People: Peter Levine
PETER LEVINE: FROM ELLIS ISLAND TO EBBETS FIELD
Professors seldom write best-sellers, but historian Peter Levine, who joined MSU's faculty in 1969, might well have done so. His new book, From Ellis Island to Ebbets Field (Oxford University Press, 1992), has won him raves from the New York Times, a CBS interview with Charles Kuralt and a possible national tour.
His subject--the assimilation of Jewish immigrants into American culture through sports--features such names as Hank Greenberg, Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, Maxie Rosenbloom, Sandy Koufax and Mark Spitz. 'Whether we like it or not, sports is a major institution in American life,' says Levine, a native of Brooklyn who previously wrote A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball. 'So why not pay attention?'
Peter interviewed more than 75 people for his book and calls it a 'very personal' project. 'Sport was a way to develop American Jewish identity,' he explains. 'It works a shared experience and also as a symbol. So it was a very easy way to identify oneself as an American, and baseball at the turn of the century embodied whatever 'America' meant.'
Peter notes that Jewish athletes dominated basketball and boxing in the 1920s and '30s, but calls power hitter Greenberg 'the most important Jewish hero because of his prominence in an era of rising anti-semitism.'
In 1934 he created a national stir by refusing to play on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday, and helped change the social norms of the day. Peter tells stories and anecdotes that, says the New York Times, ring true.
A rower and amateur actor, Peter defends the fact that his book has mass appeal. 'I'm very tired of writing for six or seven people, although that's important too,' he explains. 'I see this (book) as an extension of teaching. It takes some fundamentally important issues and reaches a much larger audience.'
