At age 14, Jaffee took up skating at the Gay Blades of Iceland rink (which later became the
Roseland Ballroom). Rather than pay the 75-cent admission fee, he worked as an ice cleaner to gain admission. He entered numerous skating races in the 1920s. He finally won the
Silver Skates two-mile race in 1926, won the national five-mile event the following year, In a controversial ruling, the Norwegian referee canceled the entire competition. Evensen, for his part, publicly said that Jaffee should be awarded the gold medal, but that never happened. There, he won gold medals in both the 5,000 and 10,000-meter races. In December 1932, his manager announced that Jaffee, and also
Ivar Ballangrud, would turn professional. Jaffee's professional career was aided by Postmaster General
James Farley. Jaffee went on a ten-city professional tour, and later went into the skate manufacturing business, achieving success for a time as a businessman. During the
Great Depression, the unemployed Jaffee ended up on bread lines and was forced to
pawn his Olympic and other medals for $3500. After he obtained a job on
Wall Street, he went to redeem his medals, only to learn the pawn shop had gone out of business: he never saw the medals again. In 1934, he worked as Winter Sports Director at
Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel, and set a world record there by skating 25 miles in 1:26:01. breaking the 30-year-old record by five minutes. Jaffee appeared in a full-page ad for
Camel cigarettes in 1934, entitled "It Takes Healthy Nerves for Jaffee to be the World's Champion Skater; Steady Smokers Turn to Camels".
Honors Jaffee was elected to the
United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1940 and the
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1979. He died in San Diego in 1981. ==See also==