Last night's baseball celebration by the amazing Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays provided a moment of recognition for American Jews as powerful as the Sandy Koufax moments of 40 years ago. At midnight, on the podium accepting the American League championship trophy, were the three executives of the club, Stu Sternberg, Andrew Friedman, and Matt Silverman. Three men who came out of the financial industry to transform a baseball club, one of them cherishing Sandy Koufax. It's been reported that Friedman is Jewish, I'm betting all three guys are.
This is a story about the transformation of the American elite. In its piece on the trio 2 years back, the Times said nothing about the men's religious background. I wonder how long this can or should go unremarked. This is America. Last year a friend of mine was upset by the religious culture of the Colorado Rockies clubhouse–that last upstart team in the World Series. There were stories about team prayers, that kind of thing. That upsets Jews because we worry about our minority rights, and will we be isolated, etc? Well our minority rights are doing fine here. And yet another friend when I talk about Jews in the elite, he says, jokingly, "But Phil, don't set back our gains." Just a joke, yes. Still don't you wonder how much clubbiness there is to Jewish establishment culture? And how much of political-campaign contributions are coming from people who have religious attachment to an expansionist country halfway around the world? Taboo.
