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Barney Ross (Jewish Encounters)
by: Douglas Century

List Price: $19.95

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Used Price: $1.56
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.83092
EAN: 9780805242232
ISBN: 0805242236
Label: Schocken
Manufacturer: Schocken
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: February 07, 2006
Publisher: Schocken
Release Date: February 07, 2006
Studio: Schocken
Sales Rank: 602430

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Born Dov-Ber Rasofsky to Eastern European immigrant parents, Barney Ross grew up in a tough Chicago neighborhood and witnessed his father’s murder, his mother’s nervous breakdown, and the dispatching of his three younger siblings to an orphanage, all before he turned fourteen. To make enough money to reunite the family, Ross became a petty thief, a gambler, a messenger boy for Al Capone, and, eventually, an amateur boxer. Turning professional at nineteen, he would capture the lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight titles over the course of a ten-year career.

Ross began his career as the scrappy “Jew kid,” ended it as an American sports icon, and went on to become a hero during World War II, earning a Silver Star for his heroic actions at Guadalcanal. While recovering from war wounds and malaria he became addicted to morphine, but with fierce effort he ultimately kicked his habit and then campaigned fervently against drug abuse. And the fighter who brought his father’s religious books to training camp also retained powerful ties to the world from which he came. Ross worked for the creation of a Jewish state, running guns to Palestine and offering to lead a brigade of Jewish American war veterans.

This first biography of one of the most colorful boxers of the twentieth century is a galvanizing account of an emblematic life: a revelation of both an extraordinary athlete and a remarkable man.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Jake Lamotta- like story
There are a lot of similarities here between Barney's story and Jake La Motta's story and they both could have been RAGING BULL the movie. This book is concise and written very smoothly--an even-flow to read thru.
A good boxing and Jewish lifestyle book at the same time.

Rating:

- A fascinating portrait of a Jewish tough guy
Every few years I stumble across a short, breezy biography that far better treats its subject than it would have at ten times the length. "Barney Ross" is one of these delights.

Douglas Century's story of Jewish boxer Barney Ross renders an evocative portrait of the forgotten, dangerous world inhabited by the ancestors of today's American Jews a century ago.

Ross's father was a Talmudic scholar, chased from the old country by pogroms, and murdered in the new one during an armed robbery. The family was scattered. Ross boxed for money to get the youngest brothers out of an orphanage, which he did.

The book illuminates two colorful groups of yore: Jewish boxers and gangsters. Both groups - the one aboveboard, the other not - speak to a Jewish yearning for ... Read More

Rating:

- BARNEY ROSS AND BARNEY SUGERMAN WERE BEST FRIENDS
I KNEW BARNEY ROSS WHEN I WAS A YOUNG LAD GROWING UP IN THE SUBURS OF NEWARK NEW JERSEY. BARNEY SUGERMAN Z'L, MY FATHER AND BARNEY ROSS WERE CLOSE CLOSE FRIENDS. SUGIE AS MY FATHER WAS ALSO KNOWN WAS IN THE JUKE BOX AND GAME BUSINESS. HE CAME OUT OF THAT VERY SPECIAL WORLD OF PROHIBITION, ROARING 20'S, PROUD JEWS INCLUDING MOBSTERS AND PRIZE FIGHTERS. POP HAD HIS OFFICES AND BUSINESS ON JUKE BOX ROW, TENTH AVENUE AND 43RD STREET IN MANHATTAN. BARNEY ROSS WAS AT THE OFFICE TWO OR THREE TIMES A WEEK AND AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, THE TWO BARNEYS WOULD MAKE THE ROUNDS IN THE CITY. DOUGLAS CENTURY DID AN OUTSTANDING JOB OF CONVEYING THE TRUE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF BARNEY ROSS. THE BOOK IS OUTSTANDING. IT CAPTURES THE TRUE SPIRIT OF BARNEY ROSS. I WILL TELL YOU THAT WHEN BARNEY ROSS WOULD ... Read More

Rating:

- Once we were warriors...
...and it's a right pity so few Jewish youngsters have never even heard of the former champ Barney Ross -- the "Pride of the Ghetto."

I'd first heard about Century's book over at the always insightful website, www.nextbook.org, where he was interviewed over a seven minute stretch about the life and times of the second- (of two) most famous Jewish pugilist of all-time, other than Benny Leonard.

Century demonstrates a deft skill with the pen and a remarkable savvy for the entire era and the relevant subject material. It clearly shines through in his compact historial narrative of the period.

I'd wanted to read over the reviews of this book before devlving into my own -- figuring that if you're really keen on knowing what the book's about, you don't need me ... Read More

Rating:

- Barney Ross bio
I highly recommend this book. I read for entertainment and was
thoroughly entertained. You do not have to be an admirer of the
great pugilists of the past to enjoy this book. God bless Barney
and what he left us.

Books : Barney Ross (Jewish Encounters)