New York, NY – The Boxing Showdown After Sundown

New York, NY – Hours before Yuri Foreman steps out of his hotel room on June 5 onto the darkened streets of Midtown Manhattan, the rabbi-in-training will sit in the sunlight—no electric light allowed— and read the writings of an ancient king. Certain psalms will resonate in his head, like they always do. No. 91 is a favorite.

“Under [God’s] wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”

So far it has worked. Mr. Foreman is the first Orthodox Jew to win a world title in 75 years and this Saturday “the Lion of Zion” will challenge Miguel Cotto for the world super-welterweight title in the inaugural boxing match at the new Yankee Stadium.

Mr. Cotto, (34-2, 27 KOs), a three-time world champion from Puerto Rico, averages almost a knockout per fight. Mr. Foreman (28-0, 8 KOs) is a canny fighter whose own trainer has questioned his instinct for the kill. “I’m still trying to figure out what my nature is,” Mr. Foreman admitted earlier this month. “It’s a work in progress.”

The fight between the Puerto Rican favorite and the Jewish up-and-comer was once a familiar story in boxing. “In the old days when we had these ethnic rivalries it released tensions,” said Bob Arum, the promoter and chairman of Top Rank. “Everybody in effect got their fix on ethnic rivalries based on two guys fighting, which is the way they did it in feudal societies, your champion against our champion, so it was good. Now that we really don’t have ethnic rivalries as much I think it’s sort of a throwback to have a Puerto Rican who’s very popular fight this Jewish kid.”

The intervening years have yielded other differences.

“The Puerto Rican community has a lot of boxers, so for them this is old hat,” Mr. Arum said. “For the Jewish community, particularly the Orthodox Jewish community, it’s something very new. It hasn’t happened in a long, long time.”

Mr. Foreman’s story can be traced back to Gomel, Belarus, during the days of the Soviet Union. As a young boy, Mr. Foreman crammed into a two-room apartment with his parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin, frequently sleeping on a cot in the hallway.

Required to participate in a sport, he signed up for swimming—until some bullies pummeled him so badly that his mother marched him into a local boxing gym, demanding that the teacher, as Mr. Foreman recalled later with a slight smile, “make a man out of him.”

In 1991, the family emigrated to Israel where his father scraped together a succession of cleaning jobs. Mr. Foreman stuck out in ways large and small. He had been trained to tuck his shirt in; all the kids left theirs loose. His accent was thick and strange. He was too embarrassed to invite friends over because there was no food in his refrigerator. “I looked at boxing as my way out,” he said.

But in Israel, boxers struggled, too. With rickety facilities and limited equipment, Mr. Foreman and his teammates trained by running on beaches throwing stones back and forth, sharing a single piece of headgear for bouts. By the time Mr. Foreman turned 18, he had won three national championships. But his mother had died and his family was as poor as ever.

“I figured I could quit on my dream of becoming a world champion and join my dad side-by-side in some factory job or move somewhere else like America and give it a shot,” he said.

On a gray morning shortly thereafter, he arrived in New York and went straight to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn where he’d arranged to stay with a former trainer from Israel. The blocks of low-slung houses, the bleak sky and empty streets were not the glittering New York he’d imagined. He quickly got a job in the garment district, delivering cloth and cleaning stores—whatever the manager wanted—for $200 a week. At night he would go to the gym to train, exhausted.

“It was just crushing,” Mr. Foreman said. “Working, going to the gym and at the same time trying to concentrate and not to forget that the reason for coming was working on your American dream, not making $200 a week.”

During that time he had met his wife while training at Gleason’s gym in Brooklyn—she saw he was struggling. Together, they googled “Kabbalah class” and found one in their Brooklyn neighborhood. Their first night, the rabbi told a story about how life is like boxing: As long as you’re upright and breathing, there’s still a chance to win.

“Immediately there was a deep connection,” said Rabbi DovBer Pinson.

Over the next several years, both Mr. Foreman and his wife, Leyla Leidecker, would delve more deeply into Jewish law, mysticism and spiritual teachings. When his rabbi offered him a spot in a multi-year rabbinical program Mr. Foreman accepted.

His emergence as a world champion boxer has mostly galvanized the Jewish community. On a recent Sunday, Mr. Foreman sat in a silver convertible as the honorary Grand Marshall of New York’s Israeli Day Parade. With his champion belt draped over his shoulder, he grinned as the car crept down fifth avenue, murmurs sweeping through the crowd of the boxing champion in their midst.

“It shows that we’re a diverse people,” said 16-year-old Benjamin Gardner, a junior at Stuyvesant High School who cheered Mr. Foreman as he passed by. “It furthers our cause or our standing in the world. Having more people like Yuri who are good at what they do in the public spectrum, I think it helps with everything.”

But not all of his efforts have been well received. The boxing lessons he gives to troubled boys who have become estranged from their religious identity prompt the most calls, said Rabbi Pinson.

“Their argument is that you’re teaching troubled kids how to fight, which is not a good combination,” he said. “And I say go see what he’s doing.”

On June 5, thousands will do just that. Mr. Foreman will leave his hotel at sundown and climb into a car flanked by police escorts. They will race toward Yankee Stadium, where Mr. Foreman will tape his hands, don his gear and begin his warm-up. He will step out onto the field to the call of the shofar, traditionally a ram’s horn.

The last time he fought outdoors was in an Arab village; Saturday night he will be standing under the floodlights of Yankee Stadium. The words of his favorite psalm may echo in his head.

“No harm will befall you no disaster will come near your tent.

For He will command his angels … to guard you in all your ways; They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

He would much rather see his glove strike Mr. Cotto in the head.