Category: The Chutzpah List

Will Eisner (1917-2005). A legend in the industry and arguably the godfather of the modern comic book, Eisner created many familiar comic book characters including Blackhawk and Sheena, but his greatest contribution may have been the masked crime fighter, The Spirit. Eisner is regarded as the originator of the graphic novel; his seminal A Contract [...]

BASKETBALL: THE JEWISH GAME…  A TO Z

Do You Remember The Guys Who Gave Us Pick-And-Roll?
By Len Canter

The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.
A is for Amar’e Stoudemire. The 6’10”, five time all-star and owner of a 21.4 career average in the NBA was acquired by the NY Knicks to revive their flagging franchise. Somewhere on the trip east, he discovered his Jewish roots (“on my mother’s side”). Stoudemire recently made a pilgrimage to Israel to study Hebrew and tweeted to his legions “ze ha’halom sheli” (this is my dream). Replete with his Knicks logo yarmulke and a focus on “living the Scripture,” Stoudemire has said he will try his best to observe the Sabbath (no mean feat with a handful of Friday night games on the schedule). It remains to be seen if Amar’e will in fact lead the Knicks to the promised land, but if he keeps the faith, he’ll be a lock for all-time greatest black Jewish forward.
B is for Larry Brown. The legendary and peripatetic Hall of Famer is the only coach to win an NCAA championship (Kansas ’88) and an NBA championship (Detroit ’04). Brown, a Long Beach, NY native became a three-time ABA all-star and holder of the league’s one game assist record with 23. Brown earned recognition as one of the great coaches in history (along with an unparalleled amount of frequent flyer miles) by totaling nearly 1300 wins, and still counting. The restless Brown has had coaching stints with the Nuggets, Knicks, Nets, Spurs, Clippers, Pacers, and 76ers in the NBA and with UCLA and Kansas in college. The sage Brown continues at age 70 as coach of the Charlotte Bobcats…Could this be the last stop?
C is for CCNY (City College of New York), the only team to win the “grand slam” of college basketball in 1950 by winning both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same season. In that ’50 season, the “poor man’s Harvard” CCNY Beavers were 17-5, unranked and a last minute addition to the NIT draw. Legendary coach Nat Holman’s starting five comprised an unheard of combination of three Jews—Irwin Dambrot, Al “Fats” Roth and Norm Mager—and two black players, Ed Warner and Floyd Layne (CCNY was the 1st college champion ever to have black players in the starting lineup). The NIT semifinal was played at Madison Square Garden in front of 18,000 hometown fans who chanted CCNY’s curious fight song, “Allagaroo garoo gara.” Playing their brand of NYC Jew Ball, they dumped all-white defending NCAA champ Kentucky and their blatantly anti-Semitic and racist coach Adolph Rupp in a quarterfinal rout, 89-50. Dambrot then scored 23 points and led CCNY to a defeat of top-ranked Bradley for the title. The next week, again at Madison Square Garden, they again defeated Bradley in the NCAA final to complete the grand slam.
D is for Dolph and Danny Schayes. Hall of Famer Dolph, a 6’8” forward, was arguably the greatest Jewish player of all-time and was among the 10 players named to the NBA’s Silver Anniversary team. His two-handed set shot led NYU to a 22-4 record in 1948; a year later he was rookie of the year with the NBA’s Syracuse Nationals who later moved to Philadelphia and became the Warriors and ultimately the 76ers. When the 12-time NBA all-star retired after 16 seasons, Schayes held a number of NBA records, including games played, total points and free throws made, and he finished with an 18.5 career average. Schayes stayed on to coach the 76ers for two seasons and earned NBA Coach of the Year honors for the ’65-’66 season.
Dolph’s son Danny was an even “bigger” star at 6’11” (and made a helluva lot more gelt in the NBA). Following an All-American career at Syracuse, Danny played 18 seasons with 7 NBA teams and was regarded among the game’s most versatile big men. His best numbers came with the Denver Nuggets in ’87, when he averaged 13.9 points and 8.2 rebounds— more than respectable.
E is for Ernie Grunfeld. Born in Romania to Holocaust survivors, Ernie didn’t even discover the game until his family moved to the United States when he was 9. But he took to basketball quickly and became the only high school starter (and leading scorer) on the 1973 US team that lost to Israel in the Maccabiah Games. Grunfeld went on star at the University of Tennessee as part of the “Ernie and Bernie Show” along with future Knicks star Bernard King. He finished his career as the school’s all-time leading scorer and had his #22 retired. Grunfeld was a key member of the Gold Medal winning 1976 US Olympic team, the same year he became a US citizen. He had a solid nine year NBA career with the Bucks, Kings and Knicks, and went on to become a broadcaster and then one of the top executives in the NBA. A former GM with the Knicks and the Bucks, he is currently in his eighth season as president of the Washington Wizards.
F is for Max “Marty” Friedman. Born in NYC in 1889, Friedman developed his game on the streets of the Lower East Side and is regarded as the first of the great Jewish players. Friedman, a defensive specialist, often teamed with another early Jewish star and scoring machine, Barney “The Mighty Mite” Sedran, who at 5’4” is the shortest player in the Hall of Fame. Together they made up the legendary duo known as the “Heavenly Twins.” They played for the dominant New York Whirlwinds in the early 1900s where they exemplified Jew Ball. In a seminal “world championship” series in 1921, the Whirlwinds played the Original Celtics (no relation to the later Boston Celtics) in New York before 10,000 plus frenzied fans (probably the largest crown ever to attend a basketball game at the time), proving that pro ball could in fact bring in large crowds and make money for promoters. Hall of Famer Friedman concluded his career as a player/coach for the Cleveland Rosenblums.
G is for Eddie Gottlieb. Known simply as “The Mogul,” Gottlieb, born in Kiev, Russia, spent most of his life immersed in Philadelphia sports, most notably basketball. Beginning in 1918 Gottlieb organized, played for, managed, coached and eventually owned what became one of the greatest and iconic barnstorming basketball teams, the one known by the acronym SPHAs (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association). The SPAHs eventually morphed into the Philadelphia Warriors who joined the BAA (Basketball Association of America and precursor of today’s NBA), a league that Gottlieb was instrumental in organizing. Gottlieb then coached the Warriors to the first championship of the BAA. In the NBA, he led the rules committee and was instrumental in the adoption of the 24-second clock. He even hoodwinked fellow owners, convincing them to adopt a territorial draft rule that, to their chagrin, allowed the Warriors to obtain hometown Overbrook star Wilt Chamberlain. And for 30 years, The Mogul was the NBA’s sole schedule maker. In his honor, the NBA awards the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy to the rookie of the year.
H is for Nat Holman. The Hall of Fame player and coach known reverently as “Mr. Basketball,” Holman was born only five years after Naismith invented the game. He was considered “the” playmaker of the 1920s, when he starred for the Original Celtics as they compiled an astounding record of 531-28. Holman was considered so valuable that he became the highest paid player of the era at a then-whopping $1500 a month. While playing with the Celtics, Holman also took over the coaching duties at CCNY at age 23 and led the Beavers to a record of 421-190 over the next 37 seasons, a remarkable achievement in its own right. During his tenure, his tactical innovations had a revolutionary and lasting effect on the game. He is credited, for instance, with devising the “center pivot” play, which evolved into the classic, and still used, give-and-go, as well as the pick-and-roll. Holman was coach when CCNY won college basketball’s grand slam in 1950 and is still revered in Israeli basketball circles as the organizer of the 1st Maccabiah Games.
I is for Israeli Basketball. And it’s clear that the Jewish nation loves the game, which has nearly eclipsed soccer in popularity. Ligat HaAl, Israel’s 1st division premier league, has been dominated from its inception by Maccabi Tel Aviv, the country’s perennial champions—Israel virtually shuts down when Maccabi has a big game on TV. The team has won an amazing 48 national titles, often at the expense of their crosstown rivals, Hapoel Tel Aviv. In fact, today Maccabi remains among Europe’s most successful clubs, with five Euro Cups. Since the globalization of the NBA, there had been a near national obsession with getting an Israeli player into the league. Israeli stars, including Yotam Halperin and Lior Eliyahu, while drafted by NBA teams, did not make an impact. Mickey Berkowitz, who with Tal Brody, led Maccabi to its 1st Euro championship in 1977 (and was voted Israel’s greatest sportsman in its first 50 years) was set to join the Atlanta Hawks, but Maccabi declined to release him from his contract. Actually it was Limor Mizrachi who became the first Israeli to play pro basketball in the US when she took the court for the New England Blizzard in 1998 in the woman’s ABL. At last it was Omri Casspi, the 2009 1st round pick of the Sacramento Kings, who fulfilled the dream. Casspi did not disappoint his fans, compiling 10.3 PPG in his rookie year. An almost equally seminal moment for Israel occurred in 2005, when Maccabi defeated the NBA’s Toronto Raptors 105-103 in an exhibition—the first ever victory for a European five over an NBA team on their home court.
J is for St. John’s University and for the Brooklyn Jewels. During the golden age of Jewish basketball in NYC, even the venerable Roman Catholic institution once started four Jews. They were part of a group known as the “Wonder Five,” a dominant team that compiled a phenomenal 70-4 record during the 1928 through 1931 seasons. Max Posnack, regarded as one of the premier defensive players of the time, led the group, which included Mac Kinsbrunner, Jack Gerson, Allie Shuckman (the sharpshooter of the bunch) along with Matty Begovich. Ball-handling was their forte: The group virtually played “keep away” until they worked the ball in for a close shot. Under the rules of the day, with no shot clock, this deliberately paced passing and dribbling could sometimes use up five minutes or more until they get the shot they wanted! Upon graduation, the Wonder Five turned pro together and formed a formidable team called the Brooklyn Jewels that played in the ABL for a number of years with great success.
K is for the New York Knicks. How do you get instant recognition in 1946 when you organize the flagship franchise in a new pro league in a city with the largest Jewish population and where college basketball is king? You cater to your fan base by stocking up with popular stars from the area’s schools, players that the fans already know and love. When the Knicks took the opening tip in the first ever NBA game vs. the Toronto Huskies, they had four Jews on the floor and six on the roster, including former CCNY star Sonny Hertzberg as captain. Nat Militzok received the 1st assist in NBA history as Ossie Schectman scored the first basket in the NBA on the first shot of the game. Leo “Ace” Gottlieb led the Knicks in scoring that day with 14 in the Knicks victory while Ralph Kaplowitz and Hank Rosenstein played in reserve roles. But by late that season, team owner Ned Irish had already begun to think twice about his experiment and started breaking up the group with trades. Within a year all were gone, and the Knicks didn’t have another Jewish face until Red Holzman coached them to a championship in 1970.
L is for Lennie Rosenbluth. For a guy who couldn’t make his high school team until junior year, Rosenbluth, a New York native, sure made an impact. He became a legend in Dixie when, in 1957, he led the University of North Carolina to a 32-0 record and its first NCAA championship. The 6’5” forward had a near unstoppable hook shot and Tar Heel alumni recall his Michael Jordan-like domination…nearly three decades before there was a Jordan. Rosenbluth was among the last of the great Jewish college stars when he played for Carolina coach Frank McGuire’s starting five known as “Four Catholics and a Jew.” In that ’57 championship run, he led North Carolina in one of the greatest games in college basketball history over Wilt Chamberlain’s favored Kansas Jayhawk team, matching Wilt shot for shot. It took a triple overtime for North Carolina to win the game, 54-53. Rosenbluth’s retired #10 hangs in the rafters along with Jordan, Worthy and other Carolina greats and he still holds numerous school records including a 28.0 single season scoring average. Rosenbluth, however, never made much of a splash in the pros, playing an unremarkable two years for the Philadelphia Warriors.
