Joe Louis and the Jews
In boxing – and in American sport – few titles carry as
much symbolic importance as heavyweight champion of the world. A symbol of
virility and power, the title has become a source of pride for ethnic,
religious and racial groups. In the 1920s and 1930s, American Jewish champions
such as Benny Leonard and Barney Ross became heroes to their people. Perhaps the most important boxing champion
American Jewry has embraced, however, was Joe Louis, a non-Jewish
African-American, who in June of 1938 knocked
out Max Schmeling, Nazi Germany’s best heavyweight. American Jewry
claimed Louis’s victory as their own, a refutation of Hitler’s argument
that German Aryans constituted a "master race." Art Buchwald, who
grew up in New York, recalled that as a child in 1938 he was sure of three
things: "Franklin Roosevelt was going to save the economy . . . Joe
DiMaggio was going to beat Babe Ruth’s record [and] Joe Louis was going to
save us from the Germans."
Louis might not have fought for the heavyweight title if a
New York Jewish promoter, Mike Jacobs, chose not to handle his fights. Born on
the Lower East Side in the 1880s, by the mid 1930s "Uncle Mike"
Jacobs had become the sports leading promoter. In 1942 alone he promoted 250
boxing cards, and in the course of his career staged 61 championship fights.
He excelled at developing a fighter’s public identity.
Jacobs recognized Louis’s boxing talent, but also knew
that, as a black man, Louis would have a difficult – if not impossible –
time getting a title shot. Jack Johnson, the flamboyant and self-confident
previous black champion, won the heavyweight crown in 1908, but his
relationships with white women created a backlash that led to Johnson’s
conviction on a morals charge. The next black champion, if there were to be
one, would have to be low-keyed and circumspect, and he would have to be
marketed as representing all Americans, not just African-Americans.
Mike Jacobs recognized that American boxing crowds,
and particularly the numerous Jewish fans, ached to see both Schmeling
and Primo Carnera, an Italian heavyweight and symbol of fascist might,
defeated by an American fighter. In the early 1930s, Schmeling and Carnera
had each briefly held the world title. The first fight Jacobs lined
up for Joe Louis was in 1935, with Carnera, whom Louis knocked out in
six rounds. The same year Louis knocked out Max Baer in the fourth round,
setting up a showdown with Schmeling to determine who would be in line
to fight the reigning champion, Jim Braddock.
While many in the Jewish
public longed for Louis — or anyone else
— to conquer Schmeling and embarrass
Hitler, some Jewish groups opposed giving
Schmeling a platform. Several of them applied
pressure on Mike Jacobs to cancel the Louis-Schmeling
fight. Jacobs replied that Louis would defeat
Schmeling, giving the lie to Nazi propaganda.
More than 45,000 fans filled Yankee Stadium
expecting to see the "Brown Bomber"
defeat Schmeling. They left disappointed.
After a lopsided battering, Louis was knocked
out in the twelfth round. Hitler cabled Schmeling
to congratulate him on his "splendid
patriotic achievement."
Schmeling had earned the right
to fight for Braddock’s crown, but Jacobs
and Braddock’s Jewish manager, Joe Gould,
decided the American public would rather not
run the risk of seeing Schmeling, as one sportswriter
put it, "take the title back to Germany
and present it to Adolf
Hitler for the German Museum." Jacobs
guaranteed Braddock a whopping $500,000 payday
to fight Louis instead, and the match was
made. Louis knocked out Braddock and became
champion. As historian Peter Levine observes,
the fight "launched [Louis’s] reign
as one of boxing’s greatest champions
and secured his place as a hero of an oppressed
American black population. It also set the
scene for one more battle with Max Schmeling
that enhanced Louis’s status as a hero
for all Americans." One might add: especially
for Jews.
The second battle between the two men, in June 1938, was
promoted as a battle between democracy and fascism. When Schmeling’s ship
docked in New York harbor it was met by hundreds of anti-fascist pickets. The
Non-Partisan Anti-Nazi League and the American Jewish Congress urged Jacobs to
cancel the fight. Jacobs offered to donate 10 per cent of the gate to groups
helping Jewish refugees. Louis proclaimed that he was "backing up America
against Germany," and promised he would be "going to town"
against Schmeling.
Louis delivered on his boast, knocking
out Schmeling in the first round. Americans
cheered, and African Americans and Jews celebrated
the loudest. In their eyes, Louis had vindicated
American democracy. In 1946, after the world
had learned how brutally far the Nazis had
carried their racial theories, a story in
the American Hebrew praised Mike Jacobs
for giving Joe Louis the opportunity to strike
"a terrific blow to the theory of race
supremacy." While Schmeling’s defeat
did not save European Jewry from the Nazi
killing machine, Louis’s knockout helped
American Jews believe that Germans could be
defeated by a member of an American minority.
The lesson was not lost on the hundreds of
thousands of American Jews who fought against
Germany in World War II.
Incidentally, Schmeling opposed
the Nazis and ultimately developed a personal
friendship with Louis. In fact, Schmeling
paid for a part of the American boxer's funeral
arrangements in 1981.
Sources: American
Jewish Historical Society; Max
Schmelling |