This is the only Kosher McDonalds in the world outside of Israel. Buenos Aires is known for it’s meat and the McDonald’s does not disappoint. Totally different flavors than what we’re used to in the U.S., but the kosher McDonalds is definitely worth the visit.
What’s crazy about this place is that the Abasto Mall is open super late just for the restaurants. The kosher McDonalds is open until 2am. I love it.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Is Groundhog Day a Religious Movie? - Harold Ramis
Actor / director Harold Ramis explains the potential religious connotations of the 1993 Bill Murray comedy "Groundhog Day." Ramis describes how Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and psychoanalysts alike find meaning in the film.
Shleptops are taking over the internetz
Jerusalem - Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. The European-Jewish language Yiddish, the demise of which has been forecast for years, will not become extinct for at least the next hundred years, according to a conference to be held next week in Jerusalem. There are at present around two to three million Yiddish speakers in the world, a number, say the experts, which ensures that the language can survive for the next century.
Research to be presented at the "Century of Yiddish 1908 - 2008 " conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem next week shows that only languages spoken by approximately 1000 people can become extinct in the next hundreds or so years.
Not only is Yiddish not dead, but its vocabulary is growing as it attempts to keep pace with the 20th century. Among the new words to be introduced to the conference are "shleptop" for laptop, a highly- appropriate choice, as anyone who's ever had to carry a laptop around can attest, "blitzmail" for e-mail, and "internetz" for internet.
Advertisement:
"Until recently, Yiddish was thought of as a channel for jokes. But in the last decade we have witnesses a renewed interest in Yiddish language and culture among young people and adults," said Professor Yechiel Szeintuch, Professor at Yiddish at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Yiddish is a hybrid language derived mainly from medieval German, but also containing some Hebrew. It was once the language of Jews of European origin, and at its height around 100 years ago was understood by 11 million of the world's 18 million Jews.
It had its own specific and highly-visible culture - some 1,700 national and local Yiddish newspapers were published in Poland alone during World Wars I and II - which was virtually wiped out during the Holocaust.
At present the language is spoken mainly by ultra-Orthodox Jews, and by enthusiasts who are determined to revive the language and bring it back into mainstream Jewish life.
However, many Yiddish words have entered mainstream English, mainly, but not exclusively, in the United States - "shlep" (to carry or drag a load), "chutzpah" (audacity), "kvetch" (to whine, complain), "nebbish" (a simpleton, a weakling) being just a few.
Other Yiddish words which have entered the language cannot, sadly, be included in an article for a mainstream news agency.
Research to be presented at the "Century of Yiddish 1908 - 2008 " conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem next week shows that only languages spoken by approximately 1000 people can become extinct in the next hundreds or so years.
Not only is Yiddish not dead, but its vocabulary is growing as it attempts to keep pace with the 20th century. Among the new words to be introduced to the conference are "shleptop" for laptop, a highly- appropriate choice, as anyone who's ever had to carry a laptop around can attest, "blitzmail" for e-mail, and "internetz" for internet.
Advertisement:
"Until recently, Yiddish was thought of as a channel for jokes. But in the last decade we have witnesses a renewed interest in Yiddish language and culture among young people and adults," said Professor Yechiel Szeintuch, Professor at Yiddish at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Yiddish is a hybrid language derived mainly from medieval German, but also containing some Hebrew. It was once the language of Jews of European origin, and at its height around 100 years ago was understood by 11 million of the world's 18 million Jews.
It had its own specific and highly-visible culture - some 1,700 national and local Yiddish newspapers were published in Poland alone during World Wars I and II - which was virtually wiped out during the Holocaust.
At present the language is spoken mainly by ultra-Orthodox Jews, and by enthusiasts who are determined to revive the language and bring it back into mainstream Jewish life.
However, many Yiddish words have entered mainstream English, mainly, but not exclusively, in the United States - "shlep" (to carry or drag a load), "chutzpah" (audacity), "kvetch" (to whine, complain), "nebbish" (a simpleton, a weakling) being just a few.
Other Yiddish words which have entered the language cannot, sadly, be included in an article for a mainstream news agency.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Rounding the Bases To America
Why do we idolize Jewish baseball players?
By Bradford R. Pilcher
It's difficult to say which was the more significant event: when Detroit Tiger's star Hank Greenberg sat out a game on Yom Kippur during a heated 1934 pennant race, or when Edgar Guest penned a famous rhyme to commemorate the occurrence.