M is for Mendy Rudolph. Like a rabbi, an NBA official must exhibit fairness, an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and excellent judgment, and Rudolph, along with fellow Jews Earl Strom and Norm Drucker represent the best of Hall of Fame referees. All three were colorful court personalities, adding flavor to every game they officiated. Over the course of his 25-year career of 2,000 plus games, Rudolph was respectfully known to his peers as the “official’s official.” The Philadelphia native who became the chief of NBA referees, later capitalized on his fame by becoming Brent Musburger’s broadcast partner in the ’70s and even appeared in a classic Miller Light commercial. Earl Strom, a Pottstown, PA native, was noted for his flamboyant style, earning the nickname “Pied Piper” for his dramatic flair in calling fouls in his record 2,400 plus games. Feisty and combative, 76ers fans may remember Strom officiating the ’65 East Finals (when the Celts’ Havlicek “stole the ball” from Hal Greer) with a cast on his hand, courtesy of a punch he landed on a fan during a dispute in the previous game! Drucker, who worked the NBA and ABA, learned the game as a player for Nat Holman at CCNY and his 24- year long career culminated in his appointment as Supervisor of Officials in the NBA. Drucker holds the distinction of being the only official to eject Wilt Chamberlain who otherwise in his career never fouled out in a game.
N is for Nancy Lieberman whose impact on women’s athletics and basketball in particular seems immeasurable. Lieberman’s chutzpah allowed her to develop her aggressive “schoolyard” game on the gritty courts in Harlem. In 1976, at age 18, she became the youngest basketball player ever (and of either gender) to win an Olympic medal. At Old Dominion University she led the Lady Monarchs to a 72-2 record and two AIAW National Championships. As a collegian, the 5’10” Lieberman was a three-time All-American and a two-time Wade Trophy winner as Player of the Year while becoming arguably the nation’s top female athlete. Fans who compared her court presence favorably with Magic Johnson nicknamed her “Lady Magic.” Lieberman made history when she became the first woman to play men’s pro ball, for Springfield in the USBL in 1982. At age 38 she made a comeback and played for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA…and amazingly topped that with another stint with the Detroit Shock at age 50! In 1996 Lieberman became the first woman ever voted into the Hall of Fame and joined the inaugural class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
O is for NBA Owners. The cliché that it’s more likely for a Jewish kid to own a team than play on one has a ring of truth these days as NBA rosters reflect a drought of Jewish players. But when it comes to team owners, there’s a virtual minyan. Roll call, please:
Leslie Alexander: Houston Rockets
Micky Arison: Miami Heat
Steve Belkin: Atlanta Hawks
Mark Cuban: Dallas Mavericks
Dan Gilbert: Cleveland Cavaliers
Mike Ilitch*: Detroit Pistons
Herb Kohl: Milwaukee Bucks
Jerry Reinsdorf: Chicago Bulls
Ed Snider: Philadelphia 76ers
Donald Sterling: Los Angeles Clippers
*As we went to press Karen Davidson’s sale of the Pistons was nearing completion.
And let’s not forget the big macher David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA who gathers in all that TV gelt and disciplines players with a “stern” hand.
P is for Paul “Twister” Steinberg. A standout football player with the Canton Bulldogs, Steinberg gets credit as being the first Jewish professional basketball player, who later in his career coached the game at Cornell.
Q is for Quakers. The University of Pennsylvania has a long tradition of Jewish basketball, and one of the school’s most successful runs was led by two Jewish hoopsters. Between 1970 and 1972, the Quakers had three consecutive Ivy League titles. Steve Bilsky (the current AD) and Al Cotler, along with Dave Wohl and Corky Calhoun, propelled the team to a 25-2 record in ’70; in ’71 the Penn five were the darlings of the east, compiling a sterling 26-0 record and a #3 national ranking. While Penn basketball has lost a little luster over the years, the Jewish duo tradition continues at the school with a current pair of Zacks…Rosen and Gordon.
R is for the “Reds.” Red Auerbach displayed his chutzpah by lighting his trademark victory cigar long before a game was over, for drafting the first black player in the NBA and for being the first coach to start five black players. Auerbach was a coaching legend with the Boston Celtics (lifetime 1037-548), and his 16 NBA titles in 29 years as coach, GM and team president are unrivaled in any sport. Auerbach forever changed the face of the NBA with the Celtic fast break, the utilization of the “6th man” and his emphasis on teamwork (Red’s championship teams rarely had a player in the top ten in league scoring). Competitive and acerbic, Auerbach never shied away from altercations with players, fans and officials and was ejected more times than any coach in history.
Red Holzman reintroduced Jew Ball to New York as coach of the Knicks in the ’70s with his emphasis on unselfish team play and tough switching defense, tactics he learned as a 5’ 10” All-American at CCNY under Nat Holman. Holzman is one of a select few to win an NBA title as a player (with the ’51 Rochester Royals) and as coach. He is revered in New York as the architect of the two Knick championship teams (’70 and ’73) with a core of players that made the playoffs eight straight years. Holzman enjoyed his bland public persona as a coach and, unlike Auerbach, always seemed to keep his composure. (He was alleged to have 9 suits…all the same color.) When he retired in ’82, Holzman’s 696 victories were second only to Auerbach’s record.
Unlike the other coaching Reds, Philly native Red Klotz is celebrated mostly for losing. Originally a guard with the SPHAs, Klotz bought that team in 1952 and changed its name to the Washington Generals, the team that became the permanent foil for the Harlem Globetrotters. The Generals kept to the script and lost over 13,000 exhibition games, winning only seven. Klotz, both owner and coach, played guard with the Generals until he was 62 and, in 1971, the last time the Globetrotters “lost,” Klotz hit the winning shot at the buzzer!
S is for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. The SPHAs, the dominant all-Jewish basketball team founded by Eddie Gottlieb in 1918 became a true Philadelphia phenomenon. Named after their sponsor, the team flaunted their Jewish roots like no other, including jerseys that displayed a large star of David and samach, pey, hey and aleph stenciled on the front. And just in case that message wasn’t clear enough, the word Hebrews covered the back. The SPHAs barnstormed nationally and played in a number of leagues. In their heyday, they appeared in 18 championship games in 22 years, winning 13. For a long time the team had no real home court, thus their nickname “the Wandering Jews.” They became so popular in fact they could often outdraw the Philadelphia Athletics. Their home games became social events for the Jewish community they represented and were so well attended that promoters began to offer doubleheaders at the old YMHA at Broad and Pine. Within a few years the SPHAs were playing on a court placed in the ballroom of the Broadwood Hotel. The rosters contained a who’s who of seminal basketball stars including Inky Lautman, Harry Litwack (later the long time Temple coach), Dave Dabrow, Harry “Chicky” Passon (a co-founder of the team and a Philadelphia sporting goods store) and Cy Kaselman—all major celebrities in the City of Brotherly Love.
T is for Tal Brody, the Trenton native who became an Israeli national hero and icon. As an All-American at Illinois in 1965 Brody led the US five to Maccabiah Games gold. Drafted by the NBA, he chose instead to join Maccabi Tel Aviv and led them to Maccabiah gold in ’69 and then made aliyah, becoming an Israeli citizen. Behind Brody’s steady play, Maccabi won 10 championships, but his heroics in one game in 1977 made him a legend: Maccabi finally won the long coveted European Cup championship only after defeating ZSKA Moscow in the semi-final, arguably the greatest triumph in Israeli sports history. The Russians, in the midst of an economic boycott of Israel, had refused to play the scheduled game in Tel Aviv and would not allow Maccabi to enter Russia. Belgium was the agreed neutral site where the Brody-led Maccabi slammed the Russians 91-79. A 78-77 win over Italy gave them their first title. Afterwards, Brody made his immortal remark, “We are on the map,” now part of Israeli lore. In ’79, Brody was awarded the Israel Prize, the first athlete to win the country’s top civilian award. Most recently Tal was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this role, Brody assists with Israel’s international public diplomacy efforts.
U is for University, Yeshiva University, the only all-Jewish NCAA basketball program still in existence. Venerable St. John’s coach Lou Carnesecca once called YU “the birthplace of modern basketball.” In the heyday of the program in the 1950s, the team posted records in consecutive seasons of 16-2, 12-7 and 14-4. In a throwback to the tradition of Jewish basketball in New York, the school annually hosts 20 teams from across the nation and Canada for the Red Sarachek High School Tournament (named after their legendary coach who professed to have “never cut a kid”). What other tournament on its schedule page includes local minyan times, a Shabbat schedule and a list of local Kosher restaurants?! Kohelet Yeshiva High School of Philadelphia will participate in the March 2011 event.
V is for Vicious, the only word to describe the treatment Jewish teams like the SPHAs received when they played outside their communities, where fans assaulted them both physically and with slur filled chants. Most teams of that era were built along ethnic lines, and Jewish fives were not always welcome in rival gyms. Fans had no qualms about hanging signs with messages like “Kill the Christ killers!” According to Eddie Gottlieb of the SPHAs, “Half the fans would come to see some Jews get killed, the other half came to see our boys win.” Back in the day of the cager, basketball was a very physical, almost brutal sport. Defensive players blocked and shoved ball-handlers into the net cages that surrounded the courts. Fans threw any object that could fit through the holes onto the court, and some managed to reach through the holes and trip or jab the players with a hat pin. There are numerous anecdotal stories about Jewish players on the road being burned with cigars and even heated nails in arenas where spectators could actually shake the basket pole when Jewish players attempted a shot—all this often in front of referees who turned a blind eye.
W is for Neal Walk. But first a little trivia question. In the ’69 NBA draft the Phoenix Suns lost a coin flip with the Milwaukee Bucks for the number one pick. The Suns took center Walk, the first ever All-American from Florida who left Gainsville as the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder. Who did the Bucks take? If you guessed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, give yourself a chocolate matzo. While Walk did not have the Hall of Fame career that Kareem did, he did have a serviceable nine-year NBA career and remains the only Sun to have 1,000 rebounds in one season. Walk’s finest year was 1972 when he averaged 20 points and 12 boards a game for the Suns. He finished his career playing in Israel with Hapoel Ramat Gan.
X is for the letter that usually kills articles like this when authors can’t find a reasonable stand in. Exhaustive research revealed no Jewish player name or team…What’d you xpect?
Y is for Sid Yates, a great scorer and all-around player at the University of Chicago in the ’30s who forsook the pros to serve 48 years in the US House of Representatives and was a major advocate of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.
Z is for Max Zaslofsky. The St. John’s grad and NBA Hall of Famer known as “the touch” was one of the league’s first great stars. In 1946 playing with the Chicago Stags, Zaslofsky was voted 1st Team All-NBA at age 21, the youngest player to garner that honor until LeBron James eclipsed him. In ’49, he led the NBA in scoring with 21 PPG and ended his fine career as the 3rd leading all-time scorer at that time. Local fans may remember him as the coach of the New Jersey Americans/Nets in the fledgling ABA. ©

