There’s a new exhibition opening at the Jewish Museum in Camden Town tomorrow entitled Ghetto Warriors:Minority boxers in Britain looking at the life and careers of Jewish and other non English boxers and the effect they’ve had on the sport in Britain.
The exhibition looks at the impact of boxing not only on the fighters but also society which found itself cheering for black and ethnic Britons when they fought for world titles. The East End of London, at least up until a few decades ago, always had a large Jewish population and remains somewhere where a lot of immigrants first settle and has produced a large number of famous British boxers down the years.
Ghetto Warriors starts its story in the 18th century looking at Daniel Mendoza, known as Mendoza the Jew, who was the was English bareknuckle boxing champion. There’s a blue plaque marking Mendoza’s career on a building on Paradise Row, Bethnal Green, very close to the Tube station. There’s a also a plaque on Cable Street marking another Jewish figher, Jack Kid Berg, who become World Welterweight Champion in 1930. Berg was preceded as World Welterweight Champion a few years earlier by another Jewish Eastender, Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis.
Down the years Britain’s ethnic minorities have produced a host of boxing world champions including Randolph Turpin who beat Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title in 1950, John Conteh who won the light-heavyweight title in 1974, Charlie Magri, born in Tunisia, raised in the East End and flyweight world champion in the 1980s, Lloyd Honeyghan who sensationally knocked out Donald Curry in 1986 for the welterweight world title, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank two great middleweights, Lennox Lewis, born in West Ham, raised in Canada from the age of 12 and one of the best heavyweights and Naseem Hamed, the flashy featherweight world champion son of Yemeni immigrants, whose career hit the bumpers and ended up in jail. Britain’s latest young boxing star is Amir Khan, the son of Pakistanis and seemingly on course for a world lightweight title in a year or two.
The Jewish Museum in Camden Town is on Albert Street, just off Parkway in Camden, not far from the northeast corner of Regent’s Park. Its open from 10am-4pm Mon-Thurs and 10am-5pm Sun, admission is £3.50. The nearest Underground stations are Camden Town or Mornington Crescent and Ghetto Warriors is on until 2 September 2007.
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