Jewish professional athletes to speak
Controversial posts by Eagles WR a focus
As Adam Bisnowaty got older and more accomplished in his football career, he also grew more and more comfortable showing his faith. By the time he was a sixth-round draft pick of the New York Giants in 2017, stories were being written about the Hebrew tattoo on his left arm, his father’s service in the Israeli army and other aspects of his Jewish heritage.
So when the Jewish community and anti-Semitism unexpectedly became one of the major story lines of the NFL news cycle this week, the former first-team All-ACC offensive lineman from Pitt and Fox Chapel High School looked forward to using the moment as a learning experience for all.
“It’s our job as a human race to say, ‘OK, I understand how you feel. Let’s move forward and be better people, be better human beings,’ ” Bisnowaty said by phone Thursday from Miami.
Bisnowaty is one of nine NFL alumni and one of three with Pittsburgh connections who will appear on a “Jews in the NFL” panel at 7 p.m. Sunday organized by the Jewish Inspiration Foundation and livestreamed on aish.tv. Joining Bisnowaty at 9 p.m. for the “Being a Jew in the NFL” portion of the event will be former Steelers punter Josh Miller and former Notre Dame standout Mike Rosenthal, who lived in Monroeville until fifth grade and later played eight seasons with the Giants and Vikings.
Michael Neuman, an Orthodox Jew living in Miami who earned recognition by competing and winning on the “Million Dollar Mile” obstacle course show on CBS last year, will be the host of the panel. His goal was to show that there have been more Jewish pro athletes than many might realize, and it just so happens that in a stroke of unfortunate but perfect timing, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson elevated their discussion even more with an Instagram post that invoked a fake Adolf Hitler quote among other anti-Semitic sentiments.
“I think it’s a great time for it. But I think it’s always a great time to learn what’s important to each other and other people’s beliefs, and that’s really been this whole year,” Bisnowaty said, alluding to the Black Lives Matter movement and other social activism that has risen to the forefront in 2020.
When Miller agreed to lend his voice to Neuman’s project, Jackson hadn’t yet been embroiled in controversy. Patriots star Julian Edelman hadn’t yet invited Jackson to tour the Holocaust Museum, Steelers linemen Cam Heyward and Zach Banner hadn’t thrown their weight behind the Jewish community, and Eagles defensive back Malcolm Jenkins hadn’t condemned his teammate while pleading with his social media followers to not lose sight of protesting police brutality and systemic racism by writing “Jewish people aren’t our problem, and we aren’t their problem.”
That’s a lot to keep track of, and it’s a dialog that’s constantly changing. Also a former sports radio host in Pittsburgh on 93.7 The Fan, Miller’s primary message Friday morning is that he feels bad for Jackson. The punter wishes one of the game’s all-time greatest punt returners would’ve been more informed before making a comment “that’s going to leave a stain on him.”
“I don’t hold him responsible for anything other than not being educated,” said Miller, a Steelers player from 19962003. “It’s sad because you build your whole life trying to do the right thing, and it takes 20 seconds being filmed, losing your mind, or comments like that, and that doesn’t really describe you as a person.”
Which is why Miller and Bisnowaty want to do their part simply to raise awareness of their culture in the sports world, and the NFL, especially. As Miller put it, when he played, he was like a “unicorn.” Even before reaching the highest level of his sport, he was always a Jewish kid playing with non-Jewish athletes, and remembers feeling “on an island.” He’d even cross himself at home plate in Little League because he saw Christian stars doing it, much to his mother’s confusion.
Given his common name, he also considered himself “an undercover Jew” on his teams. That meant few would bite their tongue around him, and he recalls a “country bumpkin” junior college teammate from Kansas who would regularly make offensive remarks.
“He said he wouldn’t know what a Jew looked like if one punched him in the face,” Miller said. “So I decked him. ‘You do now. We don’t have horns. I don’t know what the hell you’ve heard.’ However people are brought up, you can’t really hold it against them. That’s all they knew for that window of time. You just have to learn more.”
Now older and wiser, Miller believes conversations are the perfect way to deal with those situations, and he has had a lot of productive ones over the years. So has Bisnowaty, who started one game for the Giants as a rookie but has decided to move into the real world after bouncing around in the years since.
Bisnowaty insists he never faced any anti-Semitism in his career. There were the occasional jokes or stereotypes, but nothing that crossed the line, in his mind. This latest episode is something else, and Bisnowaty points out that while religion is a focal point in many locker rooms, Judaism is not. The way he sees it, current players — Jewish or not — denouncing Jackson’s words “is appropriate; I don’t know if it’s necessary.” He did applaud Banner for making a statement, and the two tackles from the same recruiting class and draft class actually roomed together at the NFL combine.
“Whether or not there are a lot of Jewish people in the locker room, there are a lot of Jewish people in the buildings,” Bisnowaty said. “We call it ‘the upstairs’ or ‘the top office.’ There’s a lot of Jewish representation in the NFL. It’s very important to understand everyone, what they believe, and just don’t hate.”