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BASKETBALL: THE JEWISH GAME…  A TO Z

Do You Remember The Guys Who Gave Us Pick-And-Roll?
By Len Canter

The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.
A is for Amar’e Stoudemire. The 6’10”, five time all-star and owner of a 21.4 career average in the NBA was acquired by the NY Knicks to revive their flagging franchise. Somewhere on the trip east, he discovered his Jewish roots (“on my mother’s side”). Stoudemire recently made a pilgrimage to Israel to study Hebrew and tweeted to his legions “ze ha’halom sheli” (this is my dream). Replete with his Knicks logo yarmulke and a focus on “living the Scripture,” Stoudemire has said he will try his best to observe the Sabbath (no mean feat with a handful of Friday night games on the schedule). It remains to be seen if Amar’e will in fact lead the Knicks to the promised land, but if he keeps the faith, he’ll be a lock for all-time greatest black Jewish forward.
B is for Larry Brown. The legendary and peripatetic Hall of Famer is the only coach to win an NCAA championship (Kansas ’88) and an NBA championship (Detroit ’04). Brown, a Long Beach, NY native became a three-time ABA all-star and holder of the league’s one game assist record with 23. Brown earned recognition as one of the great coaches in history (along with an unparalleled amount of frequent flyer miles) by totaling nearly 1300 wins, and still counting. The restless Brown has had coaching stints with the Nuggets, Knicks, Nets, Spurs, Clippers, Pacers, and 76ers in the NBA and with UCLA and Kansas in college. The sage Brown continues at age 70 as coach of the Charlotte Bobcats…Could this be the last stop?
C is for CCNY (City College of New York), the only team to win the “grand slam” of college basketball in 1950 by winning both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same season. In that ’50 season, the “poor man’s Harvard” CCNY Beavers were 17-5, unranked and a last minute addition to the NIT draw. Legendary coach Nat Holman’s starting five comprised an unheard of combination of three Jews—Irwin Dambrot, Al “Fats” Roth and Norm Mager—and two black players, Ed Warner and Floyd Layne (CCNY was the 1st college champion ever to have black players in the starting lineup). The NIT semifinal was played at Madison Square Garden in front of 18,000 hometown fans who chanted CCNY’s curious fight song, “Allagaroo garoo gara.” Playing their brand of NYC Jew Ball, they dumped all-white defending NCAA champ Kentucky and their blatantly anti-Semitic and racist coach Adolph Rupp in a quarterfinal rout, 89-50. Dambrot then scored 23 points and led CCNY to a defeat of top-ranked Bradley for the title. The next week, again at Madison Square Garden, they again defeated Bradley in the NCAA final to complete the grand slam.
D is for Dolph and Danny Schayes. Hall of Famer Dolph, a 6’8” forward, was arguably the greatest Jewish player of all-time and was among the 10 players named to the NBA’s Silver Anniversary team. His two-handed set shot led NYU to a 22-4 record in 1948; a year later he was rookie of the year with the NBA’s Syracuse Nationals who later moved to Philadelphia and became the Warriors and ultimately the 76ers. When the 12-time NBA all-star retired after 16 seasons, Schayes held a number of NBA records, including games played, total points and free throws made, and he finished with an 18.5 career average. Schayes stayed on to coach the 76ers for two seasons and earned NBA Coach of the Year honors for the ’65-’66 season.
Dolph’s son Danny was an even “bigger” star at 6’11” (and made a helluva lot more gelt in the NBA). Following an All-American career at Syracuse, Danny played 18 seasons with 7 NBA teams and was regarded among the game’s most versatile big men. His best numbers came with the Denver Nuggets in ’87, when he averaged 13.9 points and 8.2 rebounds— more than respectable.
E is for Ernie Grunfeld. Born in Romania to Holocaust survivors, Ernie didn’t even discover the game until his family moved to the United States when he was 9. But he took to basketball quickly and became the only high school starter (and leading scorer) on the 1973 US team that lost to Israel in the Maccabiah Games. Grunfeld went on star at the University of Tennessee as part of the “Ernie and Bernie Show” along with future Knicks star Bernard King. He finished his career as the school’s all-time leading scorer and had his #22 retired. Grunfeld was a key member of the Gold Medal winning 1976 US Olympic team, the same year he became a US citizen. He had a solid nine year NBA career with the Bucks, Kings and Knicks, and went on to become a broadcaster and then one of the top executives in the NBA. A former GM with the Knicks and the Bucks, he is currently in his eighth season as president of the Washington Wizards.
F is for Max “Marty” Friedman. Born in NYC in 1889, Friedman developed his game on the streets of the Lower East Side and is regarded as the first of the great Jewish players. Friedman, a defensive specialist, often teamed with another early Jewish star and scoring machine, Barney “The Mighty Mite” Sedran, who at 5’4” is the shortest player in the Hall of Fame. Together they made up the legendary duo known as the “Heavenly Twins.” They played for the dominant New York Whirlwinds in the early 1900s where they exemplified Jew Ball. In a seminal “world championship” series in 1921, the Whirlwinds played the Original Celtics (no relation to the later Boston Celtics) in New York before 10,000 plus frenzied fans (probably the largest crown ever to attend a basketball game at the time), proving that pro ball could in fact bring in large crowds and make money for promoters. Hall of Famer Friedman concluded his career as a player/coach for the Cleveland Rosenblums.
G is for Eddie Gottlieb. Known simply as “The Mogul,” Gottlieb, born in Kiev, Russia, spent most of his life immersed in Philadelphia sports, most notably basketball. Beginning in 1918 Gottlieb organized, played for, managed, coached and eventually owned what became one of the greatest and iconic barnstorming basketball teams, the one known by the acronym SPHAs (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association). The SPAHs eventually morphed into the Philadelphia Warriors who joined the BAA (Basketball Association of America and precursor of today’s NBA), a league that Gottlieb was instrumental in organizing. Gottlieb then coached the Warriors to the first championship of the BAA. In the NBA, he led the rules committee and was instrumental in the adoption of the 24-second clock. He even hoodwinked fellow owners, convincing them to adopt a territorial draft rule that, to their chagrin, allowed the Warriors to obtain hometown Overbrook star Wilt Chamberlain. And for 30 years, The Mogul was the NBA’s sole schedule maker. In his honor, the NBA awards the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy to the rookie of the year.
H is for Nat Holman. The Hall of Fame player and coach known reverently as “Mr. Basketball,” Holman was born only five years after Naismith invented the game. He was considered “the” playmaker of the 1920s, when he starred for the Original Celtics as they compiled an astounding record of 531-28. Holman was considered so valuable that he became the highest paid player of the era at a then-whopping $1500 a month. While playing with the Celtics, Holman also took over the coaching duties at CCNY at age 23 and led the Beavers to a record of 421-190 over the next 37 seasons, a remarkable achievement in its own right. During his tenure, his tactical innovations had a revolutionary and lasting effect on the game. He is credited, for instance, with devising the “center pivot” play, which evolved into the classic, and still used, give-and-go, as well as the pick-and-roll. Holman was coach when CCNY won college basketball’s grand slam in 1950 and is still revered in Israeli basketball circles as the organizer of the 1st Maccabiah Games.
I is for Israeli Basketball. And it’s clear that the Jewish nation loves the game, which has nearly eclipsed soccer in popularity. Ligat HaAl, Israel’s 1st division premier league, has been dominated from its inception by Maccabi Tel Aviv, the country’s perennial champions—Israel virtually shuts down when Maccabi has a big game on TV. The team has won an amazing 48 national titles, often at the expense of their crosstown rivals, Hapoel Tel Aviv. In fact, today Maccabi remains among Europe’s most successful clubs, with five Euro Cups. Since the globalization of the NBA, there had been a near national obsession with getting an Israeli player into the league. Israeli stars, including Yotam Halperin and Lior Eliyahu, while drafted by NBA teams, did not make an impact. Mickey Berkowitz, who with Tal Brody, led Maccabi to its 1st Euro championship in 1977 (and was voted Israel’s greatest sportsman in its first 50 years) was set to join the Atlanta Hawks, but Maccabi declined to release him from his contract. Actually it was Limor Mizrachi who became the first Israeli to play pro basketball in the US when she took the court for the New England Blizzard in 1998 in the woman’s ABL. At last it was Omri Casspi, the 2009 1st round pick of the Sacramento Kings, who fulfilled the dream. Casspi did not disappoint his fans, compiling 10.3 PPG in his rookie year. An almost equally seminal moment for Israel occurred in 2005, when Maccabi defeated the NBA’s Toronto Raptors 105-103 in an exhibition—the first ever victory for a European five over an NBA team on their home court.
J is for St. John’s University and for the Brooklyn Jewels. During the golden age of Jewish basketball in NYC, even the venerable Roman Catholic institution once started four Jews. They were part of a group known as the “Wonder Five,” a dominant team that compiled a phenomenal 70-4 record during the 1928 through 1931 seasons. Max Posnack, regarded as one of the premier defensive players of the time, led the group, which included Mac Kinsbrunner, Jack Gerson, Allie Shuckman (the sharpshooter of the bunch) along with Matty Begovich. Ball-handling was their forte: The group virtually played “keep away” until they worked the ball in for a close shot. Under the rules of the day, with no shot clock, this deliberately paced passing and dribbling could sometimes use up five minutes or more until they get the shot they wanted! Upon graduation, the Wonder Five turned pro together and formed a formidable team called the Brooklyn Jewels that played in the ABL for a number of years with great success.
K is for the New York Knicks. How do you get instant recognition in 1946 when you organize the flagship franchise in a new pro league in a city with the largest Jewish population and where college basketball is king? You cater to your fan base by stocking up with popular stars from the area’s schools, players that the fans already know and love. When the Knicks took the opening tip in the first ever NBA game vs. the Toronto Huskies, they had four Jews on the floor and six on the roster, including former CCNY star Sonny Hertzberg as captain. Nat Militzok received the 1st assist in NBA history as Ossie Schectman scored the first basket in the NBA on the first shot of the game. Leo “Ace” Gottlieb led the Knicks in scoring that day with 14 in the Knicks victory while Ralph Kaplowitz and Hank Rosenstein played in reserve roles. But by late that season, team owner Ned Irish had already begun to think twice about his experiment and started breaking up the group with trades. Within a year all were gone, and the Knicks didn’t have another Jewish face until Red Holzman coached them to a championship in 1970.
L is for Lennie Rosenbluth. For a guy who couldn’t make his high school team until junior year, Rosenbluth, a New York native, sure made an impact. He became a legend in Dixie when, in 1957, he led the University of North Carolina to a 32-0 record and its first NCAA championship. The 6’5” forward had a near unstoppable hook shot and Tar Heel alumni recall his Michael Jordan-like domination…nearly three decades before there was a Jordan. Rosenbluth was among the last of the great Jewish college stars when he played for Carolina coach Frank McGuire’s starting five known as “Four Catholics and a Jew.” In that ’57 championship run, he led North Carolina in one of the greatest games in college basketball history over Wilt Chamberlain’s favored Kansas Jayhawk team, matching Wilt shot for shot. It took a triple overtime for North Carolina to win the game, 54-53. Rosenbluth’s retired #10 hangs in the rafters along with Jordan, Worthy and other Carolina greats and he still holds numerous school records including a 28.0 single season scoring average. Rosenbluth, however, never made much of a splash in the pros, playing an unremarkable two years for the Philadelphia Warriors.
