A certain generation of Midwestern Jewish boys will always have a special attachment Ken Holtzman. Though his near-contemporary and fellow southpaw Sandy Koufax had the more dazzling career—and pitched his perfect game against the Cubs—it was Holtzman who had the most victories of any Jewish pitcher (174) in Major League Baseball history. Besides, Koufax was…
After 70 seasons, the Chicago Cubs’ World Series appearance seems almost too improbable to believe; especially given the team’s long tradition of dramatic late-season collapses. But now that the team is actually favored to win the series against the Cleveland Indians—their first-game rout notwithstanding—it’s no surprise that fans are beginning to think of supernatural forces….
— Conservative rabbis in Cleveland and Chicago have placed a friendly wager on the World Series. The rabbi in the losing city will travel to the synagogue in the winning city to engage in a debate on the Jewish significance of baseball. Rabbi Stephen Weiss of B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike, Ohio, a Cleveland…
(JTA) — The same week Tamar Manasseh’s African-American son was going to become a bar mitzvah, gang violence killed two 13-year-old black boys who were also from Chicago’s South Side. As she picked out the bar mitzvah suit for her son, Manasseh couldn’t shake the image of the slain boys’ mothers, who were likely also…
Even in a normal election year, the Windy City is a tough town for a Republican. But in 2016 it’s even harder to be a Donald Trump supporter. This is, after all, President Barack Obama’s hometown. It’s also a Democratic stronghold built up by two Mayor Daley’s in an uncontested state that is reliably deep…
CHICAGO — For many years, the name Leo Melamed has been virtually synonymous with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Melamed first ventured onto the trading floor in the 1950s as a law student working as a runner. The CME, when Melamed joined it, operated under the open outcry system of traders and brokers communicating through shouts…
‘I can’t wait for Sukkot.” An expression of anticipatory excitement coming from a fellow member of my temple? Our rabbi? My Orthodox cousins? It was the 13-year-old son of our non-Jewish neighbors. And another piece of evidence of a remarkable phenomenon our family has discovered about the holiday: That it is magic. No, it’s not…
A few hours after the Kol Nidre service that marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, 11:07 p.m. Chicago time, my phone buzzed. My iPhone was on for emergencies: with the kid away in college and my 91 year old mom alone in her apartment, I had to check. The message spelled “W-O-W.” “Dad, Cubs had…
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