As Greenberg wrote in his autobiography, he was "probably the only batter in the lineup who was not in a slump" at the time. The Detroit Tigers had gone a quarter century since their last pennant, and fans grumbled when Hammerin' Hank declared he would not play on Rosh Hashanah. After consulting with his rabbi, who ruled that Rosh Hashanah was a "festive holiday" and playing would be permitted, Greenberg relented and suited up. He hit two home runs that day, including one in the ninth inning that won the game, but he stuck to his guns when it came to Yom Kippur.
"Suppose I stay out of the game and we lost the pennant by one game," quipped the slugger. It was not a small act on the part of a Jewish player in an era when Jews faced rampant anti-Semitism, and to say the pride of Jewish fans across the country swelled would be an understatement.
All of which is why the poem by Edgar Guest may be more significant than Greenberg's actual decision not to play. Edgar Albert Guest had come to the United States in 1891, at the age of 10, and by the age of 17 was publishing his poetry in the Detroit Free Press. He'd become known as "The People's Poet," penning some 11,000 poems before his death. So it was a great gesture for American Jews when Guest penned the following:
"Came Yom Kippur--holy fast day world wide over to the Jew / And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old tradition true / Spent the day among his people and he didn't come to play. / Said Murphy to Mulrooney, 'We shall lose the game today! / We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him at the bat / But he's true to his religion--and I honor him for that!'"
Stepping Onto the Social Ladder
The question of why American Jews have been so enamored of Jewish sports figures, particularly Jewish baseball players, can begin to be answered in that final verse. Guest was not entirely unlike the masses of American Jews who cheered Greenberg--and later Sandy Koufax, Art Shamsky, Shawn Green, and so many others. He was an immigrant, coming to the shores of America looking for a better life, but whereas Guest found himself part of the larger religious majority, a white man from England, Jewish Americans faced a more uncertain place in the religious and ethnic landscape.
It had not been long before Greenberg's emergence as a star player that the Ku Klux Klan had reorganized in the wake of the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, and he was hardly the only Jew who faced violent anti-Semitism in that era. A few years before Frank was dragged from his jail cell, an anti-Semitic police riot broke out in New York with uniformed officers shouting "Kill those Sheenies [Jews]! Club them right and left!"
In the 1920s, just a few miles from where Greenberg would bring fans, Jewish and gentile alike, to their feet in the 1930s, American icon Henry Ford published his deeply anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent. It was shut down in 1927 after a libel lawsuit, but Ford remained an influential figure in American life.
In the face of such attitudes, it's less than surprising that American Jews would flock to those figures who found acceptance in mainstream American circles. Before Greenberg stepped foot in the batter's box, American Jews were celebrating the ascendance of legal scholar Louis Brandeis, for example.
In a sense, whenever a Jew climbs to the heights of society, it shows that any Jew can be just as American as their next door neighbor. It's that much better when a Jew does it and stays true to their faith, better still when mainstream America applauds that devotion.
Pride and Heroics
Of course, while Jews are proud of successful figures in law, politics, medicine, and scholarship, they hold a different appreciation for Jewish entertainers and sports figures. Brandeis evoked pride. So did Joe Lieberman when he became the first Jewish American on a major presidential ticket in 2000. Yet neither man approached the lasting mystique and popularity attached to Jewish sports heroes.
Jewish major leaguers have received their own special baseball cards, courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society, and it's no one-time deal. They've been updated annually, and the sellout success of the 2003 edition prompted a weekend seminar on Jewish players at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
It's further telling that in the summer of 2007 Israel inaugurated its own baseball league with legends of the Jewish baseball world at the helm. The aforementioned Art Shamsky was named manager of the Modi'in Miracle, while Ken Holtzman--holder of the most career wins by a Jewish pitcher in the majors--managed the Pioneers of Petach Tikva.
Ron Blomberg, the Jewish Yankee who made history as the first designated hitter in the major leagues, led the Blue Sox of Bet Shemesh. In his autobiography, he told of his first arrival in New York to an entourage of yarmulke-donning Jews. He was nothing more than a rookie prospect, but he got fan mail by the sack: "Every Jewish mother in the world wanted to introduce me to her daughter, and each letter included a photograph," Blomberg wrote. "Jewish girls were writing to me, saying they wanted to come to the stadium to meet me."