M is for Mendy Rudolph. Like a rabbi, an NBA official must exhibit fairness, an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and excellent judgment, and Rudolph, along with fellow Jews Earl Strom and Norm Drucker represent the best of Hall of Fame referees. All three were colorful court personalities, adding flavor to every game they officiated. Over the course of his 25-year career of 2,000 plus games, Rudolph was respectfully known to his peers as the “official’s official.” The Philadelphia native who became the chief of NBA referees, later capitalized on his fame by becoming Brent Musburger’s broadcast partner in the ’70s and even appeared in a classic Miller Light commercial. Earl Strom, a Pottstown, PA native, was noted for his flamboyant style, earning the nickname “Pied Piper” for his dramatic flair in calling fouls in his record 2,400 plus games. Feisty and combative, 76ers fans may remember Strom officiating the ’65 East Finals (when the Celts’ Havlicek “stole the ball” from Hal Greer) with a cast on his hand, courtesy of a punch he landed on a fan during a dispute in the previous game! Drucker, who worked the NBA and ABA, learned the game as a player for Nat Holman at CCNY and his 24- year long career culminated in his appointment as Supervisor of Officials in the NBA. Drucker holds the distinction of being the only official to eject Wilt Chamberlain who otherwise in his career never fouled out in a game.
N is for Nancy Lieberman whose impact on women’s athletics and basketball in particular seems immeasurable. Lieberman’s chutzpah allowed her to develop her aggressive “schoolyard” game on the gritty courts in Harlem. In 1976, at age 18, she became the youngest basketball player ever (and of either gender) to win an Olympic medal. At Old Dominion University she led the Lady Monarchs to a 72-2 record and two AIAW National Championships. As a collegian, the 5’10” Lieberman was a three-time All-American and a two-time Wade Trophy winner as Player of the Year while becoming arguably the nation’s top female athlete. Fans who compared her court presence favorably with Magic Johnson nicknamed her “Lady Magic.” Lieberman made history when she became the first woman to play men’s pro ball, for Springfield in the USBL in 1982. At age 38 she made a comeback and played for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA…and amazingly topped that with another stint with the Detroit Shock at age 50! In 1996 Lieberman became the first woman ever voted into the Hall of Fame and joined the inaugural class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
O is for NBA Owners. The cliché that it’s more likely for a Jewish kid to own a team than play on one has a ring of truth these days as NBA rosters reflect a drought of Jewish players. But when it comes to team owners, there’s a virtual minyan. Roll call, please:
Leslie Alexander: Houston Rockets
Micky Arison: Miami Heat
Steve Belkin: Atlanta Hawks
Mark Cuban: Dallas Mavericks
Dan Gilbert: Cleveland Cavaliers
Mike Ilitch*: Detroit Pistons
Herb Kohl: Milwaukee Bucks
Jerry Reinsdorf: Chicago Bulls
Ed Snider: Philadelphia 76ers
Donald Sterling: Los Angeles Clippers
*As we went to press Karen Davidson’s sale of the Pistons was nearing completion.
And let’s not forget the big macher David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA who gathers in all that TV gelt and disciplines players with a “stern” hand.
P is for Paul “Twister” Steinberg. A standout football player with the Canton Bulldogs, Steinberg gets credit as being the first Jewish professional basketball player, who later in his career coached the game at Cornell.
Q is for Quakers. The University of Pennsylvania has a long tradition of Jewish basketball, and one of the school’s most successful runs was led by two Jewish hoopsters. Between 1970 and 1972, the Quakers had three consecutive Ivy League titles. Steve Bilsky (the current AD) and Al Cotler, along with Dave Wohl and Corky Calhoun, propelled the team to a 25-2 record in ’70; in ’71 the Penn five were the darlings of the east, compiling a sterling 26-0 record and a #3 national ranking. While Penn basketball has lost a little luster over the years, the Jewish duo tradition continues at the school with a current pair of Zacks…Rosen and Gordon.
R is for the “Reds.” Red Auerbach displayed his chutzpah by lighting his trademark victory cigar long before a game was over, for drafting the first black player in the NBA and for being the first coach to start five black players. Auerbach was a coaching legend with the Boston Celtics (lifetime 1037-548), and his 16 NBA titles in 29 years as coach, GM and team president are unrivaled in any sport. Auerbach forever changed the face of the NBA with the Celtic fast break, the utilization of the “6th man” and his emphasis on teamwork (Red’s championship teams rarely had a player in the top ten in league scoring). Competitive and acerbic, Auerbach never shied away from altercations with players, fans and officials and was ejected more times than any coach in history.
Red Holzman reintroduced Jew Ball to New York as coach of the Knicks in the ’70s with his emphasis on unselfish team play and tough switching defense, tactics he learned as a 5’ 10” All-American at CCNY under Nat Holman. Holzman is one of a select few to win an NBA title as a player (with the ’51 Rochester Royals) and as coach. He is revered in New York as the architect of the two Knick championship teams (’70 and ’73) with a core of players that made the playoffs eight straight years. Holzman enjoyed his bland public persona as a coach and, unlike Auerbach, always seemed to keep his composure. (He was alleged to have 9 suits…all the same color.) When he retired in ’82, Holzman’s 696 victories were second only to Auerbach’s record.
Unlike the other coaching Reds, Philly native Red Klotz is celebrated mostly for losing. Originally a guard with the SPHAs, Klotz bought that team in 1952 and changed its name to the Washington Generals, the team that became the permanent foil for the Harlem Globetrotters. The Generals kept to the script and lost over 13,000 exhibition games, winning only seven. Klotz, both owner and coach, played guard with the Generals until he was 62 and, in 1971, the last time the Globetrotters “lost,” Klotz hit the winning shot at the buzzer!
S is for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. The SPHAs, the dominant all-Jewish basketball team founded by Eddie Gottlieb in 1918 became a true Philadelphia phenomenon. Named after their sponsor, the team flaunted their Jewish roots like no other, including jerseys that displayed a large star of David and samach, pey, hey and aleph stenciled on the front. And just in case that message wasn’t clear enough, the word Hebrews covered the back. The SPHAs barnstormed nationally and played in a number of leagues. In their heyday, they appeared in 18 championship games in 22 years, winning 13. For a long time the team had no real home court, thus their nickname “the Wandering Jews.” They became so popular in fact they could often outdraw the Philadelphia Athletics. Their home games became social events for the Jewish community they represented and were so well attended that promoters began to offer doubleheaders at the old YMHA at Broad and Pine. Within a few years the SPHAs were playing on a court placed in the ballroom of the Broadwood Hotel. The rosters contained a who’s who of seminal basketball stars including Inky Lautman, Harry Litwack (later the long time Temple coach), Dave Dabrow, Harry “Chicky” Passon (a co-founder of the team and a Philadelphia sporting goods store) and Cy Kaselman—all major celebrities in the City of Brotherly Love.
T is for Tal Brody, the Trenton native who became an Israeli national hero and icon. As an All-American at Illinois in 1965 Brody led the US five to Maccabiah Games gold. Drafted by the NBA, he chose instead to join Maccabi Tel Aviv and led them to Maccabiah gold in ’69 and then made aliyah, becoming an Israeli citizen. Behind Brody’s steady play, Maccabi won 10 championships, but his heroics in one game in 1977 made him a legend: Maccabi finally won the long coveted European Cup championship only after defeating ZSKA Moscow in the semi-final, arguably the greatest triumph in Israeli sports history. The Russians, in the midst of an economic boycott of Israel, had refused to play the scheduled game in Tel Aviv and would not allow Maccabi to enter Russia. Belgium was the agreed neutral site where the Brody-led Maccabi slammed the Russians 91-79. A 78-77 win over Italy gave them their first title. Afterwards, Brody made his immortal remark, “We are on the map,” now part of Israeli lore. In ’79, Brody was awarded the Israel Prize, the first athlete to win the country’s top civilian award. Most recently Tal was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this role, Brody assists with Israel’s international public diplomacy efforts.
U is for University, Yeshiva University, the only all-Jewish NCAA basketball program still in existence. Venerable St. John’s coach Lou Carnesecca once called YU “the birthplace of modern basketball.” In the heyday of the program in the 1950s, the team posted records in consecutive seasons of 16-2, 12-7 and 14-4. In a throwback to the tradition of Jewish basketball in New York, the school annually hosts 20 teams from across the nation and Canada for the Red Sarachek High School Tournament (named after their legendary coach who professed to have “never cut a kid”). What other tournament on its schedule page includes local minyan times, a Shabbat schedule and a list of local Kosher restaurants?! Kohelet Yeshiva High School of Philadelphia will participate in the March 2011 event.
V is for Vicious, the only word to describe the treatment Jewish teams like the SPHAs received when they played outside their communities, where fans assaulted them both physically and with slur filled chants. Most teams of that era were built along ethnic lines, and Jewish fives were not always welcome in rival gyms. Fans had no qualms about hanging signs with messages like “Kill the Christ killers!” According to Eddie Gottlieb of the SPHAs, “Half the fans would come to see some Jews get killed, the other half came to see our boys win.” Back in the day of the cager, basketball was a very physical, almost brutal sport. Defensive players blocked and shoved ball-handlers into the net cages that surrounded the courts. Fans threw any object that could fit through the holes onto the court, and some managed to reach through the holes and trip or jab the players with a hat pin. There are numerous anecdotal stories about Jewish players on the road being burned with cigars and even heated nails in arenas where spectators could actually shake the basket pole when Jewish players attempted a shot—all this often in front of referees who turned a blind eye.
W is for Neal Walk. But first a little trivia question. In the ’69 NBA draft the Phoenix Suns lost a coin flip with the Milwaukee Bucks for the number one pick. The Suns took center Walk, the first ever All-American from Florida who left Gainsville as the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder. Who did the Bucks take? If you guessed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, give yourself a chocolate matzo. While Walk did not have the Hall of Fame career that Kareem did, he did have a serviceable nine-year NBA career and remains the only Sun to have 1,000 rebounds in one season. Walk’s finest year was 1972 when he averaged 20 points and 12 boards a game for the Suns. He finished his career playing in Israel with Hapoel Ramat Gan.
X is for the letter that usually kills articles like this when authors can’t find a reasonable stand in. Exhaustive research revealed no Jewish player name or team…What’d you xpect?
Y is for Sid Yates, a great scorer and all-around player at the University of Chicago in the ’30s who forsook the pros to serve 48 years in the US House of Representatives and was a major advocate of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.
Z is for Max Zaslofsky. The St. John’s grad and NBA Hall of Famer known as “the touch” was one of the league’s first great stars. In 1946 playing with the Chicago Stags, Zaslofsky was voted 1st Team All-NBA at age 21, the youngest player to garner that honor until LeBron James eclipsed him. In ’49, he led the NBA in scoring with 21 PPG and ended his fine career as the 3rd leading all-time scorer at that time. Local fans may remember him as the coach of the New Jersey Americans/Nets in the fledgling ABA. ©

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BASKETBALL: THE JEWISH GAME…  A TO Z Do You Remember The Guys Who Gave Us Pick-And-Roll? By Len Canter The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but [...]

