As a social historian and scholar of religion in America, Revel Professor Jeffrey Gurock investigates how secular cultural phenomena entered into the lives of Jewish men and women in America and the conflicts that ensued as Jews attempted to be part of American environments while maintaining connections to their faith.

The Jewish encounter with American sports—a robust example of what Professor Gurock calls “cultural clamor and religious conflict”—is the subject of his new article, “The Clothes They Wear and the Time They Keep: The Orthodox Athletes’ Tests of Tolerance in Contemporary America,” which appeared in Muscling in on New Worlds: Jews, Sport, and the Making of the Americas, ed. Raanan Rein and David M.K. Sheinin (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2014), pp. 68-84. This study looks closely at the challenges traditional Jewish men and women faced over several generations in entering the arenas of sports. It also points out how changing American attitudes towards minority religions have generally facilitated religious Jews—and others of deep faith commitment—participating in sports without violating their religious scruples.

For the full text of Professor Gurock’s new article, click here.