team, and were both prohibited from participating per a statement from the German government. 

Glickman was replaced by the legendary runner, Jesse Owens who won the gold medal in that year’s Olympic Games. Decades later, after Glickman had already died, an effort was made to try and give the gold medal to Glickman’s wife, but she refused insisting that he would never accept it had he still been alive since he didn’t win it himself. 

Michael Neuman, who in 2019 became the first-ever Orthodox Jew to win the Million Dollar Mile competition, a spartan race advertised on television, also recalled a particular instance of anti-Semitism in sports that stood out to him, that being the comments made by Los Angeles Rams wide receiver DeSean Jackson this past July during his second tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles.

“The DeSean Jackson comments were scary, because those thoughts had been circulating with others for a while prior to him even making them.” 

Neuman also gave his take on the recent comments made by Meyers Leonard, believing that the comments were simply made out of ignorance. 

“When incidents such as these come up, we should respond in the same way you’d respond to a child, because they don’t really know the real meaning of what these people that make such offensive comments are actually saying.”

While unbeknownst to many people, whether they be avid sports fanatics, casual fans, or having little to no knowledge of sports at all, anti-Semitism is still an issue in the world of professional athletics that frequently gets overshadowed by other serious problems or just swept under the rug entirely. 

The matter reaches far beyond sports as well, and the proof and statistics are there, but many are simply too blinded by their ignorance and bias to acknowledge them.

According to a study by the ADL, or Anti-Defamation League, 2,107 incidents of anti-Semitism were tabulated in the United States in 2019, a 12% increase from the 1,879 incidents recorded in 2018. 

This proved to be the highest number of recorded incidents since the ADL started keeping track of anti-Semitic cases back in 1979. As many as 61 of these incidents were cases of physical assault, tallying 95 victims, five of them resulting in death. 

In the same study by the ADL, it was found that 13% of the 2,107 incidents of anti-Semitism recorded in 2019 were attributed to that of extremist groups in the country that commit such heinous acts out of more than just miseducation and bias.

Whether it be from instances if celebrities being miseducated, entire countries issuing hateful propaganda many decades ago, or modern statistics that show just how prevalent it is, it is clear that anti-Semitism is still a major issue in this country, in sports and elsewhere.

If society should take anything away from history, it’s that such hate and ignorance can only be stopped by education, not through anger and criticism.  

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