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BASKETBALL: THE JEWISH GAME…  A TO Z Do You Remember The Guys Who Gave Us Pick-And-Roll? By Len Canter The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but [...]

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By Leslie Feldman

Our area is fortunate to have some of the most generous people in the country—people who are able to endow hospitals, schools and museums, who work to preserve our culture and our history and give those less fortunate access to a better, brighter future. In this issue of Chutzpah, we are adding to the rolls of these philanthropists the following 22 people whose amazing initiatives, compassion and dedication deserve recognition.

IN THE TRENCHES

Jay Spector
Jay Spector, president and CEO of JEVS Human Services, believes that everyone in the community deserves the chance to learn a skill and live life to the fullest, no matter what obstacles they face. For the past 30 years, Jay has devoted himself to JEVS (www.jevshumanservices.org), a nonprofit, nonsectarian social service agency offering skills training and career management, vocational rehabilitation, recovery services, adult residential and day services and in-home personal assistance to those most at-risk in the Jewish community, from kids to the elderly.  JEVS continues the traditions on which it was founded in 1941: strengthening the community for the most vulnerable, replicating best practice programs to reach more in need, maintaining its commitment to continuous improvement and ensuring quality in all they do and supporting the staff with the resources and tools they need to help clients overcome quality of life challenges. This is especially important these days when, says Jay, the demand for career and employment services has never been higher. With a budget of $72 million, JEVS operates more than 25 programs reaching 16,000 people a year. Jay is also the president of the Association of Jewish Federation Executives, the immediate past president of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, a past president of the Association of Jewish Vocational Professionals and a past vice-president of the International Association of Jewish Vocational Services.  He is currently a board member on the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia and serves in a variety of leadership roles in numerous other community activities.

Ricky Shechtel
For Ricky Shechtel, there is nothing more important than teaching children the meaning of tzedakah. Ricky is the founder of the JCYF, the Jewish Community Youth Foundation. As a longtime fundraiser in the areas of Jewish identity, education, outreach and social services here and abroad and as a mother of three, she felt it imperative to teach the next generation that you neither need to be wealthy or an adult to participate in making the world a better place. The concept of tikkun olam is one that resonates strongly within her family, and so JCYF (www.jfcsonline.org/jcyf.html) was born eight years ago. The program, administered by Jewish Family and Children’s Service (JFCS) of Princeton, teaches Jewish children in the Princeton community about tzedakah and tikkun olam, citing many Biblical and Talmudic sources in a wide ranging and constantly evolving curriculum that includes topics most might think of as the domain of adults— making site visits, understanding budgets and grant proposals and interviewing. Most importantly, the young people are empowered to provide matching funds (along with the local Federation) and learn invaluable skills to enable them to make informed and educated choices about Jewish philanthropy. To date, 250 teens in grades 8 to12 have completed the program and donated over $250,000 to 41 different Jewish programs. Each year a check presentation ceremony is held; last year Charles Bronfman came to participate in their “Inside the Philanthropists Studio” event, attended by over 750 community members. Next year’s ceremony will take place February 27, 2011 in Princeton.

Bebe Kivitz, Esq.
As a board member and former board president of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (www.philachildrensalliance.org), Bebe Kivitz works tirelessly on behalf of victims of child abuse in Philadelphia. As the former chief of the Child Abuse Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Bebe, an attorney in private practice at Troiani/Kivitz, LLP, recalls how child abuse victims had to be interviewed separately by the police, the Department of Human Services and others, forcing the children to recount the details of their abuse multiple times, often adding to their trauma. When the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (PCA) began in the 1990s, its forensic interviewers were able to offer one state-of-the-art interview of the victim, obviating the need for multiple interviews prior to trial as well as offer victim assistance services to the children and their non-offending parents. Twenty years later, PCA continues to help get justice for these young victims and begin the process of healing by conducting forensic interviews in a child-friendly location and continuing to provide support services. Bebe’s hope is to have PCA serve all child victims of abuse in Philadelphia, not just a percentage of them—an expensive undertaking that requires significant resources. The Bear Affair, held every April, is the organization’s largest fundraiser to help meet that goal.

Debra Rasansky
The new president of Golden Slipper Club & Charities (www.goldenslipperclub.org), Debra Rasansky first became involved with the charity 18 years ago at the suggestion of one of the physical therapists at her Main Line practice. She went to hear F. Lee Bailey speak and was hooked on the energy and passion of the organization that was started back in 1922 by a group of Jewish Masons who regularly socialized and played cards. They’d divide up their winnings and give them to families in need of money for food, coal and other essentials—acts of kindness that were the roots and the inspiration of Golden Slipper, which today has nearly 1,000 members. After her first experience, Debra remembers, “I wanted to be part of the people in that room…working with seniors, caring for the children at the overnight camp and helping the Jewish community in any way I could.” Debra has held several volunteer positions with Golden Slipper throughout the years including co-chair of their annual seder, when 600 seniors get together to celebrate the holiday, as well as being president of the charity’s Center for Seniors.

Sherrie Savett, Esq.
Philanthropy has been a cornerstone of attorney Sherrie Savett’s entire adult life. She is a vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and serves on its 29-member board of directors. Extremely active in the local and national leadership of State of Israel Bonds, she received The Spirit of Jerusalem Medallion, their highest honor, in 2005. Sherrie also is vice-chairperson of the board of the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, which teaches character development through stories of heroes throughout time and through art glass, which like liberty, democracy and free speech, is fragile and beautiful and needs to be protected. Professionally, she is chair of the securities department and managing principal of Berger & Montague, PC in Philadelphia. Shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in ’74, Sherrie became attracted to the class action practice, which she considers a David and Goliath battle of representing plaintiffs, usually individuals or small businesses, against large corporations who commit various types of fraud and violations of law. Her goal for the firm is to remain among the most effective plaintiff-oriented firms in the nation.

WHEN IT’S PERSONAL

Valerie and Michael Franklin
Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that today has no cure. It affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States. A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections, obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food. In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have enhanced and extended life for children and adults with CF. Many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond. Valerie and Michael Franklin are working tirelessly to see that their daughter Jessica and all of the others affected by this disease live long, full lives. Since Jessica’s diagnosis with CF in 1998 at the age of 3, Valerie and Michael have served on the board of directors of the Philadelphia chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (www.cff.org). They have been actively involved in the organization’s fundraisers including Evening with the Eagles and Great Strides Walk-A-Thon and chaired Game, Set, Cure. They have also organized Jessica’s Carnival of Fun, an annual event held at a local day camp in honor of their daughter. Valerie herself recently co-founded The Mitzvah Bowl, designed to help match bar and bat mitzvah students with community programs in need (see “Babe Mitzvahs” for more.)

David Halpern and Jan Albert
Golf is not only a passion for David Halpern and Jan Albert, but a way to raise funds for a disease close to both of their hearts. After David’s father Barry was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he took it upon himself to start a golf tournament to raise money toward finding a cure for and raising awareness of the disease. He joined forces with Jan Albert, an accomplished amateur golfer, whose mother had also fought Parkinson’s. Eleven years ago, they co-founded The Parkinson’s Golf Classic, the largest annual fundraiser for the Parkinson’s Council of Philadelphia (www.theparkinsoncouncil.org). Hundreds of players, sponsors, supporters and volunteers come together each summer in an effort to make a difference in people’s lives. The Council’s missions are to help find the cause and cure for Parkinson’s by providing financial support for research, educating patients, caregivers, health care professionals and the general public about Parkinson’s and improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Last year, the Council awarded $388,000 in grants to centers and research programs including those at Pennsylvania Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital, The University of Pennsylvania and The National Parkinson’s Foundation.

Len Weinstein
Recently honored as 2010 Komen Philadelphia Affiliate Volunteer of the Year, Len Weinstein’s work as a volunteer for the Philadelphia affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (www.komenphiladelphia.org) began more than three years ago, when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Len has become the organization’s “power male,” heading up initiatives that are most appealing to the male population, such as fundraisers with Philadelphia pro sports teams, colleges, police districts and more. He was the point man for the Affiliate’s entry into the male market and has served as the critical link and more—not only keeping the Affiliate and its mission top-of-mind among men, but also building their involvement as volunteers, fundraisers and communicators of breast health awareness messages. In addition, he continuously initiates new opportunities and relationships on behalf of the Affiliate, and not just those that relate to men—he is the first to volunteer for any event, ranging from the Pink Tie Ball to the breast cancer survivors’ lunch.

Blair Berger
As The SPOT (Space to be Proud, Open and Together) advisor at the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (www.plannedparenthood.org/ppsp/), Blair Berger is an advocate for equal rights in the community. The mission of The SPOT is to provide an environment where gay and lesbian young people, ages 14-21, can feel accepted and empowered, where sexual and gender identity can be embraced without fear of violence, harassment or judgment. The group promotes understanding and respect for all through education, support, advocacy, creative expression and friendship. The SPOT incorporates a mix of educational programs such as safer sex, coming out, marriage equality and relationships and organizes field trips, game nights, parent nights and guest speakers. Blair began as an intern in September 2008 for field experience credit from college. After graduating that December, with bachelor degrees in Psychology and Women’s Studies and training in Domestic Violence Advocacy she continued to volunteer as an advisor, and created a strong and trusting connection with the young people she helped. She has also served as a representative at Communities That Care meetings to spread the word about The SPOT being a great resource for gay and lesbian youth and recently organized an art exhibition to raise funds for the program.

