Jewish boxers and friends meet on fight card

South African Jewish boxing history will be made on 23 November, when Doron Zinman and Joshua Feldman fight at the same boxing event at the Box Camp in Booysens, Johannesburg.

The Johannesburg-based 20-year-olds Zinman and Feldman, who are best friends, will become the first two Jewish fighters to feature on the same fight card since Alfie James and Dave Katzen achieved this feat 76 years ago.

At the Olympia Ice Rink in Johannesburg on 26 June 1948, James retained his South African welterweight title on points, beating Gillie van der Westhuizen, while Katzen was stopped in the third round against Jimmy Toweel in a lightweight contest.

Promoter Larry Wainstein, who brought Zinman and Feldman together on the same fight card, says the nine-bout fight card at the Box Camp starts at 19:00 and will be broadcast live around the world on British sports streaming platform, DAZN. Due to Shabbat ending at about 19:00, Zinman and Feldman will be pushed up the bill to accommodate their supporters who observe Shabbat.

This event will be Zinman’s first professional boxing fight. “I don’t know too much about my opponent, but I’m excited,” he says.

Feldman, meanwhile, will be contesting his first six-round fight, and his fifth professional fight in total.

“We’ve been preparing for our fights by training really hard, training twice a day, six days a week, sparring, going to the boxing gym every day, running, and studying the game, just trying to improve,” Zinman says.

“We became friends at school. We were together at primary school, and then year on year, we became closer, and we both fell in love with boxing, so that also was a big reason we spent a lot of time together. We trained together at the Blood, Sweat and Tears gym in Cape Town.”

“Last year, we had Josh fighting in our tournament through Colin [Nathan],” says Wainstein, who started Boxing 5, a promotion company, which works with Colin Nathan’s management company, No Doubt Management. “Colin said, ‘I think it’s time to give Doron a fight, so we can put him on our next bill.’ It just so happens that Josh already had two fights that hadn’t gone quite the distance. Colin said, ‘Maybe we’ve got to put Josh on again because maybe he hasn’t had too many rounds this year.’ So we planned it so that Doron could have his first fight on our bill, and the two of them are on the bill together.”

The duo’s opponents have been picked by a matchmaker. “Doron is fighting a fighter who is also having his debut so that they can put on a good fight,” Wainstein says. “Josh has been doing well with his fights, so you’ve got to be looking to push him up a bit, from four rounds to six.”

Feldman has won his two fights this year by knockout and says, “It’s been going very well so far.”

Feldman and Zinman aspire to become world champions in their respective weight categories. “Josh is much bigger than I am,” the latter says, “but of course, to be world champion is a dream. That’s what we work towards every day.”

They both started boxing at about the same time. “It was something we were doing as an extramural, and we just carried on going. It just took us from one step to another,” Feldman says. They began their journey in the amateur ranks with top Cape Town trainer Felix Venganayi at the Blood, Sweat and Tears Gym in 2016. Both have since relocated to Johannesburg, where they rent an apartment together and train under the watchful eye of the award-winning Nathan at his Hot Box Gym in Savoy Estate.

Feldman says it helps to stay with another boxer as, “We support each other as friends.”

Being the first two Jewish boxers to appear on the same fight card since James and Katzen may be a good omen for Feldman and Zinman. James, who won 49 fights in a career of about 10 years, was described as one of the most colourful characters in South African boxing, and Katzen boasted a professional record of 21 wins as well as the South African bantamweight and lightweight champion titles.

Raised in Cape Town, Feldman and Zinman were born a month apart. “We started boxing when we were 12,” Zinman says. “I went to Herzlia up until Grade 10, Josh until Grade 9, and then we did home schooling, the Cambridge system.”

Wainstein says, “There aren’t too many Jewish boxers around in Gauteng. In Cape Town, there are a few. It hasn’t been the sport of choice for a lot of Jewish boys.”

The son of a boxing enthusiast father, one of Wainstein’s five brothers, Morris, won the South African bantamweight title. Wainstein aims to continue his family’s legacy in boxing. After 18 months in promoting, Boxing 5 had its first world champion, who won his fight in Japan a month or so ago.

Wainstein himself played professional football, giving up boxing as an amateur many years ago. “When I turned 16, I signed professional forms with Highlands Park as a soccer player. I couldn’t box then because I was a professional.” He played in the 1973 Castle Cup Final and did a lot of coaching. “I’ve got a long history of football with the likes of Martin Cohen.”