c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) Whenever I welcome overseas visitors to the United States, I always tell them America is best understood by reading only two sections of our daily newspapers: the business and sports pages.

Indeed, sports figures have always held great fascination for the political and religious communities. Frequently, sports stars take on almost mythical proportions and their commercial endorsements, political opinions and religious sentiments are eagerly sought by the general society.

Sometimes sports stars even run for high elective office. Former U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., a National Football League quarterback, was the Republican Party’s 1996 nominee for vice president. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., was an outstanding major-league pitcher, and, of course, former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., a New York Knick basketball star, is currently seeking the presidency.

But big-name athletes often play another interesting public role when their fans make them heroic and vicarious representatives of various religious, ethnic and racial minorities. Dominicans are wild about Chicago Cub home run slugger Sammy Sosa, and although it has been more than 50 years since he began his career with the old Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson remains the most famous black big league ballplayer. And New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio was one of the first Italian-Americans to become an American icon.

During one of the darkest periods in Jewish history, the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, American Jews also had a sports superstar who gave them pride and hope.

Hank Greenberg was a powerful refutation of the virulent anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany and the more polite American version of the same pathology.

Greenberg, who was born in the Bronx, spent his most productive years as a home-run hitter with the Detroit Tigers. Aviva Kempner’s recent 90-minute film documentary”The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”superbly describes his unique role as a Jewish hero when Hitler was spewing out vicious lies about the alleged”racial inferiority”of Jews.

Journalist Eric J. Greenberg (no relation to Hank) of New York City’s Jewish Week has called the Tiger slugger a “modern Judah Maccabee (the hero of the Hanukkah story) who faced down constant anti-Semitic slurs hurled at him like brush-back fastballs by opposing players and fans.”Some people in the 1930s even believed Greenberg’s extraordinary athletic fame and dignified behavior would make him this country’s first Jewish president.

Even though the Tigers were involved in a tight pennant race in 1934, Greenberg refused to play on Yom Kippur that year. When he entered a Detroit synagogue on Judaism’s holiest day, the adoring congregation cheered him.

Four years later, Greenberg hit 58 home runs in a season eight games shorter than today’s schedule. He ended his Hall of Fame career as a Pittsburgh Pirate and, following his retirement as a player, was the general manger of the Cleveland Indians where he actively recruited black players.

Greenberg died in 1986, but thanks to Kempner’s film, his fame will endure. Interestingly,”The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”has been shown to critical acclaim in both Berlin and Jerusalem.

Making an independent documentary film is expensive, and Kempner received needed support from Kirk Douglas, Neil Diamond, Norman Lear and Steven Spielberg.

Greenberg once said hitting home runs in the major leagues was his way of fighting Nazi anti-Semitism. Sadly, he also had to overcome the bigotry and prejudice of some of his Tiger teammates and the many fans who jeered the Jewish star throughout his playing days.

Clearly, Greenberg’s bitter experience as a Jew helped make him a strong public supporter of Jackie Robinson’s entry into the big leagues in 1947. Some historians note Greenberg’s actions on the diamond foreshadowed the Jewish-black civil rights coalition of the 1950s and 1960s.

There have been other Jewish major-league stars since Hank Greenberg, including a fellow Hall of Famer, pitcher Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers. Sean Green, a member of today’s Dodger team, is an outstanding player, but Greenberg paved the way for other Jews, as well as for all minorities.

America is, thankfully, a far different place than it was in the 1930s and 1940s. If Greenberg had achieved his fame in this generation, perhaps he, too, would have made a run for the White House. After all, why should a football quarterback like Kemp and a basketball forward like Bradley have all the fun? Sports stardom and the presidency should both be equal employment opportunity jobs.

DEA END RUDIN