says in the film. "I wanted to be Hank
Greenberg and I couldn't be, so I
kvelled. I loved being part of the
group that identified with him."
Attorney and author Alan Dershowitz
notes, "Hank showed us, the children of
immigrants, that we were as American as
anybody else."

in comparison to the battles he faced as
a Jew in Major League baseball. Fans
screamed epithets from the stands, such
as "sheenie," "kike" and "Jew-bastard,"
but it didn't stop Greenberg.
He could have changed his name,
like some other Jewish players, but he
didn't. In the late 1930s,
Aviva Kempner: Greenberg proclaimed that
The Life and Times of Hank
"This fi lm is my
Greenberg also features inter-
every hit was one against
father's legacy.
views with Charley Geringher,
Hitler."
Ernie Harwell, Joe Falls and
One of the most telling sto-
Sander and Carl Levin.
ries about the three-time American
Kempner, who also made the
League MVP is of his first encounter
award-winning The Partisans of Vilna,
with another baseball trailblazer, Jackie
does a fine job of balancing the out-
Robinson. Robinson began playing in
standing - talent Greenberg displayed
1947, Greenberg's final year. In the
on the field with his impact on
film, Greenberg recalls thinking he
American Jews of the era. Plus, she
had always had the roughest time.
adds, "the man was gorgeous — all
That is until he heard what happened
women should know from him."
when Robinson came up to bat. When
The Hall of Famer's baseball feats —
Robinson singled, the two men chat-
including 58 homeruns in 1938 -- pale
ted at first base. After the game,

"

One of the greatest pitchers of all
time, Koufax was named Sports
Illustrated's favorite athlete of the
century in the July 12, 1999, issue.
What separated Koufax from
other athletic paragons who made
the magazine's top 20, like Bill
Russell, Wayne Gretzky and Chris
Evert, was his adherence, at least
once, to religious values.
Koufax's legendary decision to sit
out the first game of the 1965
World Series, which fell on Yom
Kippur, put him at the top of a list
of performers whose "peculiar and
largely irrelevant talents stir a soci-
ety, whose otherwise pointless play
looms heroic, and whose brief
careers become reference points not
just for their sport but for us."
Sports Illustrated titled its well-

intentioned but rather weary profile
of his enduring mystique, "The Left
Arm of God," commending Koufax
for putting "team before self, mod-
esty before fame and God before the
World Series."
Throughout his career in the
1930s and '40s, Hank Greenberg
battled antisemitism, quickly
becoming a hero to a generation of
Jews still anxious about their place
in American life. Kempner's new
documentary presents a loving por-
trait of the man and his fans, one a
6-foot-4-inch slugger who towered
over his teammates, the others aver-
age folks who shepped nachas for the
brawny Bronx native.
In addition to hitting 58 homers
in a season and leading the Tigers to
two World Series victories,

Robinson told the press that
Greenberg had told him to "keep his
chin up and stick it out."
"Class," said Robinson, "it just falls
out of Hank Greenberg."
Stephen Greenberg knows another side
of the hero, talking about the man that
was his father. "I idolized him as my dad,
not in terms of a superhero," he said.
Though not religious, his father,
Stephen Greenberg said, was very spiri-
tual and had a strong sense of Jewish
values.
Of the film, Stephen
Greenberg says, "In the
absolute most positive way,
Aviva Kempner is meshuo-o-ene.
No one else could have made this
film, stuck with it so long. She cap-
tures Dad's warmth, tenacity, humor,
love of life and the important role he
played for Jews in America that most
people don't know about." ❑

.

Greenberg was the first
Major Leaguer to enlist
for World War II and
later to embrace
Jackie Robinson,
whose rookie year
in 1947 was
Greenberg's last.
Sander Gilman,
in his 1991 book,

The Jew's Body,

examines represen-
tations of Jewish
men's noses, feet,
voices, psyche,
and genius,
among other
characteristics.
Gilman
argues that
antisemitism

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

will be screened 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan.
29, at the Michigan Theater in Ann
Arbor. Aviva Kempner will present the
film and answer questions. A reception,
with ballpark foods, will follow. Tickets
are $10/$5 students and are available in
advance at University of Michigan Hillel,
Congregation Beth Israel, Jewish
Community Center of Washtenaw
County and Temple Beth Emeth. (734)
769-0500. On the day of the screening,
tickets will be available at the Michigan
Theater, (734) 668-8463.
The Detroit Film Theatre at the
Detroit Institute of Arts presents The

Life and Times of Hank Greenberg 7
and 9:30 p.m. Friday,
March 31; 1, 4 7 and
9:30 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday, April 1-2.
Tickets are $5.50.
(313) 833-3237.

Hank
Greenberg,
1930, on his
way to becoming
an American folk hero.

both emerges from and
informs understandings of
the Jewish male body, the
stereotype of Jewish physical
inferiority mitigated by
intellectual superiority.
In baseball, where the spec-
tacle of the body comes to
symbolize the collective
expression of a people,
Koufax and Greenberg
synthesized the physical
and the metaphysical.
IN THE STANDS on page 80

1/14
2000

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