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‘The Ways Of Torah Are Peaceful’: Why Football Presents A Dilemma For American Jews By Gabe Friedman
(Getty Images; photo illustration by Grace Yagel)
(JTA) — Rabbi Josh Feigelson remembers the moment that football lost its magic for him. It was Oct. 20, 2013, and Feigelson was eating dinner with his family at Ken’s Diner, a kosher restaurant in Skokie, the Chicago suburb where they live. A TV was playing a football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns. Feigelson, who grew up in the football-crazed college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was a longtime fan of the sport, and his then preteen kids had taken up the mantle, participating in fantasy football leagues and following news about the NFL’s 32 different teams. So they were watching closely when the Packers’ Jermichael Finley, a 6-foot-5 tight end weighing close to 250 pounds, was hit so hard by an opposing player that he dropped limply to the turf. While the others around him picked up the fumbled ball and finished the play, Finley lay on his side, unable to move. He was eventually taken off the field on a stretcher, and doctors diagnosed his injury as a spinal cord contusion stemming from a hit to the head and neck — essentially, a few of his vertebrae had jammed too close together. He has since mostly recovered, but he never played in another NFL game. To Feigelson’s surprise, Finley’s injury didn’t register with his kids. “They were like, ‘Whoa, that was an amazing hit!’ And it’s like, this guy just potentially lost his life. I mean, he certainly ended his career, and he’s got kids,” said Feigelson, the executive director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. “I thought, ‘No, I can’t say that, there’s nothing to marvel at here.’ And I could feel it… something woke up for me.” Feigelson added, “It’s a beautiful game. But what we’ve all become THE
JEWISH LIGHT
more aware of, as in so many other areas of our lives, is that there’s all this stuff that we haven’t allowed ourselves to see. And I think it is a Jewish value to allow ourselves to be conscious of that and to reckon with — is this a price we’re willing to pay? And can we really suffer that level of cognitive dissonance, that this is such a violent sport?” Feigelson is not alone in the struggle to reconcile his Jewish values with his football fandom amid multiple ongoing crises for the sport, over the danger it presents for players and the NFL’s handling of both players’ misconduct and racial justice protests. Now, even as the country gears up for a pretty Jewish Super Bowl — Sunday’s game features Jewish players, a rarity, on both teams — American Jews are wrestling with just how closely to tune in. While the love affair between Jews and baseball is firmly established, many American Jews are also avid football fans. Statistically, in terms of TV and in person viewership and personal preference, football is by far the most popular sport in the country, and many of those interviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency compared the activity of getting together with family or friends (in person or virtually, even in the pandemic era) every Sunday for their teams’ once-a-week games to a regular religious ritual. Sometimes the sport even interacts with religion. “I think there was one year where a football game fell on Rosh Hashanah, so [my family] went to services in the morning, and then had the big Rosh Hashanah dinner, and then, you know, watched the football game,” said Philadelphia Eagles fan Amy Schiowitz, who watches her team every week without fail. Being a football fan has grown more complicated for many in recent years. First came the mounting evidence that the sport is dangerous: Many players experience a dangerous amount of concussions, and studies have found that they are at risk of traumatic brain injuries, especially one called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In addition to pain, CTE causes
mood swings, memory loss and even suicidal tendencies. Several former players, including the Pro Bowlers Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, have killed themselves in recent decades. More recently, the NFL has drawn criticism for its handling of two sensitive issues: racial justice protests and domestic violence by its players. In the eyes of many observers and fans, the NFL penalized too lightly several players convicted of physical domestic abuse against their spouses and children, including Tyreek Hill, the star wide receiver of the Kansas City Chiefs, playing in the Super Bowl against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Then there is Colin Kaepernick. After kneeling during the national anthem before games in the 2016 season to protest police brutality against Black men, the star quarterback was effectively blacklisted by the league’s owners, prematurely ending his career. He and a teammate sued the NFL for unfairly colluding to keep them from playing (they settled the case in 2019 under undisclosed terms). Kaepernick became a symbol of anti-patriotic sentiment for some — including
Donald Trump — and almost a prophet for others who see his protest as predicting the wave of racial justice protests that swept America in 2020.
Colin Kaepernick, No. 7, kneels with his teammate Eric Reid during the national anthem prior to a game on Sept. 1, 2016. (Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)
NBA agent Danielle Cantor Jeweler said the difference between how the NFL and the NBA, the basketball league, handled racial justice protests was one factor that undercut her love for football. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd last year, the NBA encouraged its players to speak out and allowed them to wear Black Lives Matter slogans on their jerseys. Jeweler, who is one of few women in her field and says her Jewish values guide her career See FOOTBALL on Page
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Happy Passover to all my friends in the Jewish Community. Thank you for your continued support! Judge Paula Brown
Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit, Division C
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