From Dallas Cowboy To Orthodox Jew

Barry Horn writes:

Schneur Kaplan is the Fort Lauderdale rabbi who shepherded Mr. Veingrad’s metamorphosis from Alan to Shlomo. It was Rabbi Kaplan who began calling Mr. Veingrad by the Hebrew name that he was given at birth and then promptly stored away for almost four decades.

A rabbi in the Chasidic movement that strives to bring Jews back to their religion’s roots, Rabbi Kaplan calls his friend’s relatively rapid total immersion into a new way of life "rare."

"To see his transition from living a mundane life, where the important things were boating and water sports and talking about bigger and better houses and fancy cars, to a religious life has been amazing," Rabbi Kaplan says. "But Shlomo is an all-or-nothing kind of guy. He has approached this like I’m sure he approached football – with every fiber of his being."

…The big-city boy from Miami loved East Texas State from the moment he reported for practice in 1981. He found himself surrounded by like-minded players from small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana whose primary passion was to become better football players.

Never, he said, did he hear a single anti-Semitic remark, although he did stop counting the number of times that he heard teammates say, "I never met a Jew before."

More often than not, when they asked questions about Judaism, Mr. Veingrad shrugged, said he would get back to them and called his mother in Miami for answers.

"Like most Jewish boys, I had a bar mitzvah when I was 13 and thought I was through with religion," he says. "I thought it was an exit service."