Jay Glazer is Jewish. Glazer was born December 26, 1969 in New York. He was born and raised in New York. He did his college years there as well. He graduated from Pace University in 1993. His parents are Irene and Ed Glazer, who are members of Israel Congregation of Manchester in Manchester Center, Vermont. He married Michelle Graci, a model, in June 2006. They have one son together, Samuel.
Glazer made his first acting appearance in the film The Longest Yard alongside Adam Sandler. Glazer is a senior writer at Fox Sports’ website Foxsports.com and the NFL insider for NFL on Fox network since the year 2004. He is also an entrepreneur; he has co-founded a NFL athlete martial arts training center in Las Vegas and Los Angeles named MMA ‘(MMAthletics’)
Glazer started his career in the mid 90s. He covered New York Giants and Jets for the local station of New York then. As his writings got more strong and effective and he started making connections with players and agents, he rose up.
His network got him a great break at CBS’ The NFL Today, where he worked off-camera.
Apart from his professional life as a writer and reporter, he is in martial arts. He is 4-3 in submission fighting and mixed martial arts and won a gold medal for his win at the World Championships of Submission Fighting.
The senior writer for FoxSports.com has been the NFL Insider for NFL on Fox since 2004. Glazer is also a business partner with Randy Couture in MMAthletics based in Las Vegas, Nevada at Xtreme Couture Training Center. Glazer trains NFL players in Mixed Martial Arts at their Los Angeles location during the off-season and hosts UFC shows for FOX Sports and Fuel TV, including weigh-ins and pre/post coverage.
Glazer has appeared in such movies as The Game Plan, The Longest Yard and The League.
In an interview with the congregation's rabbi emeritus, Rabbi Michael Cohen, Jay Glazer discussed his first Jewish memory. Glazer says, "I was very A.D.D. growing up. Actually, I was more-than-A.D.D. I was more like L, M, N, O, P. As a result, my brain never slowed down so I didn't sleep much. Many of us with A.D.D. also suffer from insomnia. And of course I worry a lot... because I’m Jewish. I also stress a lot, again... because I’m Jewish. I'd lay in my bed at night hours upon hours often bored out of my mind wishing I had someone I could talk to. One night when I was about 10 I realized there was someone I could talk to: God. I'd talk to GOD about everything. For hours I'd talk about my day, ask GOD how his day is and really just talk like anyone would talk to one's best friend. It became the foundation of my relationship with God."
Regarding Shabbat, Glazer has explained, "The Fourth Commandment. Observe my Sabbath. GOD actually demands that we chill out, take a break, hang with the family. Well gee, that's not a hard commandment to follow. GOD is insisting, "Dude, chilllllllll." God isn't commanding us to give away our money or not have a good time or sacrifice Isaac. God is simply saying, "Dude, chill out. Hang out with your family. Relax!"
"I started doing this in 1989 and I didn't get a full-time paying job that didn't go Chapter 11 until 1999. That is 10 years of rejection and heart-break, 10 years of using the Sabbath to renew my spirit to fight on each week. I'd go sit in shule, let the songs I grew up with breeze through me and let the week go. Clean slate!"
Jay Glazer said his favorite Jewish holiday is Yom Kippur: "I wait until I am at my hungriest point of the fast and I go out and find homeless, walk up to them and ask,” If you could eat anything you could right now what would you like? I’m talking a feast, what do you REALLLY want?” Often they ask for something simple like a simple slice of pizza. But instead of just a slice of pizza I add some baked ziti, calzone, soda, etc. I try to give these homeless people a feast. In those three minutes we change roles. For those few minutes I am absolutely starving, actually wishing I could have what this homeless person is feasting on. I’m starving, waiting for the second I too could have that piece of pizza! That homeless person is eating like a king feeling like I normally do while I feel like this poor soul normally does. Talk about perspective. No matter how crappy at times I may feel like my life might be, how pissed off I might be about something in life that isn't going my way, it really puts things in perspective."