Jews are proud of their ballplayers; sometimes treating them like modern variants of biblical icons, heroes in their community, legendary for their talents. Why?
It would be easy to attribute this to the nebbish stereotype attributed to Jewish men. When one of them picks up a bat and clocks a ball into the upper decks, it is kind of like the spirit of Woody Allen just got knocked out along with the ball. Yet there was a time when Jews were pegged with athletic stereotypes. From the mid-1920s to the end of the 1940s, Philadelphia's pro-basketball team was called the SPHAs, short for South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. Their team was made up primarily of Jewish players, but they weren’t the only such team. Jews filled the ranks of pro basketball all over the country. Pundits referred to the "chosen" players' natural dexterity and sense of rhythm as well as their more intrinsic athletic ability.
American writer Paul Gallico even went so far as to say basketball was a premiere sport for Jews because, "the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind." Such praise, if you want to call it that, was a far cry from Guest's ode to Greenberg, but it did reflect a time when Jews were seen in much the same way minority and immigrant athletes were in later decades. Sports became a venue for poor, disenfranchised segments of the American population, such as Jews, blacks, and immigrants, to achieve a degree of upward social mobility.
Adopting the "American Religion"
The athlete as refutation of the weakling stereotype may have something to do with Jewish sports fandom today, but it probably isn't at the core of why Jews flock to Jewish sports stars. For that answer, you should look at what sports represents in American culture. It has been called a democratizing force or "the American religion." There is no doubt that for immigrants eager to assimilate into their adopted society, finding a connection to the American pastime seemed as sure a ticket as any other.
An English professor in San Francisco, Eric Solomon, made a similar observation in 1998, when he told The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, "Their families came to this country from Eastern Europe and they had to get a substitute for what they left behind, the shul and the shtetl. So what they found in major-league baseball was a community, a way of becoming American and yet retaining their identity as Jews."
He went on to point out the voluminous number of Jewish authors who wrote about baseball: Bernard Malamud's The Natural or The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg, for example. It was Roger Kahn who wrote The Boys of Summer, arguably the greatest baseball book ever written.
Nevertheless, the connection between Jews and baseball has always been strongest at those moments when great players have put their Jewish identity ahead of their performance on the field. It's hard not to look at Sandy Koufax in 1965, when he pulled a "Greenberg" and sat out the first game of the World Series, and see an American Jew reminding his people of the freedom and acceptance they enjoy in this country. Two decades removed from the Holocaust with the Civil Rights movement in full bloom, ethnic and religious minorities faced prejudice that seemed to boil over just as it was being confronted more forcefully than at any time in American history. Yet there was Koufax, steadfastly refusing to play in one of the most important games of his career.
It should be remembered that Koufax came back and pitched a complete game shutout in Game 5. Two days later, on short rest, the Jewish legend retook the mound for the decisive seventh game. In arthritic pain, he beat the Twins. Then he collected his World Series MVP award and was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
There is, of course, no single moment when the collective mass of Jewish citizens in this country became accepted as Americans. The waves of anti-Semitism have been reduced to ebbs and flows, and the affluence enjoyed by American Jewry dwarfs that of any time in the 3,000 year history of our people. There is not one day that marked that turning point, but many would look back at October 6, 1965 and see who wasn't standing on the mound.
Jewish sports fans certainly recall that day, and when they cheer for today's Jewish stars-- Kevin Youkilis, Shawn Green, Brad Ausmus, and others--they do so as accepted Americans. Jewish baseball played its part in that.
By Bradford R. Pilcher
It's difficult to say which was the more significant event: when Detroit Tiger's star Hank Greenberg sat out a game on Yom Kippur during a heated 1934 pennant race, or when Edgar Guest penned a famous rhyme to commemorate the occurrence.
As Greenberg wrote in his autobiography, he was "probably the only batter in the lineup who was not in a slump" at the time. The Detroit Tigers had gone a quarter century since their last pennant, and fans grumbled when Hammerin' Hank declared he would not play on Rosh Hashanah. After consulting with his rabbi, who ruled that Rosh Hashanah was a "festive holiday" and playing would be permitted, Greenberg relented and suited up. He hit two home runs that day, including one in the ninth inning that won the game, but he stuck to his guns when it came to Yom Kippur.
"Suppose I stay out of the game and we lost the pennant by one game," quipped the slugger. It was not a small act on the part of a Jewish player in an era when Jews faced rampant anti-Semitism, and to say the pride of Jewish fans across the country swelled would be an understatement.
