‘Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark’ by Jerry Izenberg

Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark

Jerry Izenberg
(The Sager Group)

Rutgers grad Jerry Izenberg’s loving memoir of his home town of Newark fills in a lot of the holes for us Jersey Boys who grew up reading his sports reporting in the Newark Star-Ledger. Born down the shore in Neptune City 93 years ago, he’s still going strong writing words that leap off the page, and, boy, does this memoir ring true. Many of the Newark landmarks he describes bring back my own memories of being raised in that town. He survived the 1967 Race Riots (as did I). He covered the first 53 Super Bowls and 54 consecutive runnings of the Kentucky Derby. As one of the America’s great boxing writers, he’s covered Muhammad Ali fights since the 1960 Olympics. This five-time New Jersey Sportswriter Of The Year sits in 17 different Halls of Fame.

His words on antisemitism, the great Depression, World War II and performing in local bands are all written with humor—dark though it may be—and a blunt appreciation of life itself. The latitude presented to him in a memoir forum allows him to be re-introduced to readers who have known and loved his precise writing for over 70 years.

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