Joseph Siegman, chairman of the Executive Board of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, announced today that nine selections have been made by the international Selection Committee, chaired by Haskell Cohen, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s sports editor, at a meeting held recently in Israel.
The induction into the Hall of the nine selectees will take place during the early part of 1983 at the Wingate School of Physical Education in Netanya Israel.
A total of nine former sports greats, including four Americans, were designated to join the 57 Jewish athletes already selected by the Committee.
Heading the American list is Abe Attell, the former world featherweight champion, a title he held for II years; Max Zaslofsky, the All-American basketball player from St. John’s University, who started in the NBA ranks from 1947 until 1956; Walter Miller, generally considered the greatest jockey of the early 20th century; and weight lifter Frank Spellman, who established an Olympic record of 860 lbs in the middle-weight class when he won the gold medal in 1948 in London.
The non-American selectees include Ted "Kid" Lewis the English boxing champion in world welterweight division from 1915 until 1919; Mark Midler of Russia, who gained two gold medals as a member of the Soviet National Fencing Team at the Rome and Tokyo Olympics; the South African Jody Scheckter who became world champion automobile racing driver in 1979; Richard Weisz of Hungary, the 1908 Olympic gold medal winner in the heavyweight class in Greco-Roman style grappling at the London Olympics; and Lilly Kronberger, the Hungarian skating ace who reigned as world champion (1908-1911) in figure skating.
Americans previously selected for installation in the international Jewish Sports Hall of Fame include the following:
BASEBALL: Al Rosen; Barney Dreyfuss; Honk Greenberg; Sandy Koufax.
BASKETBALL: Adolph Schayes; Abe Saperstein; "Red" Auerbach; Eddie Gottlieb; Nat Holmon; Harry Litwack.
BOWLING: Sylvia Wene.
BOXING: Barney Ross; Jackie Fields; Benny Leonard; Barney Lebrowitz.
FOOTBALL: Benny Friedman, Marshall Goldberg; Sid Luckman; Ron Mix.
HANDBALL: Jim Jacobs.
HORSE RACING: Hirsch Jacobs.
ICE SKATING: Irving Jaffee.
SOCCER: Hakoah-Vienna; Arthur Baar.
SPORTSCASTING: Mel Allen.
SWIMMING: Mark Spitz; Charlotte Epstein.
TENNIS: Dick Sovitt.
TRACK & FIELD: Lillian Copelond; Lon Myers; Myer Prinstein.
WEIGHTLIFTING: Isaac Berger.
WRESTLING: Henry Wittenberg.
YACHTING: Zefania Carmel/Lydia Lazarov.
By action of the Executive Board of the international Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, no athlete can be voted into the Hall during the course of their active participation. The Sports Hall originally founded in the U.S. in 1978, is a project of the U.S. Committee Sports for Israel.
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.