"This year it was really hard because we walked, my girlfriend and I walked, into a Cheesecake Factory right before neilah and we got eight meals of filet minion, chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, french fries, bread, bottle of water. When I tell you I was dying, oh my God, and we went and gave these feasts out to different homeless people. That puts it in such wonderful perspective. I’ve gotten other people now to start doing this as well and they love it. I just heard someone who told me, “It’s now our family tradition were doing it now on the Pacific Coast Highway every Yom Kippur when we’re hungry.” It’s great and they do it with their kids."
The rest of Rabbi Cohen's interview with Jay Glazer is below:
Glazer made his first acting appearance in the film The Longest Yard alongside Adam Sandler. Glazer is a senior writer at Fox Sports’ website Foxsports.com and the NFL insider for NFL on Fox network since the year 2004. He is also an entrepreneur; he has co-founded a NFL athlete martial arts training center in Las Vegas and Los Angeles named MMA ‘(MMAthletics’)
Glazer started his career in the mid 90s. He covered New York Giants and Jets for the local station of New York then. As his writings got more strong and effective and he started making connections with players and agents, he rose up.
His network got him a great break at CBS’ The NFL Today, where he worked off-camera.
Apart from his professional life as a writer and reporter, he is in martial arts. He is 4-3 in submission fighting and mixed martial arts and won a gold medal for his win at the World Championships of Submission Fighting.
The senior writer for FoxSports.com has been the NFL Insider for NFL on Fox since 2004. Glazer is also a business partner with Randy Couture in MMAthletics based in Las Vegas, Nevada at Xtreme Couture Training Center. Glazer trains NFL players in Mixed Martial Arts at their Los Angeles location during the off-season and hosts UFC shows for FOX Sports and Fuel TV, including weigh-ins and pre/post coverage.
Glazer has appeared in such movies as The Game Plan, The Longest Yard and The League.
In an interview with the congregation's rabbi emeritus, Rabbi Michael Cohen, Jay Glazer discussed his first Jewish memory. Glazer says, "I was very A.D.D. growing up. Actually, I was more-than-A.D.D. I was more like L, M, N, O, P. As a result, my brain never slowed down so I didn't sleep much. Many of us with A.D.D. also suffer from insomnia. And of course I worry a lot... because I’m Jewish. I also stress a lot, again... because I’m Jewish. I'd lay in my bed at night hours upon hours often bored out of my mind wishing I had someone I could talk to. One night when I was about 10 I realized there was someone I could talk to: God. I'd talk to GOD about everything. For hours I'd talk about my day, ask GOD how his day is and really just talk like anyone would talk to one's best friend. It became the foundation of my relationship with God."
Regarding Shabbat, Glazer has explained, "The Fourth Commandment. Observe my Sabbath. GOD actually demands that we chill out, take a break, hang with the family. Well gee, that's not a hard commandment to follow. GOD is insisting, "Dude, chilllllllll." God isn't commanding us to give away our money or not have a good time or sacrifice Isaac. God is simply saying, "Dude, chill out. Hang out with your family. Relax!"
"I started doing this in 1989 and I didn't get a full-time paying job that didn't go Chapter 11 until 1999. That is 10 years of rejection and heart-break, 10 years of using the Sabbath to renew my spirit to fight on each week. I'd go sit in shule, let the songs I grew up with breeze through me and let the week go. Clean slate!"
Jay Glazer said his favorite Jewish holiday is Yom Kippur: "I wait until I am at my hungriest point of the fast and I go out and find homeless, walk up to them and ask,” If you could eat anything you could right now what would you like? I’m talking a feast, what do you REALLLY want?” Often they ask for something simple like a simple slice of pizza. But instead of just a slice of pizza I add some baked ziti, calzone, soda, etc. I try to give these homeless people a feast. In those three minutes we change roles. For those few minutes I am absolutely starving, actually wishing I could have what this homeless person is feasting on. I’m starving, waiting for the second I too could have that piece of pizza! That homeless person is eating like a king feeling like I normally do while I feel like this poor soul normally does. Talk about perspective. No matter how crappy at times I may feel like my life might be, how pissed off I might be about something in life that isn't going my way, it really puts things in perspective."
