Opinion | You Were Finally a Mensch, Mr. Snyder

In the 1960s, Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan penned inspiring poetic lines, “There's a battle outside and it is ragin'/ It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,” that still ring true today. Dylan’s concluding musical refrain, “For the times, they are a-changin’,” should be a warning to Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington, DC football team with the controversial name, that his past declaration to never change the franchise’s name isn’t acceptable anymore as his sponsors are pulling out. Finally today, Snyder said the name would be changed after 87 years of insulting Native Americans with a racist slur.  Snyder had to bow to corporate pressure. Recently, 87 shareholders and investment firms approached important corporate sponsors such as FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo to stop doing business with the Washington football team until it...

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The Bond Between Greenberg and Robinson

With the timely release of the new DVD of my film The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg upon the heels of the Jackie Robinson biopic 42, I want to share some thoughts on how Jackie Robinson’s heroic story impacted the making of my documentary about the iconic Jewish baseball player. It’s downright shameful how politically incorrect the playing field was in those days. It’s not surprising, as baseball was America’s favorite pastime and back then racial hatred was woven into the fabric of this country. For all of us, Robinson will always be the courageous pioneer who integrated baseball with tremendous dignity. As Jews, we should also remember how Hank Greenberg, too, played in a hostile environment. Among the stories in the film is the revelation from fellow Tiger, catcher Birdie Tebbetts, about the anti-Semitism that...

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