Boteach, Matisyahu Get Chatty at Salita Boxing Match
Image by Wikicommons
By Josh Nathan-Kazis April 14, 2011
Late on Tuesday night, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and rapper Matisyahu were speaking together outside of the men’s room at a Brighton Beach event hall.
The pop Hasidic rabbi, author of “Kosher Sex” and former star of TLC’s “Shalom in the Home”, and the Hasidic pop star, who once sang on Letterman in a fedora, had come to the heart of Russian Brooklyn to watch their mutual friend, Orthodox Jewish boxer Dmitriy Salita, win his 33rd career fight.
Salita, who boasts a professional boxing record of 33-1, has rebounded since his stunning defeat in the second minute of his December 2009 light-welterweight title fight against world champion Amir Khan.
Salita has fought three times since, winning all of his bouts. No longer just a boxer, the young Ukranian-born New Yorker also promoted last night’s event, as he has two previous boxing cards since September.
Salita’s bout came at the end of a night of fights between heavy favorites and sometimes hapless contenders. In what was billed as the night’s co-headline bout, local favorite Luis Collazo, 29, defeated 35-year-old Franklin Gonzalez in a third-round TKO. Gonzalez slammed the mat in frustration as the referee stopped the match, then took a long while to get to his feet.
The headline fight ended after eight rounds in a unanimous decision in Salita’s favor. His opponent, Ronnie Warrior, Jr., had little support from the crowd.
“Vanilla can fight!” shouted one spectator.
“Dmitriy’s a good friend,” said Boteach after the fight. The rabbi said that he isn’t a particular fan of boxing, but that Salita often comes to his house for Friday night dinner. “What I salute about Dmitriy is his extremely proud Jewish identity,” he said.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