All of which is why the poem by Edgar Guest may be more significant than Greenberg's actual decision not to play. Edgar Albert Guest had come to the United States in 1891, at the age of 10, and by the age of 17 was publishing his poetry in the Detroit Free Press. He'd become known as "The People's Poet," penning some 11,000 poems before his death. So it was a great gesture for American Jews when Guest penned the following:
"Came Yom Kippur--holy fast day world wide over to the Jew / And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old tradition true / Spent the day among his people and he didn't come to play. / Said Murphy to Mulrooney, 'We shall lose the game today! / We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him at the bat / But he's true to his religion--and I honor him for that!'"
Stepping Onto the Social Ladder
The question of why American Jews have been so enamored of Jewish sports figures, particularly Jewish baseball players, can begin to be answered in that final verse. Guest was not entirely unlike the masses of American Jews who cheered Greenberg--and later Sandy Koufax, Art Shamsky, Shawn Green, and so many others. He was an immigrant, coming to the shores of America looking for a better life, but whereas Guest found himself part of the larger religious majority, a white man from England, Jewish Americans faced a more uncertain place in the religious and ethnic landscape.
It had not been long before Greenberg's emergence as a star player that the Ku Klux Klan had reorganized in the wake of the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, and he was hardly the only Jew who faced violent anti-Semitism in that era. A few years before Frank was dragged from his jail cell, an anti-Semitic police riot broke out in New York with uniformed officers shouting "Kill those Sheenies [Jews]! Club them right and left!"
In the 1920s, just a few miles from where Greenberg would bring fans, Jewish and gentile alike, to their feet in the 1930s, American icon Henry Ford published his deeply anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent. It was shut down in 1927 after a libel lawsuit, but Ford remained an influential figure in American life.
In the face of such attitudes, it's less than surprising that American Jews would flock to those figures who found acceptance in mainstream American circles. Before Greenberg stepped foot in the batter's box, American Jews were celebrating the ascendance of legal scholar Louis Brandeis, for example.
In a sense, whenever a Jew climbs to the heights of society, it shows that any Jew can be just as American as their next door neighbor. It's that much better when a Jew does it and stays true to their faith, better still when mainstream America applauds that devotion.
Pride and Heroics
Of course, while Jews are proud of successful figures in law, politics, medicine, and scholarship, they hold a different appreciation for Jewish entertainers and sports figures. Brandeis evoked pride. So did Joe Lieberman when he became the first Jewish American on a major presidential ticket in 2000. Yet neither man approached the lasting mystique and popularity attached to Jewish sports heroes.
Jewish major leaguers have received their own special baseball cards, courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society, and it's no one-time deal. They've been updated annually, and the sellout success of the 2003 edition prompted a weekend seminar on Jewish players at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
It's further telling that in the summer of 2007 Israel inaugurated its own baseball league with legends of the Jewish baseball world at the helm. The aforementioned Art Shamsky was named manager of the Modi'in Miracle, while Ken Holtzman--holder of the most career wins by a Jewish pitcher in the majors--managed the Pioneers of Petach Tikva.
Ron Blomberg, the Jewish Yankee who made history as the first designated hitter in the major leagues, led the Blue Sox of Bet Shemesh. In his autobiography, he told of his first arrival in New York to an entourage of yarmulke-donning Jews. He was nothing more than a rookie prospect, but he got fan mail by the sack: "Every Jewish mother in the world wanted to introduce me to her daughter, and each letter included a photograph," Blomberg wrote. "Jewish girls were writing to me, saying they wanted to come to the stadium to meet me."
Jews are proud of their ballplayers; sometimes treating them like modern variants of biblical icons, heroes in their community, legendary for their talents. Why?
It would be easy to attribute this to the nebbish stereotype attributed to Jewish men. When one of them picks up a bat and clocks a ball into the upper decks, it is kind of like the spirit of Woody Allen just got knocked out along with the ball. Yet there was a time when Jews were pegged with athletic stereotypes. From the mid-1920s to the end of the 1940s, Philadelphia's pro-basketball team was called the SPHAs, short for South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. Their team was made up primarily of Jewish players, but they weren’t the only such team. Jews filled the ranks of pro basketball all over the country. Pundits referred to the "chosen" players' natural dexterity and sense of rhythm as well as their more intrinsic athletic ability.