Bernie Brody
Please describe Bernie Brody as 87 years young.  A two-time cancer survivor himself, Bernie volunteers weekly with The Wellness Community of Philadelphia (www.twcp.org), the nonprofit organization offering a wide menu of support services to people with cancer and their loved ones, including support groups, mind-body workshops, educational seminars, creative art studios, exercise classes and nutrition programs. Bernie, along with his wife Eleanore, started volunteering 17 years ago. He was recently honored with TWCP’s Medal of Courage, given to the participant who embodies the spirit of hope in the face of cancer and serves as an inspiration in the struggle to understand the impact of the disease. Though diagnosed with lymphoma 19 years ago and again about six months ago, Bernie never let his illness get him down, saying, “I anxiously wait to come here as much as a night watchman waits for the dawn. While I stuff envelopes, make phone calls or send out program calendars for TWCP, I think of the people I’m helping.”  Among the social programs Bernie has participated in, a standout is Jokefest where he led the pack with his jokes that he told from memory. From holiday parties to lending a hand with public relations by posing in TWCP’s keepsake book, “Images of Community, Voices of Hope,” his biggest involvement has been as a volunteer, week in, week out, the longest on a continuing basis of any of TWCP volunteer. He also helps keep up the spirits of patients at Lankenau Hospital’s Cancer Center and has volunteered at other nonprofits around the city for years.

THE GROUND-BREAKERS

Kay and Fred Lokoff
The Lokoffs began the Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation (www.tllccf.org) in August 1986 following their daughter Terri’s tragic death in an automobile accident.  This was their way of keeping her spirit alive, honoring her memory and continuing the work that she passionately believed in—teaching. As a teacher, Terri felt a tremendous responsibility and knew the hard work that comes with providing the quality educational and emotional support so important to children.  She was aware that the first years in a child’s life shape the future. The mission of the Foundation named after her is to improve the quality of childcare for all children.  This is accomplished through its many programs including The National Child Care Teacher Awards™, the Lois B. Cohan Museums to Go program and the Child Care Center Enhancement Grants. Since 1987, the Foundation has given more than $2.5 million in direct grants and awards to child care centers, teachers and providers to improve programs and enhance classroom curriculum.

Mitch Chanin
In 2001, together with a few other activists and community leaders, Mitch Chanin founded the Jewish Dialogue Group (www.jewishdialogue.org) in response to crises that he saw unfolding in Jewish communities as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated. JDG’s mission is to create programs and materials that empower Jewish people to understand one another and strengthen relationships across differences, explore complex political, ethical, emotional and intellectual questions, clarify their views and seek common ground in a safe, mediated environment—it is a conduit to repair rifts and provide urgently needed physical spaces for reflection and exploration. As executive director, Chanin leads carefully structured dialogue programs in synagogues, colleges and other venues to encourage intimate, non-adversarial conversation in small groups. JDG also empowers people to lead dialogues of their own by training facilitators, creating publications and providing advice. Its facilitator guidebook is used by rabbis, student activists and other leaders. Mitch’s goal is to make JDG resources available to everyone who needs them, across North America, in Israel and in other locations as well. Future plans include disseminating its programs and materials more widely, expanding and strengthening the facilitator network and training other organizations’ leaders to conduct dialogue programs for themselves. JDG is also completing a new “guide for deliberation” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Linda Ayre
It took a lot of chutzpah to turn trash into treasure, but that’s exactly what Linda Ayre did as founding president of Yardley-based Quilts for Kids, Inc.  In August 2000, while placing an order for a design client of hers, Linda discovered thousands of pounds of discontinued fabric samples being tossed into a Philadelphia landfill.  It bothered her to see this very expensive decorator fabric going to waste. She asked the owners of the various fabric companies to donate the discards and started a charity to turn them into patchwork quilts and wheelchair and walker bags for children with life-threatening illnesses. Ten years later, Quilts For Kids (www.quiltsforkids.org) saves millions of pounds of fabric from landfills and fashions them into items for children in need, gifting them with a handmade quilt to hold onto while going through chemotherapy and other medical treatments, surgery and testing.  This year, with a partnership with Proctor & Gamble and the Downy Touch of Comfort program, Quilts for Kids has been able to reach even more children who are experiencing long hospital stays.

Sharon Snyder
Sharon Snyder has a very personal connection to Kisses For Kyle (www.kissesforkyle.org), of which she is founder and president. Her first son Kyle was diagnosed with leukemia just three weeks shy of his second birthday. After a very courageous eight-month battle, Kyle lost his young life. The family had a memorial fund in Kyle’s name shortly after he passed away, but after a few years of raising funds for other organizations, Sharon realized she needed to find a loving and healthy way to honor her child every day. She began the organization, the Kisses for Kyle Foundation, in 2001 as a means to keep Kyle present in this world and help other local families going through what her family once did. A main goal for the Foundation is to help alleviate massive financial burdens put on families due to the hardship and diagnosis of childhood cancer. Another mission is to put a smile on the faces of local children with cancer and their families by providing services such as hosting celebratory and birthday parties, inviting families to special events, providing sporting event and other tickets and having a gift giving program to provide items requested by the children it helps. To date, the Kisses for Kyle Foundation has raised over $400,000.

Andrea Green, MCAT
Using music not just to entertain, but also to teach tolerance is what composer, lyricist and music therapist Andrea Green’s work is all about. As the founding director of Musicals for Kids by Andrea Green (www.andreagreenmusicals.com), Andrea has created fourteen works that teach tolerance and understanding, starting in 1983 with the musical On the Other Side of the Fence, a therapeutic, theatrical, integrated arts vehicle to bring diverse groups of children together as partners and friends, specifically students from the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy and students from Germantown Friends School. Designed to feature every child with the group/cast remaining a constant support from beginning to end, the musical serves as common ground for a shared arts experience. Using metaphor through story, lyrics and music, youngsters are able to relate to the characters and to each other, exploring and expressing their feelings of commonality and difference and enabling them look into themselves as they participate as equal partners and integral members of a group. “With the goals of increasing sensitivity, understanding, communication, tolerance and respect between children, these unique musicals and the experiences they provide to young performers and the audiences they reach out to eliminate prejudice, bullying and the alienation that many, many youngsters confront in the world today,” explains Andrea. The musicals are available to be performed in schools and theaters nationally and internationally by licensing through Samuel French, Inc.

MEDICAL MARVELS

Marisa C. Weiss, MD
Helping those with breast cancer is a life calling for Dr. Marisa Weiss, founder, president and guiding force behind the Ardmore, PA-based nonprofit Breastcancer.org, the world’s most trafficked online resource for medically-reviewed breast health and breast cancer information. Many of the international visitors to her website might not realize that she is a breast cancer oncologist at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, PA and regarded as a visionary for her innovative and steadfast approach to informing, empowering and treating patients with breast cancer—it was 20 years ago that she started her other nonprofit, Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), dedicated to providing a compassionate network of support to women and their families throughout their breast cancer diagnoses. Dr. Weiss served on the National Cancer Institute Director’s Consumer Liaison Group from 2000 to 2007, and Philadelphia magazine honored her with the 2005 cover story of their “Top Doc” issue for her excellence in practice of breast radiation oncology and for her innovative educational video, “Doctor, Doctor, Lend Me Your Ear: An Up-Close Look at the Patient-Doctor Relationship.” She is also a professional advisory board member of Mommy’s Light Lives On and The Philadelphia Wellness Community.

Joseph Friedberg, MD

On behalf of his patients, Dr. Friedberg fights some of the most difficult cancers every day. As the chief of thoracic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System-Presbyterian (www.pennmedicine.org/presby), the very hospital where he was born, the Harvard and Mass General trained surgeon focuses 95 percent of his practice on treating pleural cancers, those that affect the lining of the chest cavity and primarily mesothelioma, one of the deadliest cancers with an average survival of less than a year. He spearheaded the development of a lung sparing operation that combines with photodynamic therapy and laser based cancer treatment and chemotherapy. “With what we are doing our median survival is currently in the three year range, an unusually good result for this terrible cancer, especially with a lung sparing operation,” he says. “These are difficult operations, some of them taking me up to 14 hours, but our results also focus on doing an operation that preserves quality of life.” Dr. Friedberg started the Penn Mesothelioma and Pleural Diseases program, where he is the surgical director.  This is a multidisciplinary program for treating these types of cancers and is unique in the United States at this time.  His laboratory research is primarily focused on developing better and less invasive treatments.  He is working on an autologous tumor vaccine (a vaccine made with the patient’s own cancer) for mesothelioma as well as the use of rare earth nano phosphors—tiny inert particles that can generate light in response to different kinds of energy like the coating on the inside of old TV screens, he explains—and using those particles for both cancer detection and cancer treatment. With over 100 different inventions, he has about ten patents pending for different concepts ranging from surgical instruments and devices to cancer vaccines to a new way to type blood.

Yael Mosse, MD
As a pediatric oncologist at the Cancer Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (www.chop.edu), Dr. Mosse, who attended medical school in Tel Aviv, is focused in the area of neuroblastoma, cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. One of the least understood forms of childhood cancer, it begins in the nerve tissues of infants and young children. “When I started as a fellow with Dr. John Maris, who is the premier expert in neuroblastoma, I found it intriguing to learn there were families with a history of the cancer. I decided to investigate this, and what had started as a side project—with luck and perseverance—turned out to result in a major scientific discovery,” Dr. Mosse, the granddaughter of an Orthodox Sephardic rabbi and a native of Potomac, MD, has said. She discovered the gene mutations that are the primary cause of the inherited version of neuroblastoma and that also play a significant role in high-risk forms of the more common, non-inherited type of the disease. These findings are helping to translate knowledge from the lab to new and, one day, curative ideas for patients—along with the possibility of new therapeutics, they also can offer noninvasive screening for patients with a history that suggests a genetic predisposition to developing neuroblastoma.

Steven A. Shapiro, MD
As an outspoken advocate for children, Dr. Steven A. Shapiro, better known as “Dr. Steve” to his patients, has testified before the PA State Legislature on matters involving unintentional childhood injury as a result of furniture manufacturing deficiencies and serves as a consultant to the Montgomery County Office of Children and Youth, focusing on medical evaluations of physically and sexually abused children. He has served the Commonwealth on several state and county committees and is a charter member of the Montgomery County Child Death Review Team and a crusader against childhood obesity. The founder of Pediatric Medical Associates in 1980, Steve has been chairman of the department of pediatrics at Abington Memorial Hospital (www.amh.org) since 2002. And since December 2008, with the support of AMH and the family of the late Dr. Corinne R. Santerian, a colleague who died at the age of 40, Dr. Shapiro has proudly served as medical director of the Corinne R. Santerian Newborn Center at two locations on the AMH campuses. The Center provides newborn services to both uninsured and underinsured families delivering at AMH to help them during this critical time of life.

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By Leslie Feldman

Our area is fortunate to have some of the most generous people in the country—people who are able to endow hospitals, schools and museums, who work to preserve our culture and our history and give those less fortunate access to a better, brighter future. In this issue of Chutzpah, we are adding to the rolls of these philanthropists the following 22 people whose amazing initiatives, compassion and dedication deserve recognition.

