I blogged recently about the Jewish boxer Yuri Foreman, who was hoping to become Israel’s first boxing champion. Yuri, who lives in Brooklyn, defied the bookies odds, winning his bout and, with it, the WBA light middleweight crown.

Now, it’s the turn of Dmitriy Salita to carry Jewish boxing’s hope forward. Salita, again, is the underdog. Though, this time he has an even tougher fight ahead of him in the form of the British boxer Amir Khan, who he will meet in Newcastle on Saturday night.

Salita has a fascinating backstory. If you can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend the documentary Orthodox Stance, which was made a couple of years ago and which charts Salita’s rise to boxing prominence in the US. If you can’t see the film, you might be interested in this feature I wrote for the Jewish Chronicle.

Apologies for the long pause but I have a very good excuse: the birth of our daughter Ella, on November 8, at Beth Israel Hospital. I hope to be back up to speed soon. But for now, I hope you will forgive me if posting is intermittent.

All eyes in the UK are currently on Dmitriy Salita, the Jewish boxer from New York who will fight Amir Khan in Newcastle next month for the WBA light-welterweight title.

But ahead of that is another important contest for Jewish boxing fans.

When Yuri Foreman steps into the ring in Las Vegas next Saturday, as a challenger for the WBA light middleweight crown, he will become the first Israeli citizen ever to fight for a world boxing title.

Both Dmitriy and Yuri have been making headlines lately because, as well as being Jewish boxers (a rare breed nowadays) they have both also turned to Orthodox Judaism in recent years. Indeed, Yuri has gone one step further. He’s training to be a rabbi and hoping to move back to Israel–his home from 1990 to 1999–in a few years.

Yuri lives in Brooklyn and I interviewed him this week for the Jewish Chronicle. The video above is a few years old, but quite prescient considering the fight ahead.

It’s been a long time since I actually enjoyed hip-hop. Five or six years of being force fed gangsta rap from passing car stereos tends to do that to a person. So it was refreshing to see and appreciate Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s hip-hop version of the life of Alexander Hamilton. I may have to take a look at this bio of Hamilton, recommended by the Atlantic’s James Fallows, too. (Via Clive Davis & James Fallows.)