American writer Paul Gallico even went so far as to say basketball was a premiere sport for Jews because, "the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind." Such praise, if you want to call it that, was a far cry from Guest's ode to Greenberg, but it did reflect a time when Jews were seen in much the same way minority and immigrant athletes were in later decades. Sports became a venue for poor, disenfranchised segments of the American population, such as Jews, blacks, and immigrants, to achieve a degree of upward social mobility.
Adopting the "American Religion"
The athlete as refutation of the weakling stereotype may have something to do with Jewish sports fandom today, but it probably isn't at the core of why Jews flock to Jewish sports stars. For that answer, you should look at what sports represents in American culture. It has been called a democratizing force or "the American religion." There is no doubt that for immigrants eager to assimilate into their adopted society, finding a connection to the American pastime seemed as sure a ticket as any other.
An English professor in San Francisco, Eric Solomon, made a similar observation in 1998, when he told The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, "Their families came to this country from Eastern Europe and they had to get a substitute for what they left behind, the shul and the shtetl. So what they found in major-league baseball was a community, a way of becoming American and yet retaining their identity as Jews."
He went on to point out the voluminous number of Jewish authors who wrote about baseball: Bernard Malamud's The Natural or The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg, for example. It was Roger Kahn who wrote The Boys of Summer, arguably the greatest baseball book ever written.
Nevertheless, the connection between Jews and baseball has always been strongest at those moments when great players have put their Jewish identity ahead of their performance on the field. It's hard not to look at Sandy Koufax in 1965, when he pulled a "Greenberg" and sat out the first game of the World Series, and see an American Jew reminding his people of the freedom and acceptance they enjoy in this country. Two decades removed from the Holocaust with the Civil Rights movement in full bloom, ethnic and religious minorities faced prejudice that seemed to boil over just as it was being confronted more forcefully than at any time in American history. Yet there was Koufax, steadfastly refusing to play in one of the most important games of his career.
It should be remembered that Koufax came back and pitched a complete game shutout in Game 5. Two days later, on short rest, the Jewish legend retook the mound for the decisive seventh game. In arthritic pain, he beat the Twins. Then he collected his World Series MVP award and was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
There is, of course, no single moment when the collective mass of Jewish citizens in this country became accepted as Americans. The waves of anti-Semitism have been reduced to ebbs and flows, and the affluence enjoyed by American Jewry dwarfs that of any time in the 3,000 year history of our people. There is not one day that marked that turning point, but many would look back at October 6, 1965 and see who wasn't standing on the mound.
Jewish sports fans certainly recall that day, and when they cheer for today's Jewish stars-- Kevin Youkilis, Shawn Green, Brad Ausmus, and others--they do so as accepted Americans. Jewish baseball played its part in that.
Basketball and the Jews
A street game goes professional.
By Ari Sclar
On March 3, 1934, a group of young Jewish men helped change basketball history. On that night, fans in New York City watched with anticipation for the winner of a game between New York University (NYU) and City College of New York (CCNY).
The New York Times stated that the 20th annual meeting between the two schools had "never before … aroused such widespread interest," as both teams entered the contest undefeated. The demand for tickets was such that promoters began a series of doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden the following season and turned New York City into the center of the basketball world.
The next year Newsweek ran a story on basketball's rise to prominence and declared the sport was one "at which Jews excel."
basketballs and the jewsBoth the NYU-CCNY game, in which nine of the 10 starters were Jewish, and the Newsweek article occurred during the peak of Jewish prominence in basketball. Yet, the story of Jewish basketball is more than either a single game or article. Centered in New York, Jews were crucial to the development of college and professional basketball during the first half of the 20th century.
A New Sport Gains Popularity
Invented by Dr. James Naismith at a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in 1891, basketball quickly became a popular sport that expanded into the broader society. As industrialization, immigration, and urbanization drastically transformed America at the turn of the 20th century, many Americans saw basketball as an ideal sport since it taught teamwork, cooperation, discipline, and obedience.
During the Progressive era, the popularization of basketball among Jewish youth in urban areas primarily occurred both in settlement houses and at communal institutions. Jewish youth on New York's Lower East Side played basketball on playgrounds and at schoolyards. The formation of the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) in the early 1900s allowed players to gain experience in organized, competitive settings.
By the middle of the decade, CCNY established a basketball team full of local Jewish men. Players such as Barney Sedran, Ira Streusand, and Harry Brill honed their skills at City College and upon graduating, began to play in the various professional leagues in eastern cities.
