Why We Don’t See Orthodox Jews in Combat Sports

Why We Don’t See Orthodox Jews in Combat Sports

When we look at the current landscape of combat sports, the broad spectrum of religious and ethnic backgrounds is staggering, and mostly is due to the international nature of the sport itself. From the USA, to Argentina, Nigeria, China, New Zealand, and Russia, fighters come from all walks of life in the various combat sports.

For example, just recently in MMA, we have had two openly gay, Brazilian women, as champions in Jessica Andrade and Amanda Nunes, Kyrgystan’s Valentina Shevchenko, African American champion Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, a Croatian-American Stipe Miocic, 2 Nigerian born champions (Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman), a Dagestani and practicing Muslim Khabib Nurmagomedov, Hawaiian Max Holloway, and the Olympic gold medalist of Mexican descent, Henry Cejudo.

That doesn’t even touch other MMA organizations, boxing world titles, kickboxing, BJJ, or wrestling either. In each of these sports, we see many fighters competing that are devout Christians and Muslims, the two other Abrahamic religions. So why is it so rare to see an Orthodox Jewish fighter? So rare, that the I would be willing to bet you can’t name a single one by name without googling it.

It’s not as if there isn’t a rich history of Jews in boxing. Indeed, in the 1920’s, 14 world champions, out of 66, were Jewish. In fact, it was so popular to be a Jewish boxer, non-Jewish boxers changed their ring names to sound more Jewish, or would utilize their Jewish lineage for promotional practices. The most famous example of this would be Max Baer, who held the Heavyweight championship for 364 days, who wore a Star of David on his trunks, despite the fact that his mother was not Jewish and his father was half-Jewish.

Boxing historian Mike Silver looked at many of these great fighters in the informative ‘When Jewish Boxers Were Lords of the Ring’.

To really drive home the point, I give you The Great Bennah, Benny Leonard. Considered one of the top 10 Lightweight boxers of all time, Leonard held the title from May 1917 – January 1925 and, aside from a comeback brought about by the Great Depression, was damn near unbeatable in his prime. Yet Benny Leonard is likely the peak athlete of Jewish heritage in combat sports’ history, and he most certainly was not an Orthodox Jew, although he did grow up Orthodox with his Russian Jewish parents (both of whom were immigrants).

So, I reiterate the question once more, why would Orthodox Jews, despite clearly seeing success among their brethren in combat sports in history, be nearly absent from the ranks?

Worth noting here that there are a few examples in recent times of notable Orthodox Jewish boxers. Dmitry Salita and Yuri Foreman are both practicing Orthodox Jews. However, both are also immigrants and were not raised Orthodox growing up. Neither one would have gone through the Yeshiva system, which we will speak about below, and both had interests in boxing (with Foreman actively competing) before becoming religious. That being said, both are sources of pride for Orthodox Jewish fans of combat sports.

Now, I also will get the simple explanation for why we don’t see Orthodox Jews compete out of the way as well; technically combat sports would be forbidden. Jews are not allowed to cause themselves injury nor can they put themselves in life-threatening situations unnecessarily (only in specific, extreme circumstances). That being said, it’s far less interesting to simply state “can’t do it”, and I think it runs deeper anyway, so let’s take a look at what I think are the factors involved.

1)      The limited pool athletically to draw from.

2)      Cultural norms in the Orthodox Jewish world.

3)      A lack of organized combat sports in the Yeshiva system.

The first is quite straightforward really. As of April 2018, the worldwide Jewish population totaled under 15 million people. That absolutely pales in comparison, to every other major religion. Christianity was over 2.4 billion back in 2012 and Islam over 1.8 billion. That is 0.6% of the Christian population and 0.81% of the Muslim population. To further the point, a 2013 Pew Research Center Survey breaking down many aspects of the worldwide Jewish populations found that roughly 10% of Jewish in the United States are Orthodox, and roughly 20% of Israeli Jews consider themselves Orthodox.

The second is one that I must say is based on my subjective viewpoints of the various Orthodox community, but specifically with respect to communities of the Ashkenazic variety (I’m an Ashkenazic NYC Jew).

I grew up in the Yeshiva system my entire life, surrounded by my Orthodox brethren at all turns. The concept of physical activity was not shunned entirely, and there are various sports’ leagues for things like Football, Baseball, or Basketball. But when I say organized, I mean it in a “let’s play at the park once a week” kind of way or a league once a week to keep kids busy and active. The level of organization is small, the interest and financial support or incentive is non-existent, and the emphasis put on developing athletic talent is virtually nil.

Why? Because the Orthodox faith shuns the idea of promoting and glorifying success attained through one’s physical gifts. It can be an odd concept to many I’m sure, but value and success through using the mind is pushed upon Orthodox communities to an extent I cannot fully elaborate on properly.

This stems from our history of consistently being treated as second and third-class citizens. The constant persecution and upheaval from being kicked out of the various nations of Europe, confinement to ghettos, and horrific pogroms led to a system among the communities whereby we attempted to stabilize our positions in society through economic power wherever possible. While it was not necessarily always successful, the concept of advancement in society through the means of economic growth, and working into political power through those means as well, stuck with Ashkenazic Jews who came over to the US after WWII/the Holocaust.

Fast forward a few decades later, and we’ve seen much of the second and third generation of Jews who immigrated continuing this trend. Indeed, by the 2000’s onward, Jews attained the highest median household income. In a 2016 Pew Research study, Modern Orthodox Jews had a median household income of $158,000 USD (in-depth research of this type of study can be found here at A Portrait of American Jews which looks at the 2013 survey)

And that is Modern Orthodox, which is actually more accepting of attaining success through physical abilities as well than the more stringent sects of Orthodoxy.

Another major factor is the push for the abhorrence of violence being used. From a young age, we are taught that fighting is among the worst things you can do, and discouraged at every turn. Now, while there are of course exceptions (self-defense against a legitimate threat), the idea that violence would be an option for anything but is absurd to many Orthodox Jews. To elaborate further on this point, if someone hits a person, that person is forbidden from hitting them back, unless it is necessary for self-defense. Violence is only permitted under extremely specific circumstances. (Look at this article for information on the Prohibition Against Physical Violence)

Of course, we do have some examples of violence or martial arts being pushed in our communities (look up Torah Dojo or, if you want to be floored, the JDL), for the vast majority of our tiny minority, violence is just flat out discouraged from a very young age, let alone athletics as a potential career. This brings us to the final point, a lack of organized combat sports programs.

The Yeshivas system is a private school system that provides education for Orthodox Jews. While the cost varies depending on where you live, there is one thing that can easily be found in common amongst the vast majority of them, a lack of combat sports (Wrestling being the predominant one in the USA of course) in these schools. Now, while you may find the odd school here or there that has a program, they are…. well, bad. Like, really bad. The programs are a mere afterthought in the grand scheme of things. The highest level of wrestling that one can really achieve in the Orthodox Jewish world was the D3 wrestling team of Yeshiva University, which was discontinued in 2015.

And so, there you have it, the 3 main reasons, from my point of view, why we really don’t see anything resembling a religious Jewish presence in MMA or Combat Sports.

This does not mean we are never going to see a professional Jewish combat sports fighter (Orthodox from birth but having gone through the Yeshiva system from the start) it’s just incredibly unlikely unfortunately.