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'Digging Deep': Lost Jewish football greats who shaped European soccer remembered in new book

From Jerusalem Post · () English

Translated from English, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

In-depth Sources not specified Context piece
  • A new book, 'Digging Deep: Unearthing the Stories of Eleven Murdered Jewish Footballing Greats,' highlights the significant role of Jewish players, coaches, and officials in pre-Holocaust European soccer.
  • Author David Bolchover reconstructs a lost sporting civilization, focusing on 11 Jewish soccer stars whose lives were tragically cut short by the Holocaust.
  • The book aims to restore the memory of these forgotten figures and their contributions to the sport, setting their triumphs against the backdrop of 20th-century European history.

As the World Cup captures global attention and thousands of Jewish athletes compete in the Maccabiah Games, David Bolchover's "Digging Deep: Unearthing the Stories of Eleven Murdered Jewish Footballing Greats" arrives with poignant timing. The book challenges readers to consider the greatest Jewish soccer player of all time, a question often unanswerable not due to a lack of talent, but because history has actively erased it.

I still haven’t got over it.

— David BolchoverRecalling a childhood Manchester United match his father left early, leading to a missed comeback.

Before the Holocaust, Jewish athletes, coaches, referees, and writers were integral to European soccer. They were celebrated national heroes, visionaries, and trusted officials. Bolchover, a lifelong fan, uses his "all-time starting XI" not for typical fan rankings, but as a symbolic roster of Jewish players whose lives and careers were extinguished by the Holocaust. This team is assembled not for victory, but for remembrance.

His symbolic XI comprises extraordinary Jewish soccer players whose lives – and careers – were cut short by the Holocaust.

Explaining the profound purpose behind Bolchover's selection of players.

Through meticulous research, Bolchover unearths the stories of 11 Jewish soccer luminaries, five from Hungary, three from Poland, two from Austria, and one from Germany. These men, once icons, faced extermination under Nazism. The book juxtaposes their exhilarating sporting achievements with the encroaching darkness of 20th-century Europe, aiming to reinstate these forgotten figures into the soccer pantheon and reconstruct a lost sporting civilization.

It is a team assembled not to win trophies but to restore memory.

Describing the symbolic nature of Bolchover's chosen soccer team.

For Bolchover, "Digging Deep" is an act of historical recovery as much as a sports narrative. It moves beyond a sole focus on the Holocaust to rebuild a vibrant sporting world where Jewish contributions to modern European soccer were significant, before Nazism silenced their lives and, for decades, their legacies.

For Bolchover, Digging Deep is as much an act of historical recovery as it is a sports book.

Characterizing the dual nature of the book's content.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Jerusalem Post in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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