Editing Sandy Koufax (section)

==Legacy==
===Impact within the Jewish community===
Koufax's importance in the [[American Jews|Jewish community]] came from his athleticisim; Jewish men were [[Jewish stereotypes|stereotyped]] as being weak and unathletic and Koufax, who became a star athlete sixteen years after the [[Shoah]], helped break that image. His [[Observance of Yom Kippur by Jewish athletes|sitting out]] Game 1 of the [[1965 World Series]] due to it falling on [[Yom Kippur]] helped cement his status as an icon for American Jews. Rabbi [[Rebecca Alpert]] explained the significance of his decision in 2014:

{{blockquote|When you talk to a generation of Jewish men who grew up during the period, [his decision] mattered a lot. Jews, in particular, were seen at the time as not very masculine, as weak figures... And Koufax suffered from that. Koufax was ridiculed because he'd rather read a book. He was treated as if he were a recluse, and there was something wrong with him because he wasn't a fame-grabber. Imagine, playing in Los Angeles and not being interested in getting headlines! But his masculinity was questioned, and again in part because of an underlying antisemitism — or at least stereotyping of Jewish men as not muscular. So Koufax was also an important role model, and a real hero.<ref>{{cite news |work=[[Vox (website)|Vox]] |title=The secret history of Jews in baseball |first1=Dara |last1=Lind |url=https://www.vox.com/2014/10/2/6877671/the-secret-history-of-jews-in-baseball |date=October 2, 2014}}</ref>}}

Rabbi [[Bruce Lustig]] told biographer [[Jane Leavy]] that Koufax helped change the perception of Jews: "Think of the stereotype of the Jew in literature. The ugly avariciousness of [[Shylock]]. He broke so many of them. Here was a good-looking Jew, a lefty, very powerful on the mound; a perfect player, an enigma, a man who didn't reach for fame or money. He broadened the concept of what a Jew was."<ref>[[#Leavy|Leavy]], p. 174.</ref>

[[File:Sandy_Koufax_at_the_White_House,_May_2010.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Koufax in the [[East Room]] during the [[White House]] celebration of [[Jewish American Heritage Month]], May 2010|alt=Baseball Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax in White House East Room during Jewish American Heritage Month 2010.]]

Koufax was inducted into the [[International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame]] in 1979,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/SanfordKoufax.htm |title=Sanford 'Sandy' Koufax, inductee (Class of 1979) |website=International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame}}</ref> and in the [[National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame]] in 1993.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sandy Koufax |website=National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame |url=http://www.jewishsports.org/jewishsports/detail.asp?id=9 |archive-date=February 10, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070210150633/http://www.jewishsports.org/jewishsports/detail.asp?id=9 |url-status=usurped }}</ref> In 1990, he was inducted in the inaugural class of the [[Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Sandy Koufax|website=Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame|url=https://scjewishsportshof.com/koufax.html|archive-date=June 18, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160618223436/http://scjewishsportshof.com/koufax.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Koufax's likeness is a part of the [[mural]] outside [[Canter's Deli]] in [[Fairfax, Los Angeles]] which commemorates the [[History of the Jews in Los Angeles|history of the Jewish community]] in the city.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fairfax Community Mural |url=https://www.themcla.org/murals/fairfax-community-mural |website=Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles}}</ref>

On May 27, 2010, Koufax was among the group of prominent [[Jewish Americans]] honored at the White House reception for [[Jewish American Heritage Month]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-honors-jewish-americans-at-white-house-reception/|title=Obama Honors Jewish Americans at White House Reception |last1=Knoller |first1=Mark |work=[[CBS News]] |date=May 28, 2010}}</ref> In his opening remarks, President [[Barack Obama]] directly acknowledged the high esteem in which Koufax is held within the Jewish community: "This is a pretty... distinguished group. We've got senators and representatives. We've got Supreme Court justices and successful entrepreneurs, rabbinical scholars, Olympic athletes – and Sandy Koufax." The mention of Koufax's name drew the loudest cheer in the room.<ref>{{cite web |title=Remarks by the President at Reception in Honor of Jewish American Heritage Month |url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/remarks-president-reception-honor-jewish-american-heritage-month |work=The Obama White House |via=[[National Archives and Records Administration]] |date=May 27, 2010}}</ref>

That same year, he was one of two main subjects of the film ''[[Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story]]'', alongside Hall of Famer [[Hank Greenberg]] of the [[Detroit Tigers]]. Koufax agreed to sit down for a rare interview, remarking to [[Ira Berkow]], the writer of the film: "It doesn't make sense if it's 'Jews and Baseball' and I'm not in it."<ref>{{cite news |title=Reluctantly, Koufax Steps Back Into the Light for a Film About Jewish Ballplayers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/sports/baseball/31koufax.html |last1=Sandomir |first1=Richard |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 31, 2010}}</ref>

===Relationship with fellow minorities===
Since early in his career, Koufax was seen as an ally to minority players by both teammates and opponents. [[Maury Wills]] recalled that, after games, the pair would go through each other's mail and sort out racist and antisemitic ones.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Leahy |first1=Michael |title=Book Excerpt: Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills and the Dodgers in 1960s America |url=https://www.si.com/mlb/2016/05/18/dodgers-sandy-koufax-maury-wills-excerpt |magazine=[[Sports Illustrated]] |date=May 18, 2016}}</ref> Pitcher [[Joe Black]], who mentored Koufax during his first spring training, said that "If he was in a restaurant, he would never shy away from sitting with the colored fellas." Cheesy Kawano, wife of clubhouse manager [[Nobe Kawano|Nobe]] who used to help her husband out at [[Dodger Stadium]], noted that Koufax was the only player on the team who knew her name and asked after her. His reputation for treating everyone with equal respect prompted catcher [[Earl Battey]], a former World Series opponent, to say of him: "I accused him of being black. I told him he was too cool to be white."<ref>[[#Leavy|Leavy]], p. 76.</ref>

Leavy stated that Koufax identified with minorities because he himself was one. One of the few [[Jews in baseball|Jewish players]] in baseball, he dealt with antisemitism from both within his team as well as from the outside: "More than one of his African-American peers attributed Koufax's rectitude and reticence to his being a minority... If Koufax had been a [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestant]] who played clean and kept his nose clean, he'd have been proclaimed the second coming of [[Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy|Jack Armstrong]]. But he was a Jew. So he was moody, aloof, curt, intellectual, different" and, as teammate [[Lou Johnson]] noted, held to a higher standard like any other minority. In other words, he "identified with [them] as much as they identified with him."<ref>[[#Leavy|Leavy]], pp. 76, 177, 186.</ref>