Man Afraid of the Soap

Lacrosse is coming back to the Olympics in 2028 for the first time since 1908, which means that we might actually have a chance to discover a Jewish medalist. (Two on the American silver-winning 1904 team, Phil Hess and Albert Lehman, have been reported as Jewish, but since we don't even know their birth dates... You just want to get to Man Afraid of the Soap, don't you?)

Man Afraid of the Soap! These 1904 Olympics featured only four teams, and one of them, from Brooklyn (perhaps some Jews there?), was disqualified because it used professionals. So in the only semifinal, a team from St. Louis (possibly featuring Hess and Lehman — but we don't care about them!) faced the Mohawk Indians from Canada. Yes, an actual team made up of Native Americans!

On that team: Snake Eater (English name: Frank Seneca), Almighty Voice (Jacob Jamieson), Rain in Face (Robert Lottridge), and, yes, the amazingly-named Man Afraid of the Soap (Freeman Isaacs). Isaacs!?

While the discovery of a Jewish Native American Olympic medalist would have been one of the most amazing ones in our website's nearly-20-year history, sadly this is not the case. This Isaacs was clearly Christian. Oh well.

The Mohawks tied St. Louis 2:2, but lost the subsequent drawing of the lots and missed the final. Drawing of the lots! Anti-semitismnative-Americanism!?