IN THE TRENCHES

Jay Spector
Jay Spector, president and CEO of JEVS Human Services, believes that everyone in the community deserves the chance to learn a skill and live life to the fullest, no matter what obstacles they face. For the past 30 years, Jay has devoted himself to JEVS (www.jevshumanservices.org), a nonprofit, nonsectarian social service agency offering skills training and career management, vocational rehabilitation, recovery services, adult residential and day services and in-home personal assistance to those most at-risk in the Jewish community, from kids to the elderly.  JEVS continues the traditions on which it was founded in 1941: strengthening the community for the most vulnerable, replicating best practice programs to reach more in need, maintaining its commitment to continuous improvement and ensuring quality in all they do and supporting the staff with the resources and tools they need to help clients overcome quality of life challenges. This is especially important these days when, says Jay, the demand for career and employment services has never been higher. With a budget of $72 million, JEVS operates more than 25 programs reaching 16,000 people a year. Jay is also the president of the Association of Jewish Federation Executives, the immediate past president of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, a past president of the Association of Jewish Vocational Professionals and a past vice-president of the International Association of Jewish Vocational Services.  He is currently a board member on the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia and serves in a variety of leadership roles in numerous other community activities.

Ricky Shechtel
For Ricky Shechtel, there is nothing more important than teaching children the meaning of tzedakah. Ricky is the founder of the JCYF, the Jewish Community Youth Foundation. As a longtime fundraiser in the areas of Jewish identity, education, outreach and social services here and abroad and as a mother of three, she felt it imperative to teach the next generation that you neither need to be wealthy or an adult to participate in making the world a better place. The concept of tikkun olam is one that resonates strongly within her family, and so JCYF (www.jfcsonline.org/jcyf.html) was born eight years ago. The program, administered by Jewish Family and Children’s Service (JFCS) of Princeton, teaches Jewish children in the Princeton community about tzedakah and tikkun olam, citing many Biblical and Talmudic sources in a wide ranging and constantly evolving curriculum that includes topics most might think of as the domain of adults— making site visits, understanding budgets and grant proposals and interviewing. Most importantly, the young people are empowered to provide matching funds (along with the local Federation) and learn invaluable skills to enable them to make informed and educated choices about Jewish philanthropy. To date, 250 teens in grades 8 to12 have completed the program and donated over $250,000 to 41 different Jewish programs. Each year a check presentation ceremony is held; last year Charles Bronfman came to participate in their “Inside the Philanthropists Studio” event, attended by over 750 community members. Next year’s ceremony will take place February 27, 2011 in Princeton.

Bebe Kivitz, Esq.
As a board member and former board president of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (www.philachildrensalliance.org), Bebe Kivitz works tirelessly on behalf of victims of child abuse in Philadelphia. As the former chief of the Child Abuse Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Bebe, an attorney in private practice at Troiani/Kivitz, LLP, recalls how child abuse victims had to be interviewed separately by the police, the Department of Human Services and others, forcing the children to recount the details of their abuse multiple times, often adding to their trauma. When the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (PCA) began in the 1990s, its forensic interviewers were able to offer one state-of-the-art interview of the victim, obviating the need for multiple interviews prior to trial as well as offer victim assistance services to the children and their non-offending parents. Twenty years later, PCA continues to help get justice for these young victims and begin the process of healing by conducting forensic interviews in a child-friendly location and continuing to provide support services. Bebe’s hope is to have PCA serve all child victims of abuse in Philadelphia, not just a percentage of them—an expensive undertaking that requires significant resources. The Bear Affair, held every April, is the organization’s largest fundraiser to help meet that goal.

Debra Rasansky
The new president of Golden Slipper Club & Charities (www.goldenslipperclub.org), Debra Rasansky first became involved with the charity 18 years ago at the suggestion of one of the physical therapists at her Main Line practice. She went to hear F. Lee Bailey speak and was hooked on the energy and passion of the organization that was started back in 1922 by a group of Jewish Masons who regularly socialized and played cards. They’d divide up their winnings and give them to families in need of money for food, coal and other essentials—acts of kindness that were the roots and the inspiration of Golden Slipper, which today has nearly 1,000 members. After her first experience, Debra remembers, “I wanted to be part of the people in that room…working with seniors, caring for the children at the overnight camp and helping the Jewish community in any way I could.” Debra has held several volunteer positions with Golden Slipper throughout the years including co-chair of their annual seder, when 600 seniors get together to celebrate the holiday, as well as being president of the charity’s Center for Seniors.

Sherrie Savett, Esq.
Philanthropy has been a cornerstone of attorney Sherrie Savett’s entire adult life. She is a vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and serves on its 29-member board of directors. Extremely active in the local and national leadership of State of Israel Bonds, she received The Spirit of Jerusalem Medallion, their highest honor, in 2005. Sherrie also is vice-chairperson of the board of the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, which teaches character development through stories of heroes throughout time and through art glass, which like liberty, democracy and free speech, is fragile and beautiful and needs to be protected. Professionally, she is chair of the securities department and managing principal of Berger & Montague, PC in Philadelphia. Shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in ’74, Sherrie became attracted to the class action practice, which she considers a David and Goliath battle of representing plaintiffs, usually individuals or small businesses, against large corporations who commit various types of fraud and violations of law. Her goal for the firm is to remain among the most effective plaintiff-oriented firms in the nation.

WHEN IT’S PERSONAL

Valerie and Michael Franklin
Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that today has no cure. It affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States. A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections, obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food. In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have enhanced and extended life for children and adults with CF. Many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond. Valerie and Michael Franklin are working tirelessly to see that their daughter Jessica and all of the others affected by this disease live long, full lives. Since Jessica’s diagnosis with CF in 1998 at the age of 3, Valerie and Michael have served on the board of directors of the Philadelphia chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (www.cff.org). They have been actively involved in the organization’s fundraisers including Evening with the Eagles and Great Strides Walk-A-Thon and chaired Game, Set, Cure. They have also organized Jessica’s Carnival of Fun, an annual event held at a local day camp in honor of their daughter. Valerie herself recently co-founded The Mitzvah Bowl, designed to help match bar and bat mitzvah students with community programs in need (see “Babe Mitzvahs” for more.)

David Halpern and Jan Albert
Golf is not only a passion for David Halpern and Jan Albert, but a way to raise funds for a disease close to both of their hearts. After David’s father Barry was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he took it upon himself to start a golf tournament to raise money toward finding a cure for and raising awareness of the disease. He joined forces with Jan Albert, an accomplished amateur golfer, whose mother had also fought Parkinson’s. Eleven years ago, they co-founded The Parkinson’s Golf Classic, the largest annual fundraiser for the Parkinson’s Council of Philadelphia (www.theparkinsoncouncil.org). Hundreds of players, sponsors, supporters and volunteers come together each summer in an effort to make a difference in people’s lives. The Council’s missions are to help find the cause and cure for Parkinson’s by providing financial support for research, educating patients, caregivers, health care professionals and the general public about Parkinson’s and improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Last year, the Council awarded $388,000 in grants to centers and research programs including those at Pennsylvania Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital, The University of Pennsylvania and The National Parkinson’s Foundation.

Len Weinstein
Recently honored as 2010 Komen Philadelphia Affiliate Volunteer of the Year, Len Weinstein’s work as a volunteer for the Philadelphia affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (www.komenphiladelphia.org) began more than three years ago, when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Len has become the organization’s “power male,” heading up initiatives that are most appealing to the male population, such as fundraisers with Philadelphia pro sports teams, colleges, police districts and more. He was the point man for the Affiliate’s entry into the male market and has served as the critical link and more—not only keeping the Affiliate and its mission top-of-mind among men, but also building their involvement as volunteers, fundraisers and communicators of breast health awareness messages. In addition, he continuously initiates new opportunities and relationships on behalf of the Affiliate, and not just those that relate to men—he is the first to volunteer for any event, ranging from the Pink Tie Ball to the breast cancer survivors’ lunch.

Blair Berger
As The SPOT (Space to be Proud, Open and Together) advisor at the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (www.plannedparenthood.org/ppsp/), Blair Berger is an advocate for equal rights in the community. The mission of The SPOT is to provide an environment where gay and lesbian young people, ages 14-21, can feel accepted and empowered, where sexual and gender identity can be embraced without fear of violence, harassment or judgment. The group promotes understanding and respect for all through education, support, advocacy, creative expression and friendship. The SPOT incorporates a mix of educational programs such as safer sex, coming out, marriage equality and relationships and organizes field trips, game nights, parent nights and guest speakers. Blair began as an intern in September 2008 for field experience credit from college. After graduating that December, with bachelor degrees in Psychology and Women’s Studies and training in Domestic Violence Advocacy she continued to volunteer as an advisor, and created a strong and trusting connection with the young people she helped. She has also served as a representative at Communities That Care meetings to spread the word about The SPOT being a great resource for gay and lesbian youth and recently organized an art exhibition to raise funds for the program.

Bernie Brody
Please describe Bernie Brody as 87 years young.  A two-time cancer survivor himself, Bernie volunteers weekly with The Wellness Community of Philadelphia (www.twcp.org), the nonprofit organization offering a wide menu of support services to people with cancer and their loved ones, including support groups, mind-body workshops, educational seminars, creative art studios, exercise classes and nutrition programs. Bernie, along with his wife Eleanore, started volunteering 17 years ago. He was recently honored with TWCP’s Medal of Courage, given to the participant who embodies the spirit of hope in the face of cancer and serves as an inspiration in the struggle to understand the impact of the disease. Though diagnosed with lymphoma 19 years ago and again about six months ago, Bernie never let his illness get him down, saying, “I anxiously wait to come here as much as a night watchman waits for the dawn. While I stuff envelopes, make phone calls or send out program calendars for TWCP, I think of the people I’m helping.”  Among the social programs Bernie has participated in, a standout is Jokefest where he led the pack with his jokes that he told from memory. From holiday parties to lending a hand with public relations by posing in TWCP’s keepsake book, “Images of Community, Voices of Hope,” his biggest involvement has been as a volunteer, week in, week out, the longest on a continuing basis of any of TWCP volunteer. He also helps keep up the spirits of patients at Lankenau Hospital’s Cancer Center and has volunteered at other nonprofits around the city for years.

THE GROUND-BREAKERS

Kay and Fred Lokoff
The Lokoffs began the Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation (www.tllccf.org) in August 1986 following their daughter Terri’s tragic death in an automobile accident.  This was their way of keeping her spirit alive, honoring her memory and continuing the work that she passionately believed in—teaching. As a teacher, Terri felt a tremendous responsibility and knew the hard work that comes with providing the quality educational and emotional support so important to children.  She was aware that the first years in a child’s life shape the future. The mission of the Foundation named after her is to improve the quality of childcare for all children.  This is accomplished through its many programs including The National Child Care Teacher Awards™, the Lois B. Cohan Museums to Go program and the Child Care Center Enhancement Grants. Since 1987, the Foundation has given more than $2.5 million in direct grants and awards to child care centers, teachers and providers to improve programs and enhance classroom curriculum.

