The discovery of a Jewish Negro League star forces a rewrite of Jewish baseball history

Oscar Levis, a star pitcher in the Negro Leagues who was Black and Jewish, has been identified as Jewish through archival research, family testimony, and genealogical work. Levis pitched a no-hitter and dominated the Cuban Winter League. His father, Amos DaCosta Levy, was a Jewish Jamaican businessman and legislator. The discovery forces a revision of Jewish baseball history because the Negro Leagues were not recognized as major leagues until 2020, and assumptions about race and Jewish identity had obscured Levis's background.

Oscar Levis, one of the finest pitchers of his era in the Negro Leagues, has been posthumously identified as Jewish through months of archival research, family testimony, and genealogical detective work. Levis pitched a no-hitter and dominated the Cuban Winter League, tallying five straight seasons without losing a game against a tough white semiprofessional club. He was so dominant that sportswriter W. Rollo Wilson held him up as a benchmark of pitching excellence. Levis does not appear on any official roster of Jewish major leaguers because the Negro Leagues were not recognized as major leagues until 2020, and because he was Black, the prevailing assumption was that Blackness and Jewishness seldom overlapped. Levis was the son of Amos DaCosta Levy, a Jewish Jamaican businessman and legislator, and Theodosia Foreman, a Black Jamaican dressmaker. The discovery was sparked by comments on a 2018 article by Negro League historian Gary Ashwill, and confirmed through Jamaican civil and ecclesiastical records, consultation with historians of Caribbean Jewish history, and communication with DaCosta Levy's descendants. The article notes that within the Caribbean Sephardic tradition, patrilineal descent was recognized, and relationships between Jewish men and women of color were relatively widespread in Jamaica.