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AS EAGLES SOAR TO FINAL FOUR,
Jews Embrace Sports
Superstitions Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Photo by Bradley Maule
J ust as Philadelphia Eagles
quarterback Jalen Hurts and
wide receiver A.J. Brown don
their green and black jerseys before
a game, Main Line Reform Temple
member and past President Eric Settle
puts on a similar uniform. He pulls a
dark green Eagles fl eece over a Kelly
green golf shirt before securing an
Eagles cap on his head.

It’s the same outfi t he’s worn during
every Eagles game since their Super
Bowl win in 2018 and the one he most
recently wore on Jan. 21, when the
football team secured its playoff win
against the New York Giants. Settle has
worn some permutation of the green
garb since he became a Birds fan in
1973 after moving to Philadelphia.

“There’s a little part of you that feels
like you’re sort of suiting up for the game
to try to help your team win,” he said.

“It sounds incredibly silly, but that’s
what superstitions really are,” he
added. “This weird part of our brain
that says, ‘It’s worked this way. So let’s
keep doing it that way.’”
Settle isn’t the only one following a
strict game protocol. Rep. Ben Waxman,
the Jewish state representative for
Philadelphia’s 182nd district, and his
wife Julie Wertheimer attended the
same bar to watch the Jan. 21 playoff
game that they did during the Phillies’
World Series run. (During the Phightins’
season, Wertheimer wore the same
Jayson Werth jersey for every game,
with no washes in between.)
The eff orts were “to try to get some
of that good luck going,” Waxman said.

Rabbi Chaim Galfand, Perelman
Jewish Day School School’s rabbi, isn’t
exempt from superstitions, either. For
each Eagles game this season, he was
sure to wear his jersey. When things
were going well for the team during
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Eagles fans enjoy the team’s 2018 Super Bowl win at the subsequent parade.

the regular season, he planted himself
in whatever seat he was occupying,
being sure not to move.

Even the spiritual leader will admit
to his own superstitions. It’s a common
practice to participate in certain
creature comforts or, for some, to even
point one’s fi nger at the sky during a
game, as if to call on a divine presence.

Sports have a near-sacred role in our
society, Galfand argued.

“Football is one of the main religions
in American sports in general. … When
we think of the fervor surrounding
sports, it rises to a level that that fervor
is almost a religious experience for
some,” he said.

For Jewish sports fans in particu-
lar, this fervor is rooted in tradition.

Though Judaism does not condone
superstitions, Galfand said, it is replete
with them.

Most Jewish superstitions have
their origins in protecting against ayin
ha’ra, the evil eye, according to Itzik
Gottesman, a Jewish folklore professor
at the University of Texas-Austin who
received his doctorate in folklore from
the University of Pennsylvania.

Though the evil eye does not have
origins in Jewish folklore and is found
broadly in many Middle Eastern-
originating religions, documentation of
the ayin ha’ra has been found in the
Talmud and other rabbinical texts.

“The rabbis say that 99 of 100 deaths
are due to the evil eye,” Gottesman
said. In Jewish folk belief, a term Gottesman
and other scholars prefer to “supersti-
tion,” the evil eye is a manifestation of
envy, a universal human emotion.

“We have envy in all of us,” he said.

“There’s a Jewish idea of keeping
a low profi le — don’t stand out —
because when you stand out, the evil
forces are attracted to you.”
The word keinehora, often said by
bubbes following a piece of good
news or expression of optimism,
is a contraction of kayn ayin ha’ra,
meaning ‘no evil eye.’ It’s said to ward
off the evil spirit. Similar superstitious
behaviors accomplish the same goal
such as spitting three times (“Pu pu
pu!”), avoiding putting hats or shoes
on a bed or smashing a glass during a
wedding ceremony.

Beyond avoiding or partaking in
certain behaviors during certain rites of
passage, such as a wedding, Jews are
unique in using amulets to ward off the
evil eye. Traditionally, this could look
like a card with a picture of a rabbi on
it or a hamsa necklace. Today in sports,
Gottesman said, it could take the form
of a jersey or hat. Envy is present at
sporting events; after all, fans want their
team, not the other, to win.

While superstitions can verge on
blasphemy or idolatry, putting too
much faith in external sources, they
can also serve overall as a reminder
of a belief in a power outside of one’s
self. For Galfand, superstitions, partic-
ularly in sports, are an exercise in faith
more broadly.

“We should take joy in all of it,” he
said, “and know that whatever the
outcome, that there are larger forces at
work in the world. … And I say that as a
passionate Philadelphia fan.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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