Whether real or embellished, former JTA "Slants on Sports" columnist Morris Weiner envisioned the college football gridiron as a place where Jewish-Irish tensions could be hammered out.
"Tomorrow afternoon at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn the Kelly Green Irish from Manhattan College will tackle the Beaver Litvacks in their annual football clash," Weiner joked as he played up the 1934 matchup between teams divided on ethnic lines. (This Week in Jewish History readers: This was the last matchup before the NYU game that led to the death of Aaron Greenwald.)
But on the field, it wasn’t always bad blood between the bar mitzvah boys and the altar boys.
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In 1930, legendary Fighting Irish coach Knut Rockne coached a game against Northwestern, the proceeds for which were split between Catholic, Jewish and Protestant charities based in Chicago.
In 1934, Elmer Layden, former fullback of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, coached Henry Weinberg at Duquesne, another Catholic University.
Weinberg is not only a successful football player for the Dukes but is one of the most active and most popular men on the campus. He is a senior in the school of education and intends to teach and coach after his graduation in June, 1934…
In the spring of 1933 he was elected president of the Phi Alpha fraternity, national Jewish organization. He was also elected last spring to the presidency of the campus inter-fraternity council.
Further reading: Jewish St. Patrick’s Day stories.
