Top 5 Jewish Boxers of All Time

The history of boxing is one that's intertwined with cultural and social circumstance. That's why throughout this country's history, different sects of people have collectively risen to prominence in the fight game while their people immigrated en masse to the new land. At one point, many of the top boxers in the world were Jewish. Amazingly, the careers of all of the men on this overlapped to some degree, highlighting the prominence of Jewish fighters in the first three decades of the 20th century. Here's a look back at the top 5 Jewish boxers of all time.

1. Benny Leonard - 183 (70) - 19 - 11 - Benny Leonard must top the list for the best Jewish boxers of all time. Starting his career in 1911 at the age of 15, Leonard kept fighting until 1932. He won the lightweight championship and successfully defended it at least six times, while twice challenging for the welterweight championship. He lost only two times in the final 13 years of his career.

2. Barney Ross - 74 (22) - 4 - 3 - Picking up where his idol Benny Leonard left off, Ross won the lightweight world title in 1933. He bested his contemporaries, going 2-0 against Tony Canzoneri and 2-1 against Jimmy McLarnin, the man who ended Leonard's career. He simultaneously held the lightweight, junior welterweight and welterweight titles and went an astonishing 14-2-1 in title fights.

3. Abe Attell - 125 (52) - 18 - 23 - Abe "The Little Hebrew" Attell was a dominating featherweight champion and held a career record 18-3-3 in title fights. With one of those losses coming before and after his prime, respectively, he held a remarkable 18-1-3 title fight record in his best years. He first won the featherweight championship in 1903 and challenged for it for the last time in 1912.

4. Ted "Kid" Lewis - 232 (80) - 44 - 24 - In the prime of his career in the mid 1910s, Lewis won the welterweight title and defended it successfully six times before losing the belt and exchanging it back and forth with several other fighters for the next four years. In something that the boxing world could never imagine today, Lewis fought the same man, Jack Britton, over 20 times in his professional career, winning and losing the championship on many such occasions.

5. Maxie Rosenbloom - 222 (19) - 42 - 31 - Maxie Rosenbloom was the longtime light heavyweight champion of the world, reigning from 1930 to 1934. This is despite his infamous weak punch, knocking out less than 10 percent of the men he beat.

Honorable Mention- Daniel Mendoza - The boxing champion of England for several years in the 1790s is also the man credited with introducing tactics and defense into the squared circle, changing cruder slug fests into the beginnings of The Sweet Science that we know today.

Source: www.boxrec.com; Barney Ross by Douglas Century;