Henry Benjamin Greenberg, nicknamed "Hammerin' Hank", "Hankus Pankus", and "the Hebrew Hammer", was an American professional baseball player and team executive. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the Detroit Tigers as a first baseman in the 1930s and 1940s. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award winner, he was one of the premier power hitters of his generation and is widely considered one of the greatest sluggers in baseball history.
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. His accolades include two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro has described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".
Sanford Koufax, nicknamed "the Left Arm of God", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, as well as the first major sports star on the West Coast, Koufax was the first three-time winner of the Cy Young Award, each time winning unanimously and the only pitcher to do so when a single award was given for both the leagues; he was also named the National League Most Valuable Player in 1963. Retiring at the age of 30 due to chronic pain in his pitching elbow, Koufax was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1972 at the age of 36, the youngest player ever elected.
Rain Man is a 1988 American road comedy-drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass. It tells the story of abrasive, selfish, young wheeler-dealer Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed virtually all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond, an autistic savant of whose existence Charlie was unaware. Charlie is left with only his father's beloved vintage car and rosebushes. Valeria Golino also stars as Charlie's girlfriend, Susanna. Morrow created the character of Raymond after meeting Kim Peek, a real-life savant; his characterization was based on both Peek and Bill Sackter, a good friend of Morrow who was the subject of Bill, an earlier film that Morrow wrote.
Barry Lee Levinson is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. His best-known works are mid-budget comedy drama and drama films such as Diner (1982), The Natural (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bugsy (1991), and Wag the Dog (1997). Levinson won the Academy Award for Best Director for Rain Man (1988). In 2021, he co-executive produced the Hulu miniseries Dopesick and directed the first two episodes.
Daniel Okrent is an American writer and editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of The New York Times newspaper, inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books. In November 2011, Last Call won the Albert J. Beveridge prize, awarded by the American Historical Association to the year's best book of American history. His most recent book, published May 2019, is The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America.
Albert Leonard Rosen, nicknamed "Flip" and "the Hebrew Hammer", was an American baseball third baseman and right-handed slugger for the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball for ten seasons in the 1940s and 1950s.
Steven Michael Stone is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) player and current sportscaster and author.
Norman Burt Sherry was an American baseball catcher, manager, and coach who played five seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets from 1959 to 1963. Sherry went on to coach and manage the California Angels, and also served as coach of the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants.
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame was opened July 7, 1981, in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere around the world.
Kenneth Turan is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 1991 until 2020 and was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "arguably the most widely read film critic in the town most associated with the making of movies".
Punchball is a sport spawned by and similar to baseball, but without a pitcher, catcher, or bat.
Samuel Ralph Nahem, nicknamed "'Subway Sam", was an American pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938), St. Louis Cardinals (1941), and Philadelphia Phillies. His professional baseball playing was interrupted by military service (1942–1946) with the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is a 1999 documentary film written, directed, and produced by Aviva Kempner about Hank Greenberg, first baseman of the Detroit Tigers, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. A Jewish player who chose not to play on Yom Kippur in 1934 during a heated pennant race, Greenberg had to face a great deal of antisemitism. In 1938 he nearly broke Babe Ruth's 60 home run record by hitting 58 home runs.
Aviva Kempner is a German-born American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish people. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.
The Gold Coast International Film Festival launched in 2011, on the north shore of North Hempstead, New York. The festival, now held every November, completed its 7th year in 2017. The festival is produced by the Gold Coast Arts Center, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) multi-arts center based in Great Neck, NY. Founding sponsors of the festival include the Town of North Hempstead and Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The festival was founded with the mission of establishing a home on Long Island to showcase the work of exceptional filmmakers and provide the public with an insider's view of the film industry. Festival events include screenings, workshops, conversations with prominent members of the film community, parties.
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel is a 2018 documentary film about the underdog Israel national baseball team competing for the first time in the World Baseball Classic. The 87-minute film was directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger, the three of whom produced it along with Jonathan Mayo, and starred baseball player Ike Davis and other baseball players.
Since the early 20th-century, numerous Jewish athletes have chosen not to play on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. As one of the most culturally significant Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur is observed by many secular Jews who may not observe other holidays. Jews observing the holiday participate in full fasting and asceticism.
Jews have been involved in baseball since the sport's beginnings in the mid-19th century and have contributed to its evolution in many capacities, including players, agents, team owners, executives, umpires, broadcasters, and fans. In the United States, particularly, baseball played a large part in the assimilation of American Jews into American society at a time of rampant antisemitism and when Jews were immigrating to America to escape persecution. Today, it remains a very important part in Jewish American culture.