At the time, the definitions of "amateur" and "professional" constantly changed. Even college basketball, which had roughly 200 teams by 1910, remained relatively disorganized and was certainly not a national sport in the same sense as college football. These chaotic conditions allowed Jewish players to find a niche in the game, as neither college nor professional teams seemed interested in restricting Jews from participating.
Much of American society viewed professional basketball as a dirty and rough sport. Professionals played in cages made of rope or chicken wire in order to protect the players from unruly fans and to keep the ball in continuous play. There were no standards for the size of the court or the size of the ball, and contracts were nonexistent. Players jumped from team to team for better pay, sometimes even between games.
Jewish players led teams that won championships in numerous East Coast leagues. Yet the players themselves were relatively anonymous. But after World War I, basketball became more stable, starring a new generation of Jewish players.
Moving to the National Scene
In the early 1920s, Jewish basketball spread throughout the country. As neighborhoods stabilized due to immigration restriction, American-born children began to assimilate and embraced America's sporting culture. Jewish players often played at YMHAs, synagogues, and community centers before and after their college or professional careers. But Jews were not always welcome in athletics outside of their own leagues.
The decade also saw anti-Jewish attacks intensify. When Harvard University 's president openly declared the need for quotas because Jewish students did not "fit in," he was in part referring to the university's athletic culture. In the midst of the controversy, as other schools such as Columbia, Yale, and Syracuse considered quotas, Yale University alumni demanded their coaches end discriminatory practices against Jewish basketball players in order to field a winning team. The American Hebrew newspaper wrote that Yale's recognition of Jewish players proved that sports could help Jews receive acceptance on campus and facilitate integration.
Jewish prominence in basketball also helped the game itself spread. Nat Holman, who coached at CCNY, also played professionally for the Original Celtics, a former settlement house team that had Jewish, German, and Irish players. Holman and the Celtics have been credited for popularizing basketball throughout the country in the 1920s. During their long barnstorming trips to play teams in the South and the Midwest, the Celtics wowed local audiences with their strategies, skills, and showmanship. They played more than 100 games per year and often lost fewer than ten.
The popularity of the Celtics convinced promoters of basketball's commercial appeal and led to the development of a national league called the American Basketball League (ABL) in 1925. Holman and other Jews played in the league until it folded due to financial problems caused by the Depression.
In the 1930s, Jewish entrepreneurs established independent teams such as the New York Hakoahs (From the Hebrew word for strength) and the Philadelphia Sphas (an acronym for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association). Jewish players were prominent in a new ABL that formed in the early 1930s, but the professional game remained limited as a semi-professional and regional sport. Teams played in urban neighborhoods in the Northeast and players often both lived and worked close to their fans.
The Rise and Fall of Jewish Basketball
While professional basketball remained a marginal sport during the Depression, college basketball became one of the most popular sports in the country. At Madison Square Garden, Jewish players filled the rosters of New York schools such as NYU, CCNY, Long Island University, and St. John's University that hosted teams from around the country.
The mainstream press began to focus on a specific playing style of New York schools based on constant motion, quick passing, and deliberate cuts to the basket. Both Jewish and non-Jewish commentators connected this style to the mental acuity and lack of size of Jews. This style challenged Western teams who played with the more open, fast-breaking style. The doubleheaders became testing grounds for regional supremacy.
From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, the Garden also hosted the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) and the NCAA Tournament. Teams with prominent Jewish players won five of the first seven NITs. In 1950, Holman's CCNY team, with primarily Jewish players, won both tournaments. Called the "Grand Slam," the accomplishment was never repeated.
Along with schools such as Kentucky and NYU, however, the CCNY team was embroiled in a point shaving scandal in the early 1950s. Players accepted money from gamblers to either lose games on purpose or win by less than the point spread. The scandal almost destroyed college basketball and led to the demise of New York college basketball, which diminished a centralized Jewish playing presence in the sport.
The scandal was not the only reason for Jewish basketball's downfall. A formal league called the Basketball Association of America (BAA) had been established in 1946, and was renamed the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1950. Jewish players at the time typically had other jobs during the season and were accustomed to playing semi-professionally. Few remained in the league, as basketball could not support their families.
