Nine people from five countries have been elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
The 1998 honorees include four Americans: Marv Levy, who coached the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls (1990-93); David Stern, commissioner of the National Basketball Association since 1984; Cpl. “Izzy” Schwartz, world flyweight boxing champion from 1927-29; and A.J. Liebling, celebrated author and the New Yorker’s magazine boxing writer from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Also elected were Russia’s Vera Krepinka, winner of the 1960 Olympic long-jump gold medal; Okey Geffen, South Africa’s famed international rugby kicker; Istvan Barta, the goalie of Hungary’s Olympic championship water polo teams in the 1920s; Chagai Zamir, Israel’s handicapped volleyball star and the winner of nine Paralympics, World Cup and European Cup gold medals; and Gyorgy Szepesi- Friedlander, a Hungarian broadcasting icon.
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame is located in Netanya, Israel, on the campus of the Wingate Institute.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
