One of the highlights of my Jewlicious Festival 6.0 was spending the weekend with Yuri Foreman, Israel’s first World Boxing Champ. Yuri is down to earth, engaging, funny, and warm – he earned a thousand new fans with his charm. And Yuri will be stepping into the ring this Saturday night to defend his title.
Yuri “the boxing rabbi†Foreman fights with the Star of David embroidered onto his shorts. The super welterweight world champion and rabbinical scholar will defend his title against Miguel Cotto this Saturday. But not before he’s properly observed the Sabbath.
At 9:15pm, after the sun goes down, an NYPD escort will drive with Foreman to the world-famous Yankee Stadium (the fight will start at 11:15pm)… Until then, Foreman can’t fight or even travel. Foreman is the first Orthodox Jew to win a world championship since Jackie (Kid) Berg in 1932.
So this Saturday night we will be rooting for him to defeat Miguel Cotto. The question is where?
One of the problems is that while Yuri’s fight at Yankee Stadium itself will not be on Shabbos, it will still be Shabbos here in LA. The HBO coverage begins at 7:30 and certainly there must be a fight or two, but that still leaves Yuri’s fight as going on as Shabbos ends. So what is a Yuri Fan in LA to do who can’t fly to NYC for the fight, and stay in an RV at the foot of Yankee Stadium for Shabbos?
Get invited to an exclusive Seudat Shlishit gathering, that finishes with evening prayers and a post-Shabbos, DVR-recorded showing of the fight on a massive 60″ TV.
Thankfully just such a gathering will take place at the home of a local TV producer. Big LCD TVs. That sort of thing.
We hope to be able to celebrate Yuri’s victory on Saturday night here on the blog, and wish him a safe, and Jewlicious boxing match!
GO YURI, HATZLACHA RABBA, SHALOM!