Socio-economic success also contributed to the decline of Jews in basketball. Moving to the suburbs created more opportunities to succeed in mainstream society. Sports became less important and though Jews continued to play basketball, they did so in a different environment than the urban street culture of the heyday of Jewish basketball.
There were still a few Jewish players who made it to the top of the game such as Lennie Rosenbluth and Art Heyman in the 1950s and 1960s. But since the early 1970s, Jews have been primarily coaches, general managers, and owners in college and professional basketball. Among the most prominent are Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, NBA commissioner David Stern, Dallas Mavericks owners Mark Cuban, and Washington Wizards general manager and former player Ernie Grunfeld.
The rise of Jewish basketball reflected American Jews' larger story during the first half of the 20th century. From immigrant neighborhoods, Jews sought out opportunities to join the mainstream. Success in basketball is just one story of achievement during a time of adjustment, stress, and occasional anti-Semitism. At the same time, Jews made a lasting contribution to the game. While few Jews played at the highest levels, the sport owes its development to its roots with the Jewish neighborhoods teams.
Ari Sclar is a PhD candidate in history at Stony Brook University and an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College. His doctoral dissertation examines basketball's impact on American Jewish culture and identity in the first half of the 20th Century. He previously directed content for the Jews in Sports web site, first at NYU and then the American Jewish Historical Society.
By Ari Sclar
On March 3, 1934, a group of young Jewish men helped change basketball history. On that night, fans in New York City watched with anticipation for the winner of a game between New York University (NYU) and City College of New York (CCNY).
The New York Times stated that the 20th annual meeting between the two schools had "never before … aroused such widespread interest," as both teams entered the contest undefeated. The demand for tickets was such that promoters began a series of doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden the following season and turned New York City into the center of the basketball world.
The next year Newsweek ran a story on basketball's rise to prominence and declared the sport was one "at which Jews excel."
basketballs and the jewsBoth the NYU-CCNY game, in which nine of the 10 starters were Jewish, and the Newsweek article occurred during the peak of Jewish prominence in basketball. Yet, the story of Jewish basketball is more than either a single game or article. Centered in New York, Jews were crucial to the development of college and professional basketball during the first half of the 20th century.
A New Sport Gains Popularity
Invented by Dr. James Naismith at a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in 1891, basketball quickly became a popular sport that expanded into the broader society. As industrialization, immigration, and urbanization drastically transformed America at the turn of the 20th century, many Americans saw basketball as an ideal sport since it taught teamwork, cooperation, discipline, and obedience.
During the Progressive era, the popularization of basketball among Jewish youth in urban areas primarily occurred both in settlement houses and at communal institutions. Jewish youth on New York's Lower East Side played basketball on playgrounds and at schoolyards. The formation of the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) in the early 1900s allowed players to gain experience in organized, competitive settings.
By the middle of the decade, CCNY established a basketball team full of local Jewish men. Players such as Barney Sedran, Ira Streusand, and Harry Brill honed their skills at City College and upon graduating, began to play in the various professional leagues in eastern cities.
At the time, the definitions of "amateur" and "professional" constantly changed. Even college basketball, which had roughly 200 teams by 1910, remained relatively disorganized and was certainly not a national sport in the same sense as college football. These chaotic conditions allowed Jewish players to find a niche in the game, as neither college nor professional teams seemed interested in restricting Jews from participating.
Much of American society viewed professional basketball as a dirty and rough sport. Professionals played in cages made of rope or chicken wire in order to protect the players from unruly fans and to keep the ball in continuous play. There were no standards for the size of the court or the size of the ball, and contracts were nonexistent. Players jumped from team to team for better pay, sometimes even between games.
Jewish players led teams that won championships in numerous East Coast leagues. Yet the players themselves were relatively anonymous. But after World War I, basketball became more stable, starring a new generation of Jewish players.
Moving to the National Scene
In the early 1920s, Jewish basketball spread throughout the country. As neighborhoods stabilized due to immigration restriction, American-born children began to assimilate and embraced America's sporting culture. Jewish players often played at YMHAs, synagogues, and community centers before and after their college or professional careers. But Jews were not always welcome in athletics outside of their own leagues.
The decade also saw anti-Jewish attacks intensify. When Harvard University 's president openly declared the need for quotas because Jewish students did not "fit in," he was in part referring to the university's athletic culture. In the midst of the controversy, as other schools such as Columbia, Yale, and Syracuse considered quotas, Yale University alumni demanded their coaches end discriminatory practices against Jewish basketball players in order to field a winning team. The American Hebrew newspaper wrote that Yale's recognition of Jewish players proved that sports could help Jews receive acceptance on campus and facilitate integration.
