Jewish boxers are back in the news. Roman Greenberg, an undefeated heavyweight from Israel, will fight in Hollywood, Fla., on Dec. 1, just his fourth bout in the United States. The World Boxing Council ranks him 40 out of 888 international boxers.

Last year, another Jewish prizefighter, Dmitriy “The Star of David” Salita, captured the junior welterweight championship in the North American Boxing Association.

The Jewish prizefighters of the pre-World War II era have also been garnering attention of late. The National Museum of American Jewish History has organized a traveling exhibit, “Sting Like a Maccabee: The Golden Age of the American Jewish Boxer.” And a new biography of Barney Ross, the best-known Jewish fighter of the 1930s, was recently written by Douglas Century and published by Schocken.

This portrayal of Ross — born Dov-Ber Rasofsky— is especially significant because it sheds light on the fact that he not only symbolized Jewish toughness in the ring but fought just as hard for the Jewish people outside the ring.

Born to a struggling immigrant family in Chicago, Ross was thrust into the role of family breadwinner in 1923 at the age of 14, when his father was murdered in a holdup. The youngster turned to boxing to earn money for his mother and five siblings and won the lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight championships in a career that saw him victorious in 77 of 81 bouts.

As Prof. Jeffrey Gurock explains in his new book, Judaism’s Encounter with American Sports, boxers like Ross became wildly popular in the American-Jewish community. At a time when American Jews were frequent targets of anti-Semitism, they saw Ross’ prowess as an antidote to the stereotypical image of physically weak Jews.

Ross retired from the ring in 1938 but was back in the public eye three years later, when, at age 32, he enlisted in the Marines after Pearl Harbor. In the battle of Guadalcanal, Ross was seriously wounded while rescuing injured comrades from a Japanese ambush. His heroics earned him a Silver Star. And there was more to come.

Upon his return to the United States in 1943, Ross became one of the first professional athletes to become active in a political cause, joining the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, also known as the Bergson Group. The committee used full-page newspaper ads, public rallies, and Capitol Hill lobbying to pressure the Roosevelt administration to rescue Jews from Hitler.

Ross’ fame drew attention to the group’s rescue campaign, which culminated in the autumn of 1943 with the introduction of a congressional resolution urging creation of a U.S. government agency to rescue Jewish refugees. Together with behind-the-scenes lobbying by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and his aides, the resolution helped persuade Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board. The board’s activities, which included financing the work of Raoul Wallenberg, played a key role in rescuing more than 200,000 Jews during the last months of the war.

Ross also became active in another of the Bergson committees, the American League for a Free Palestine, which sought to rally American support for the creation of a Jewish state. He spoke at rallies and chaired its George Washington Legion, which recruited American volunteers to aid the Irgun Zva’i Leumi, the Jewish underground militia that was fighting the British in mandatory Palestine. The legion was modeled after the famous Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which had recruited Americans to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. One of the Bergson newspaper ads featured a photo of the boxing champion with this message: “There is no such thing as a former fighter. We must all continue the fight.”

Sy Dill, today a resident of Providence, RI, was a teenage volunteer in the Bergson Group’s New York City headquarters in 1947. I recently asked Sy about his memories of the afternoon that Ross walked into the office. “He was a real hero, and it was an incredible thrill to meet him in person,” Dill recalled. “When he shook my hand, he nearly broke it — I guess that’s what you should expect from a boxer. It was a moment that I will remember forever.”

Ross’ niece, Audrey Cantor of Chicago, hopes that today’s new generation of Jewish boxers will look to Barney Ross as their role model. “Not only as a boxer,” she emphasized, “but more importantly, as someone who fought for the Jewish people.”

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