"This year it was really hard because we walked, my girlfriend and I walked, into a Cheesecake Factory right before neilah and we got eight meals of filet minion, chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, french fries, bread, bottle of water. When I tell you I was dying, oh my God, and we went and gave these feasts out to different homeless people. That puts it in such wonderful perspective. I’ve gotten other people now to start doing this as well and they love it. I just heard someone who told me, “It’s now our family tradition were doing it now on the Pacific Coast Highway every Yom Kippur when we’re hungry.” It’s great and they do it with their kids."
The rest of Rabbi Cohen's interview with Jay Glazer is below:
So if a kid were to ask you, “How do you define God?’ what would you say to them?
How do you define God? What do you always want in a friend? Someone who’s always going to be there for you, someone who’s going to be loyal to you, and someone you can really open up to and listens to you. That’s what you want in a friend and they’re right there. That’s how I would define God.
Does it really hurt to have faith? I feel people often try to outsmart themselves. If I could say anything it is this: give a shot, it can’t hurt. If you have someone who’s so loving like a grandparent looking over you, or a best friend it may just make your life and journey a little bit easier, a little bit better. I believe that’s all that God wants.
So you see lots of football games and often at the end of a football game in the interviews a player will thank God that they won. I’m curious in their theology do they think that God is actually watching and cares whether the Green Bay Packers or the Patriots win?
I think when you have this belief that God is with you, you really believe that God is with you and you only. The thing is as an athlete you’re going to look for any edge in confidence that you can find. This relationship with God provides internal strength. I have this extra internal strength that gets me to feel like I can overcome anything that’s thrown my way.
Faith is the greatest weapon you can wield.
Is there a right way and a wrong way in having faith?
The right way is to use faith to love, overcome and make life better. It's wrong when people use faith in such a way as to say, "OK I’m going to be friends with God so good things will happen for me and if they don’t well I’m done with you." It doesn’t work that way folks.
If only good things happen then how does God really know who loves GOD? You know what I mean? Sometimes I think perhaps bad things happen because God’s gotta know if I’m still loyal. Doesn't it give us such joy and pride when we stick by a loved one through difficult times? The soul rises up and your heart leaps when you know you've stuck by someone getting through a really, really difficult time.
Do you have a favorite Jewish memory?
The beauty of Judaism and religion gave me my final and perhaps greatest memory of my grandmother, who I referred to as Nanny. We were at my cousin Sydney's Bat Mitzvah and my beloved Nanny was on her last few months of life. She was pretty much incoherent, didn't really remember who any of us was anymore. She was wheelchair bound and like I said, in her own incoherent world. But when the rabbi and cantor began chanting some of the prayers, she was suddenly Nanny again, singing along right next to me. I held her hand the whole time and we sang together and for the last time in our lives I was able to have a connection with my grandmother. We sang the Sh’ma, we sang the Ve’ahvta, the B’rechoo, the Avot and we sang it all together. It gave me my last coherent moment with my grandmother. That’s pretty darn good.
I have a friend of mine who’s a cantor and she’s beginning to get involved with the situation like your grandmother where they connect to these tunes and they open up and they suddenly have these relationships with their family members that they would not have had because it sometimes can go beyond the song and it opens up that real part of them.
That’s God. That’s why I have this picture of this beautiful God. That’s so far above what we can do as people. That’s why there’s gotta be a God ‘cause something like that is well above our pay grade. We can’t produce connections in the soul like that, we can’t. As much as those in the field of science often set out to try to disprove faith, science could never produce connections in the soul like that. There's nothing better.
