Einstein or Edison? Jordan or LeBron? A rabbi explains why Jews debate who is greatest

By Benyamin Cohen
April 24, 2025

PHILADELPHIA — Rabbi Zev Eleff looked, at first glance, like the kind of man who might have written a book about Jewish denominational history — which, in fact, he has. Striped blue shirt, green socks, tan shoes, kippah neatly in place.

But on a sunny afternoon at Gratz College’s quiet campus in suburban Philadelphia, he was holding forth not on Reform vs. Orthodox, but on Einstein vs. Edison, and why Donald Duck — not Mickey Mouse — was drafted to sell Americans on paying taxes.

His new book, The Greatest of All Time: A History of an American Obsession, isn’t just about the G.O.A.T.s we celebrate like Muhammad Ali and the Beatles. It’s about the country that needs them — and the questions we ask when we build them pedestals.

Eleff, a historian of American Jewry and the president of Gratz, a private Jewish college, started out writing about rabbis and religious movements. But during the pandemic, he wrote a book on faith and football at Harvard and it changed his trajectory. “That book got me thinking differently,” Eleff told me. “I’ve never written a story like that before.”

His new book goes even further, pulling apart the language and logic of greatness — who gets called great, who doesn’t, and why the whole exercise feels equal parts ESPN and Ethics of our Fathers.

Like any seasoned analyst, Eleff breaks down the pros and cons, the factors that elevate and inhibit icon status. Take Albert Einstein: indisputably brilliant, globally adored, and Jewish — which, for much of the 20th century, prevented him from achieving universal acclaim as the world’s greatest scientist.

Or Henry Ford, who helped invent modern America — the car, the weekend, the middle-class factory job. “But he was also such a miserable human being,” Eleff said. “He had a bigotry for many people, including Jews.”

Charlie Chaplin, too, lost his spot in the pantheon. Once America’s most beloved entertainer, Chaplin found himself exiled after the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover labeled him a communist sympathizer. His romantic relationships with much younger women, including his last wife, Oona, 36 years his junior, also tarnished his reputation.

Even Mickey Mouse wasn’t safe — deemed too soft for the World War II propaganda machine, he was benched by Walt Disney in favor of Donald Duck, prone to frustrated outbursts and who, Eleff added, was drafted to teach Americans how to file their taxes. (Nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie were introduced to show how to claim dependents.)

These aren’t just footnotes. They’re fractures — moral and communal — through which Eleff interrogates American values.

American obsessions, Jewish sensibilities

The result is a book that’s as much about the icons as it is about the fans who do the work of mythmaking, who construct the G.O.A.T. narrative. And Eleff sees these debates — Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James, Ty Cobb vs. Babe Ruth — as essentially Jewish. Not in content, but in method.

“There’s something Talmudic about it,” he said. “We marshal texts. We bring sources. We argue from precedent. We can get lost in the minutiae.”

This lens sharpens even more when Eleff looks at how American Jews relate to greatness. Unlike Catholics, who often built parallel institutions like Notre Dame and Georgetown. Jews mostly integrated into existing ones. “We work to make sure that our boys attend Harvard or City College, and our daughters attend Hunter,” Eleff said. “We don’t want to create a separate university.”

Except, of course, when we do want to stand out. “There’s not a single mid-sized, large Jewish community in the United States that doesn’t have a Jewish Sports Hall of Fame that hangs at a JCC or in a federation lobby,” he said, marveling at their proliferation. These spaces, he noted, are “really inward-facing,” and “not meant for a broader community.”

These micro-monuments — laminated achievements next to the donor wall — represent a tension that’s very Jewish, and very American: the desire to fit in while still honoring what makes us different. “By celebrating their achievements, American Jews are also celebrating what this country has afforded to them,” Eleff said.

But in times of rising antisemitism, even celebration can feel risky. “After the Six Day War, Jewish identity spiked. Men, pridefully more than ever, wore their yarmulkes at work,” he said. “Some of that has vanished. We’re nervous. We don’t want to stand out.”

Sandy Koufax, the G.O.A.T. who went to shul

The G.O.A.T. debate, in Eleff’s telling, is really a debate about us — about how we see ourselves reflected in those we choose to admire. Steph Curry, for instance, resonates not only because of his skill but because of his relatability.

“You can get one five-second video of me being Steph Curry,” Eleff said, pointing out that he could, in theory, make an NBA-range three-point shot. “You cannot find any five seconds of my life where I can be Magic Johnson.”

It’s why Sandy Koufax remains the undisputed greatest Jewish baseball player. “He wasn’t just a lefty with three Cy Young Awards,” Eleff said. “He went to shul on Yom Kippur. He modeled something we could all aspire to.”

So who is the greatest of all time? That, Eleff insists, is the wrong question.

“Greatness changes,” he said. “It always has. And that’s not a flaw in the system. That’s the system. Because in the end, when we debate the greatest, we’re really just talking about ourselves.”

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