Jewish prominence in basketball also helped the game itself spread. Nat Holman, who coached at CCNY, also played professionally for the Original Celtics, a former settlement house team that had Jewish, German, and Irish players. Holman and the Celtics have been credited for popularizing basketball throughout the country in the 1920s. During their long barnstorming trips to play teams in the South and the Midwest, the Celtics wowed local audiences with their strategies, skills, and showmanship. They played more than 100 games per year and often lost fewer than ten.
The popularity of the Celtics convinced promoters of basketball's commercial appeal and led to the development of a national league called the American Basketball League (ABL) in 1925. Holman and other Jews played in the league until it folded due to financial problems caused by the Depression.
In the 1930s, Jewish entrepreneurs established independent teams such as the New York Hakoahs (From the Hebrew word for strength) and the Philadelphia Sphas (an acronym for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association). Jewish players were prominent in a new ABL that formed in the early 1930s, but the professional game remained limited as a semi-professional and regional sport. Teams played in urban neighborhoods in the Northeast and players often both lived and worked close to their fans.
The Rise and Fall of Jewish Basketball
While professional basketball remained a marginal sport during the Depression, college basketball became one of the most popular sports in the country. At Madison Square Garden, Jewish players filled the rosters of New York schools such as NYU, CCNY, Long Island University, and St. John's University that hosted teams from around the country.
The mainstream press began to focus on a specific playing style of New York schools based on constant motion, quick passing, and deliberate cuts to the basket. Both Jewish and non-Jewish commentators connected this style to the mental acuity and lack of size of Jews. This style challenged Western teams who played with the more open, fast-breaking style. The doubleheaders became testing grounds for regional supremacy.
From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, the Garden also hosted the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) and the NCAA Tournament. Teams with prominent Jewish players won five of the first seven NITs. In 1950, Holman's CCNY team, with primarily Jewish players, won both tournaments. Called the "Grand Slam," the accomplishment was never repeated.
Along with schools such as Kentucky and NYU, however, the CCNY team was embroiled in a point shaving scandal in the early 1950s. Players accepted money from gamblers to either lose games on purpose or win by less than the point spread. The scandal almost destroyed college basketball and led to the demise of New York college basketball, which diminished a centralized Jewish playing presence in the sport.
The scandal was not the only reason for Jewish basketball's downfall. A formal league called the Basketball Association of America (BAA) had been established in 1946, and was renamed the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1950. Jewish players at the time typically had other jobs during the season and were accustomed to playing semi-professionally. Few remained in the league, as basketball could not support their families.
Socio-economic success also contributed to the decline of Jews in basketball. Moving to the suburbs created more opportunities to succeed in mainstream society. Sports became less important and though Jews continued to play basketball, they did so in a different environment than the urban street culture of the heyday of Jewish basketball.
There were still a few Jewish players who made it to the top of the game such as Lennie Rosenbluth and Art Heyman in the 1950s and 1960s. But since the early 1970s, Jews have been primarily coaches, general managers, and owners in college and professional basketball. Among the most prominent are Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, NBA commissioner David Stern, Dallas Mavericks owners Mark Cuban, and Washington Wizards general manager and former player Ernie Grunfeld.
The rise of Jewish basketball reflected American Jews' larger story during the first half of the 20th century. From immigrant neighborhoods, Jews sought out opportunities to join the mainstream. Success in basketball is just one story of achievement during a time of adjustment, stress, and occasional anti-Semitism. At the same time, Jews made a lasting contribution to the game. While few Jews played at the highest levels, the sport owes its development to its roots with the Jewish neighborhoods teams.
Ari Sclar is a PhD candidate in history at Stony Brook University and an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College. His doctoral dissertation examines basketball's impact on American Jewish culture and identity in the first half of the 20th Century. He previously directed content for the Jews in Sports web site, first at NYU and then the American Jewish Historical Society.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
9/11 "Living Memorial" in the Jerusalem Forest Hills Dedicated
U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham and Defense and Air Attache Colonel Richard Burgess took part in the dedication ceremony for a JNF-sponsored September 11 monument and Living Memorial at the entrance to Jerusalem (in the surrounding forest) on Thursday, November 12, 2009. The event drew a crowd of 150-200 participants, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)