From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Bob Glauber :
Sunday, Rabbi Shais Taub of the Chabad Lubavitch of Wisconsin led a group of 10 Orthodox Jews on a pilgrimage from Milwaukee deep into Packerland.They tailgated across the street from Lambeau, in a grass-covered parking lot, next door to Kroll’s West, where butter burgers – definitely not kosher – are a specialty.
And they prayed, with some of the men and their sons donning a prayer shawl called a tallit and phylacteries, two small leather boxes containing verses of Scripture.
They stood out amid the familiar green-and-gold sea. And they showed that people can find or express their faith at a house of worship or a house of sports.
Such a place, for morning prayers.
“What’s the point?” Taub said. “Number one, Judaism is not relegated to the synagogue or the study hall. When you’re a Jew, you’re a Jew everywhere. If a group of Jews want to go to a Packer game, we do it like Jews.”
“Number two, Jewish pride,” he added. “Some Jews should see this and say, ‘You know what, there is nothing to hide.’ I can be openly and boldly Jewish and do that anywhere on earth and go where I want to go.”
Nearby, a few fans wore blank expressions on their faces, unsure of what was going on. A couple of people snapped photos. And nobody noticed that among the group was former Packers offensive lineman Alan Veingrad, who is now known as Shlomo Veingrad.
Veingrad still stands 6 feet 5, but he has dropped plenty of weight since his playing days. He now has a bushy, gray beard and beneath a Packers cap, he makes sure to wear a yarmulke.
“I think it’s important to be proud of being Jewish,” said Veingrad, who played for the Packers in the late 1980s and won a Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s.
The above story came to my attention earlier this morning when WFAN’s Craig Carton read it over the air, to the musical accompaniment of a Matisyahu CD (ouch). Though Carton was quick to characterize the gawking Packer backers as “anti-semites”, it was somewhat telling that the former Jersey Guy professed to never having heard of Chabad Lubavitch, while fuddy-duddy straight man Boomer Esiason plead ignorance when the matter of kosher brats came up (“I have no idea how something becomes kosher”).
So what’s lamer? A bunch of Wisconsin football fans who’ve never seen an Orthodox jew, or a pair of radio hosts who’ve lived and worked in the New York area for years who aren’t even slightly embarrassed at being cultural unaware?
Why do they call it a butter burger if they simply butter the bun? Unless they start sticking a full stick of Land O’Lakes in every juicy bundle of heart-hardening meat, I’m calling shenanigans.
I’m going to go with the NY based bunch. You need a certain amount of Jews around to generate anti-Semitism. The Wisconsinites (up in Green Bay, more the two hours from where the OJs originated) most likely have never seen a Hassidic Jew dressed in Tallis and Tfillin and shuckling back and forth while chanting in front of a barbeque in a parking lot.
Heck I’d gawk, and I see it every day.
I’m Jewish, was born in and grew up in Wisconsin, and never saw a Hassidic Jew in 17 years there.
As to Jewish Packer fans: I did, however, attend a wedding of a Jewish groom who had his groomsmen in Packer vests, Packer logo on the cake, and invited Mike Holmgren (not that he knew him) who was kind enough to send a letter that he could not attend, which I believe was framed on the gift table. Wisconsin has Jews, but not too many Lubavitchers — Senator Russ Feingold, for example.
Anyway, it probably wasn’t anti-Semitism, just worries they were an al-Qaeda cell.
Ben
Carton’s limited worldview aside, I have to admit I’m kinda digging him in the mornings. the guy clearly has been waiting his entire life for this moment and seems way too pumped up for 6am. He’s had some ridiculous things to say (see above), but unlike everyone else on the station, save for the Schmoozer, he’s funny at least part of the time.
conversely, Boomer is already turning into the straight man / sidekick, mostly the former. There’s not a ton of chemistry between the two and while I wouldn’t call Essiason hopeless as a broadcaster, he doesn’t have nearly the hard on for the mike that Carton does.
Several University of Maryland punks I knew lived in the same dorm floor as Boomer did in the early 1980s. I remember them telling me a story, almost certainly apocryphal, that Boomer nicknamed the one guy “Scratch Acid” based on a poster on his wall. However, I don’t really give the story a lot of credence.