Wayne Rooney is Jewish. My grandfather would have loved it
Zigi Shipper believed footballers could take his message further than he ever could. Rooney has proved him right
It was 22 years ago this week that Wayne Rooney made his debut for Manchester United at Old Trafford and scored a hat-trick against Fenerbahçe a month before his 19th birthday. He would go on to become the top scorer in the history of the club, and not for nothing would the United fans refer to him in song as the “white Pele”. Rooney has a large appetite, is undeniably funny and has never been shy about voicing his opinions. Perhaps we should have guessed a long time ago that he is actually an off-white Pele with Jewish heritage.
In the summer of 2012, the European Championships were hosted by Poland and Ukraine, two countries that had never previously had the honour. The Football Association felt that, while in Poland, members of the England squad should be educated about the Holocaust with a visit to either Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory or Auschwitz-Birkenau. Before departure, the players were addressed by two survivors who settled in this country after the war: Ben Helfgott and Zigi Shipper, the latter being my grandfather.
Ben and Zigi were close friends, a pair of high-profile survivors who spent their last few decades promoting Holocaust education in a bid to learn from the past to positively impact the future. Helfgott was one of just two Jewish athletes to take part in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust, competing as a weightlifter in 1956, just 11 years after emerging emaciated from the death camps. Like my grandfather, this bona fide hero would die in 2023 at the age of 93.
Rooney was amongst a select handful who opted to visit Auschwitz, the more harrowing of the options. Goalkeeper Joe Hart was another and spoke about Zigi’s speech in glowing terms: “It was amazing; you could hear a pin drop. I immediately asked to be one of the players to visit Auschwitz and texted my dad about the talk straight after.”
For Zigi, the privilege was all his, telling me towards the end of his life:
“There were tears in my eyes when the call came through, as I think it’s so important that the players heard my story. Not for me but for the millions of people who didn’t live to tell the tale. I have met the queen and prime ministers, but being asked to speak to the players was the greatest honour of my life.”
The experience clearly stayed with Rooney. In a new documentary, The Real Rooneys, the great Englishman is seen taking his family to Auschwitz since his son studied the war years at school. Recalling the 2012 trip, he says, “It put a lot of things into perspective to see what had gone on there.” In the same episode, Rooney reveals a recent discovery, explaining:
“I found out my mum’s mum, me, Nan, and her family were Polish Jews. I’m Catholic, but I’ve always asked questions like, ‘Why aren’t we Jewish?’”
That propensity to ask questions is a surefire sign that we should accept the Orthodox matrilineal descent idea and welcome Rooney into the fold. Indeed, if so, Mark Spitz and Sandy Koufax have competition if we are ranking the greatest Jewish sportsmen ever to have lived. In the documentary, upon being told that he might be considered Jewish based on his ancestry, United’s record goalscorer suggests a spinoff show entitled “Roo the Jew”. There’s that fabled sense of humour that has sustained our people for centuries.
Zigi felt his purpose during that extraordinary third act was to spread his message as far and wide as humanly possible. He spoke in schools and universities, of course, but he also addressed young players at Chelsea and Liverpool, academy hopefuls aiming to become the stars of tomorrow. This was his real calling, not the stationery shop that paid the bills for several decades. He was self-aware enough to realise that an old man warning young people about prejudice was one thing, but England football heroes amplifying that message was something else entirely.
“It was a great thing for me to tell my life story to these young people. They are role models, and they are the ones who can speak out. Maybe people won’t listen to me, but they might just listen to Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney. We have to make sure it never happens again.”
My grandfather spoke those words to me in the final years of his life, and years after his death, Rooney is still spreading the good word. Zigi would have loved that.