Jewish Groups Scrambling to Sign Dodgers’ New Star

All-star outfielder Shawn Green has signed an $84-million contract with the Dodgers, but competition to recruit the 27-year-old Newport Beach resident is far from over.

As the former Toronto Blue Jay searches for a house in Los Angeles and prepares for the coming season, the region’s synagogues and Jewish organizations are vying to make him a member of their teams as well.

The appeals come by the bushel basket into his agent’s office from around the Southland: membership invitations, speaking requests and offers of everything from Hebrew lessons to instruction in Jewish tradition.

“There hasn’t been a Jewish role model on the Dodgers since Sandy Koufax,” said Rabbi Laura Geller of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. “The idea that a man like this publicly says that the Jewish community is important to him is incredibly important.”

Of course ethnic pride is nothing new for Dodger fans. Already, Green’s warm welcome is reminiscent of the mania that swept Los Angeles’ Mexican American community over Fernando Valenzuela, the 1981 rookie of the year and Cy Young Award-winning pitcher. Or the fervor for Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo, rookie of the year in 1995 who became the first Japanese player to appear in an All-Star game and who pitched a no-hitter in 1996.

Tustin High Grad Has Stellar Record

Today, it’s Jewish Los Angeles that is positively kvelling over Green--full of pride that he came to the city in part because it has the nation’s second-largest Jewish population. It’s pride that he’s not only a Jewish athlete, but that he’s also a really good athlete who seems to take a genuine interest in his Jewish heritage.

And what self-respecting synagogue wouldn’t want Shawn Green on its roster? In the last two years, the Tustin High graduate had 77 home runs and 223 runs batted in. Last year the American League all-star had 42 homers, 123 runs batted in and a .309 batting average.

The pursuit of Green also continues informally. “Do you have any contacts for him?” a young rabbi inquired discreetly over his glass of pinot noir at a recent social gathering of 20- and 30-something Jews on the Westside.

Though low-key by comparison to baseball recruitment efforts, the competition for Green’s attention off the field is a window into not only the life of a Jewish athlete in America, but also the community that is so eager to embrace him.

Even though he has considered the Southland home since he was a boy, Green notes that actually living in Los Angeles is different. “There’s a lot of Jewish people [there], but they’re spread out,” he said of Orange County, where he grew up. “There’s not that kind of unity that you get in cities like L.A., New York or Chicago.”

Not having been raised in a particularly observant household, Green said he became involved in Jewish life in Toronto primarily through his friendship with a Jewish team doctor.

“The Jewish population in Toronto was great. Right from the get-go, they were really supportive. . . . It was a good feeling.”

With time, “I started to explore my roots a little bit. I went to synagogue on the High Holy Days, which I hadn’t done in the past,” Green said. “As you get older, you start to explore your past a little more and where you come from. For me, it has been a great opportunity because I probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in my religion had I not been exposed to it through baseball.”

Even in Toronto, the bar mitzvah and Seder invitations from strangers and pleas for appearances at Jewish events flowed in. One group wanted to fly him to Israel for a speaking engagement in the off season.

Only 138 Jews Ever in the Major Leagues

In a city like Los Angeles, with no shortage of prominent and accomplished Jews, why so much buzz about a baseball player?

Green chalks it up to scarcity. “You just don’t have too many Jewish athletes,” he said.

Eleven Jews played in the major leagues last season, according to Ephraim Moxson, co-publisher of the Jewish Sports Review. Over the decades, only 138 Jews have played in the major leagues, beginning with Litman Pike’s career, which lasted from 1871 to 1887.

Best known are Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg. In many an American Jewish home, the tale of Koufax--also a Dodger--refusing to pitch in the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on the holy day of Yom Kippur is as familiar and revered as the stories of Hanukkah and Purim.

“For [Koufax] to stand up for his religious convictions on that day had just an enormous impact,” said Ron Wolfson, a vice president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and director of the Whizin Center for Jewish Future there. “It validated what I think is the real issue here: that you can be American and you can be Jewish, and you can enjoy both worlds simultaneously.”

Beyond the pride that Jews feel in Green is a sense of affirmation in the fact that his Jewish identity is of more than passing relevance to his life as an athlete, Wolfson said.

“Being a Jew in America today, and in L.A. today, for many people requires a daily decision. You’re constantly bombarded with choices,” Wolfson said. “To have a role model who is very popular in the public eye, and who takes being Jewish seriously, is a huge benefit--even to the jaded kids of Los Angeles,” Wolfson said. “His arrival in town will be much welcomed, and there’s a reason why everyone is trying to come in contact with him.”

But along with that welcome will come some tremendous expectations, both baseball fans and rabbis acknowledge. Take the pressure of having Jewish parents and multiply it by a couple of million.

“There’s a value in Jewish tradition called kiddush ha-shem. It means to bring credit to God’s name, credit to your people,” said Rabbi Bernard King of Congregation Shir Ha Ma’alot in Irvine. “I would say that if there’s any subliminal pressure, it’s . . . a positive pressure. It says I have a lot of people looking up to me.”

Green’s father, Ira, agrees. “Does this increase the pressure on him? No doubt,” said the older Green, who owns a baseball academy in Santa Ana. But for the proud father, the story of his son’s Jewish identity has been somewhat overplayed.

Often, he said, “the slant of the article is that he’s Jewish, and, by the way, he’s a good player--rather than he’s a great player and, by the way, he’s Jewish.”

The younger Green said he considers his status as a role model and a symbol both a privilege and a big responsibility. He also acknowledged that being known as the next Sandy Koufax has its advantages.

“There are a lot of successful players who do well in the big leagues. The one thing people like to hear about is what different ways that person has, and for me it’s being Jewish,” Green said.

With the help of Jeff Moorad, his Newport Beach agent, Green said, he is able to filter the many requests for his time, and he hopes to be able to focus his efforts in ways that will make a difference--in the Jewish community and beyond.

“I’m learning how to say no a little more and trying to find where to focus and where to put my energies off the field,” he said. “It takes a little while until you get established. The next couple of years, the types of things I want to accomplish and take part in are going to come to the forefront. You’ve just got to trust that you can recognize those things when they come along.”

As for all those synagogues hoping to add a talented outfielder to their rosters, for now their members might have a better chance of seeing Green at the stadium.

“Right now I’m not going to join a synagogue, necessarily. It’s not something that I’ve thought much about,” Green said. “I think how often you go to synagogue and all that doesn’t show how Jewish you are. I think it’s more what’s in your heart and what type of person you are that reflects that.”

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Select Few

Of about 1,000 major league baseball players, only a handful are Jewish. The following played last season.

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* Season win-loss records are given for pitchers; batting averages are listed for others. *

Sources: Jewish Sports Review, Times research