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Subject Guide: Sports

Archival and library highlights found at the Center relating to sports events, movements, and athletes.

Sports class at a school in Essen. c1930. From the Essen Jewish Community collection, 1908-2005 (AR 1588). LBI.

General Sports History

Phillip Applebaum collection (P 583)

This collection consists almost entirely of magazine articles about American Jews who have attained prominence in various fields, including entertainment, sports, and business. The files arranged by name, except small number at the end listed by particular topics, including a folder dedicated to Jews in sports.

Ira Berkow Papers (P 900)

This collection documents the work of American sportswriter Ira Berkow and contains correspondence and photographs of Berkow, documenting his relationship with leaders in sports, politics, religion, and the arts. The collection also contains selected articles and appearances on television and radio made during his career.

Ralph Bettelheim Collection (AR 25359) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Series II of this collection focuses on Bettelheim's work with the Committee for Fair Play in Sports working towards boycotting the Olympic Games in Germany in 1936.

City Athletic Club Records (I-533)

This collection documents the history of the City Athletic Club, from its founding in 1908 to its disbanding in 2002. Established clubs at the time in New York City rarely admitted Jews; the City Athletic Club was founded to address this. Notable in the collection are the Board of Governors meeting minutes, spanning the 20th century, that provide rich detail into the founding, administration, and activities of the Club during periods of economic boom and bust, war, and social change. The collection also includes minutes of the Athletic Committee and the House Committee, as well as photographs, lantern slides, newsletters, printed ephemera, reports, a scrapbook, and plaques documenting the activities of the club. 

Emil L. Feigenbaum Collection, 1915-1953 (AR 11594)

This collection contains materials highlighting accomplished German-Jewish athletes and soldiers. Of note is a scrapbook with clippings circa 1924-1936 featuring various Jewish Olympic athletes.

Poland (Vilna Archives) Collection (RG 28) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The Poland (Vilna Archives) Collection is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in Vilna, The bulk of the collection relates to Jewish communities in over 260 cities and towns in interwar Poland (1919-1939). Documents of earlier years are also included. Included are posters and advertisements for sports clubs and sporting events. 

Baseball

Morris “Moe” Berg Papers (P-924) 

This collection contains the papers of Morris "Moe" Berg, who was a professional baseball player, linguist, lawyer, and international spy during WWII. The Berg papers span the years 1924 to 1984, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930 to 1960. The collection features correspondences between Berg and Major League Baseball players: Alphonse “Tommy” Thomas, Ted Lyons, Johnny Neun, and Al Schacht.

Basketball

Reeve Robert Brenner Papers (P-962)

This collection is comprised of periodicals, correspondence, and literature pertaining to the life of Rabbi Reeve Robert Brenner from 1968-2007. Rabbi Brenner is a noted scholar and the inventor of a basketball inspired game called Bankshot.

Senior girls gym boxing class at the Y.M.H.A. of Washington Heights, c1920. From the National Jewish Welfare Board Records (I-337). AJHS.

Fencing

Kartell-Convent deutscher Studenten Juedischen Glaubens Collection (AR 966) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

This collection contains records of the Kartell-Convent deutscher Studenten jüdischen Glaubens and the American branch of the organization following the dissolution of the Kartell-Convent in 1933 and 1934. The Kartell-Convent was created to unify Jewish fraternities in Germany, that had been formed to fight the growing anti-Semitism. The Kartell-Convent fraternities engaged in dueling with swords, sometimes referred to as Mensur or academic fencing. Within this collection are photographs of Kartell-Convent members in fencing costume. 

Oppenheimer Stern Family Collection (AR 25121) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

This collection contains a scrapbook chronicling Stephanie Stern's fencing career. The scrapbook has clippings from German, American, and Italian newspapers, programs from fencing events, and some photographs of fencers.

Gymnastics

Bar Kochba Clippings Collection (AR 6469 C)

Page of one panel of the exhibition "Sport under the Star of David," and brochure for an international symposium in Berlin commemorating the centennial of the first Jewish National gymnastics club.

Bar Kochba, Frankfurt am Main, Collection, 1936-1938 (AR 11260) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The collection contains 10 photographs of members of the Frankfurt am Main Bar Kochba gymnastics club.

Weiss-Frohsinn Family Collection (AR 25783)  [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The Weiss-Frohsinn Family Collection contains the papers of members of the Weiss and Frohsinn families, with a focus on the life of the gymnastics teacher Lily Frohsinn (née Weiss). Series II contains many photographs of her as a teacher at the Werner Gymnastics School in Vienna.

Soccer

Heidecker and Schmitt Family Collection (AR 25651) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The collection documents the emigration experiences of members of the Heidecker, Schmitt, and related families, especially of Ludolf and Ruth (née Schmitt) Heidecker. The collection includes extensive correspondence and photographs relating to Ludolf Heidecker's role in soccer associations.

Karola Sanders Collection, 1920-1993. (AR 10099) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The collection contains documents pertaining to Karola Sanders's husband Frank A. Sanders, including a 1933 letter to him from German soccer club 1. FC Nuremberg informing him that Jews are no longer allowed to be members of the club and a 1980 letter from Sanders to the club regarding the 1933 letter.

Tibby Wegner Collection, 1924-1996 (AR 10309) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

T.O. (Tibby) Wegner was born in 1905 in Austria. He had a career as a soccer player for the Jewish sports club Hakoah, a sports reporter, and finally as the head of a sporting goods company in England, where he died in 1995.

Wrestling

Zalman Unreich On Collection (AR 25949)

The collection covers the life of Zalman Unreich On (1912-1978), including growing up in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and his youth as a medal-winning wrestler and later as a wrestling instructor.