Mitch Chanin
In 2001, together with a few other activists and community leaders, Mitch Chanin founded the Jewish Dialogue Group (www.jewishdialogue.org) in response to crises that he saw unfolding in Jewish communities as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated. JDG’s mission is to create programs and materials that empower Jewish people to understand one another and strengthen relationships across differences, explore complex political, ethical, emotional and intellectual questions, clarify their views and seek common ground in a safe, mediated environment—it is a conduit to repair rifts and provide urgently needed physical spaces for reflection and exploration. As executive director, Chanin leads carefully structured dialogue programs in synagogues, colleges and other venues to encourage intimate, non-adversarial conversation in small groups. JDG also empowers people to lead dialogues of their own by training facilitators, creating publications and providing advice. Its facilitator guidebook is used by rabbis, student activists and other leaders. Mitch’s goal is to make JDG resources available to everyone who needs them, across North America, in Israel and in other locations as well. Future plans include disseminating its programs and materials more widely, expanding and strengthening the facilitator network and training other organizations’ leaders to conduct dialogue programs for themselves. JDG is also completing a new “guide for deliberation” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Linda Ayre
It took a lot of chutzpah to turn trash into treasure, but that’s exactly what Linda Ayre did as founding president of Yardley-based Quilts for Kids, Inc.  In August 2000, while placing an order for a design client of hers, Linda discovered thousands of pounds of discontinued fabric samples being tossed into a Philadelphia landfill.  It bothered her to see this very expensive decorator fabric going to waste. She asked the owners of the various fabric companies to donate the discards and started a charity to turn them into patchwork quilts and wheelchair and walker bags for children with life-threatening illnesses. Ten years later, Quilts For Kids (www.quiltsforkids.org) saves millions of pounds of fabric from landfills and fashions them into items for children in need, gifting them with a handmade quilt to hold onto while going through chemotherapy and other medical treatments, surgery and testing.  This year, with a partnership with Proctor & Gamble and the Downy Touch of Comfort program, Quilts for Kids has been able to reach even more children who are experiencing long hospital stays.

Sharon Snyder
Sharon Snyder has a very personal connection to Kisses For Kyle (www.kissesforkyle.org), of which she is founder and president. Her first son Kyle was diagnosed with leukemia just three weeks shy of his second birthday. After a very courageous eight-month battle, Kyle lost his young life. The family had a memorial fund in Kyle’s name shortly after he passed away, but after a few years of raising funds for other organizations, Sharon realized she needed to find a loving and healthy way to honor her child every day. She began the organization, the Kisses for Kyle Foundation, in 2001 as a means to keep Kyle present in this world and help other local families going through what her family once did. A main goal for the Foundation is to help alleviate massive financial burdens put on families due to the hardship and diagnosis of childhood cancer. Another mission is to put a smile on the faces of local children with cancer and their families by providing services such as hosting celebratory and birthday parties, inviting families to special events, providing sporting event and other tickets and having a gift giving program to provide items requested by the children it helps. To date, the Kisses for Kyle Foundation has raised over $400,000.

Andrea Green, MCAT
Using music not just to entertain, but also to teach tolerance is what composer, lyricist and music therapist Andrea Green’s work is all about. As the founding director of Musicals for Kids by Andrea Green (www.andreagreenmusicals.com), Andrea has created fourteen works that teach tolerance and understanding, starting in 1983 with the musical On the Other Side of the Fence, a therapeutic, theatrical, integrated arts vehicle to bring diverse groups of children together as partners and friends, specifically students from the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy and students from Germantown Friends School. Designed to feature every child with the group/cast remaining a constant support from beginning to end, the musical serves as common ground for a shared arts experience. Using metaphor through story, lyrics and music, youngsters are able to relate to the characters and to each other, exploring and expressing their feelings of commonality and difference and enabling them look into themselves as they participate as equal partners and integral members of a group. “With the goals of increasing sensitivity, understanding, communication, tolerance and respect between children, these unique musicals and the experiences they provide to young performers and the audiences they reach out to eliminate prejudice, bullying and the alienation that many, many youngsters confront in the world today,” explains Andrea. The musicals are available to be performed in schools and theaters nationally and internationally by licensing through Samuel French, Inc.

MEDICAL MARVELS

Marisa C. Weiss, MD
Helping those with breast cancer is a life calling for Dr. Marisa Weiss, founder, president and guiding force behind the Ardmore, PA-based nonprofit Breastcancer.org, the world’s most trafficked online resource for medically-reviewed breast health and breast cancer information. Many of the international visitors to her website might not realize that she is a breast cancer oncologist at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, PA and regarded as a visionary for her innovative and steadfast approach to informing, empowering and treating patients with breast cancer—it was 20 years ago that she started her other nonprofit, Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), dedicated to providing a compassionate network of support to women and their families throughout their breast cancer diagnoses. Dr. Weiss served on the National Cancer Institute Director’s Consumer Liaison Group from 2000 to 2007, and Philadelphia magazine honored her with the 2005 cover story of their “Top Doc” issue for her excellence in practice of breast radiation oncology and for her innovative educational video, “Doctor, Doctor, Lend Me Your Ear: An Up-Close Look at the Patient-Doctor Relationship.” She is also a professional advisory board member of Mommy’s Light Lives On and The Philadelphia Wellness Community.

Joseph Friedberg, MD

On behalf of his patients, Dr. Friedberg fights some of the most difficult cancers every day. As the chief of thoracic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System-Presbyterian (www.pennmedicine.org/presby), the very hospital where he was born, the Harvard and Mass General trained surgeon focuses 95 percent of his practice on treating pleural cancers, those that affect the lining of the chest cavity and primarily mesothelioma, one of the deadliest cancers with an average survival of less than a year. He spearheaded the development of a lung sparing operation that combines with photodynamic therapy and laser based cancer treatment and chemotherapy. “With what we are doing our median survival is currently in the three year range, an unusually good result for this terrible cancer, especially with a lung sparing operation,” he says. “These are difficult operations, some of them taking me up to 14 hours, but our results also focus on doing an operation that preserves quality of life.” Dr. Friedberg started the Penn Mesothelioma and Pleural Diseases program, where he is the surgical director.  This is a multidisciplinary program for treating these types of cancers and is unique in the United States at this time.  His laboratory research is primarily focused on developing better and less invasive treatments.  He is working on an autologous tumor vaccine (a vaccine made with the patient’s own cancer) for mesothelioma as well as the use of rare earth nano phosphors—tiny inert particles that can generate light in response to different kinds of energy like the coating on the inside of old TV screens, he explains—and using those particles for both cancer detection and cancer treatment. With over 100 different inventions, he has about ten patents pending for different concepts ranging from surgical instruments and devices to cancer vaccines to a new way to type blood.

Yael Mosse, MD
As a pediatric oncologist at the Cancer Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (www.chop.edu), Dr. Mosse, who attended medical school in Tel Aviv, is focused in the area of neuroblastoma, cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. One of the least understood forms of childhood cancer, it begins in the nerve tissues of infants and young children. “When I started as a fellow with Dr. John Maris, who is the premier expert in neuroblastoma, I found it intriguing to learn there were families with a history of the cancer. I decided to investigate this, and what had started as a side project—with luck and perseverance—turned out to result in a major scientific discovery,” Dr. Mosse, the granddaughter of an Orthodox Sephardic rabbi and a native of Potomac, MD, has said. She discovered the gene mutations that are the primary cause of the inherited version of neuroblastoma and that also play a significant role in high-risk forms of the more common, non-inherited type of the disease. These findings are helping to translate knowledge from the lab to new and, one day, curative ideas for patients—along with the possibility of new therapeutics, they also can offer noninvasive screening for patients with a history that suggests a genetic predisposition to developing neuroblastoma.

Steven A. Shapiro, MD
As an outspoken advocate for children, Dr. Steven A. Shapiro, better known as “Dr. Steve” to his patients, has testified before the PA State Legislature on matters involving unintentional childhood injury as a result of furniture manufacturing deficiencies and serves as a consultant to the Montgomery County Office of Children and Youth, focusing on medical evaluations of physically and sexually abused children. He has served the Commonwealth on several state and county committees and is a charter member of the Montgomery County Child Death Review Team and a crusader against childhood obesity. The founder of Pediatric Medical Associates in 1980, Steve has been chairman of the department of pediatrics at Abington Memorial Hospital (www.amh.org) since 2002. And since December 2008, with the support of AMH and the family of the late Dr. Corinne R. Santerian, a colleague who died at the age of 40, Dr. Shapiro has proudly served as medical director of the Corinne R. Santerian Newborn Center at two locations on the AMH campuses. The Center provides newborn services to both uninsured and underinsured families delivering at AMH to help them during this critical time of life.

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By Leslie Feldman Our area is fortunate to have some of the most generous people in the country—people who are able to endow hospitals, schools and museums, who work to preserve our culture and our history and give those less fortunate access to a better, brighter future. In this issue of Chutzpah, we are adding [...]

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By Leslie Feldman Our area is fortunate to have some of the most generous people in the country—people who are able to endow hospitals, schools and museums, who work to preserve our culture and our history and give those less fortunate access to a better, brighter future. In this issue of Chutzpah, we are adding [...]

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By Len Canter

Sometime long ago an enlightened soul realized that there isn’t a situation in life that couldn’t be improved by making a joke about it…and he was probably a Jew.

Jewish humor has always defined American comedy. Look at any list of top comics and you’ll find that it’s also a Who’s Who of Jewish humor. So it should come as no surprise that 70 percent of anyone’s top list—an inordinately large share for a group that makes up such a small percentage of the population—have at least one thing in common: Jewish heritage. “Better to laugh than cry” advises an old Yiddish proverb. “Suffer and give in…or laugh about it” proffers another.
“Look at Jewish history,” says Mel Brooks. “Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters.”

While not everyone will agree with all the names that made our list and while it   is admittedly not inclusive of every deserving performer, our group is, as the butcher used to say to my mother, “guaranteed all lean and no fat.” Here then our choices for most groundbreaking Jewish comics, each of whom has perfected his or her own schtick and shares a trait we can all agree on—having the chutzpah to put it out there.

Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg, 1935- )
Allen built his stand-up act portraying a schlemiel, lamenting on his shortcomings and unfailing bad luck in relationships with women. Following a stint as a scriptwriter for the Tonight Show, Allen established himself as a headliner, with a nebbishy persona and a gift for instant one-liners often inspired by his Jewish identity. After coming into his own as a playwright (Don’t Drink The Water and Play It Again, Sam—both were stage plays before they were movies), Allen began his distinguished film career as a writer, director and actor, garnering nearly every award and distinction available, including 14 Oscar nominations for screenplays and six for directing. The envy of his peers, Allen has rarely been required to submit scripts for prior studio approval. The titles of his dialogue-heavy films are synonymous with highbrow comedy, often poking fun at pretentious institutions and pseudo-intellectuals. Allen’s best films, including Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death, Zelig and the immortal Annie Hall, are replete with memorable characterizations (Fielding Melish) and classic scenes (being fitted for a suit by arguing Jewish robot tailors), all products of the Jewish experience.

“I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe, when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.”

Roseanne Barr (1952- )
Her off-key butchering of the national anthem on TV put her in the public doghouse for a bit, but the bawdy and brassy comedienne earned lots of laughs doing stand-up on HBO specials as she perfected her “domestic goddess” persona—the trailer trash housewife queen who struggled with the annoyances of paying bills and raising kids. The long-running Roseanne sitcom earned her an Emmy and later a career as a Hollywood power broker.

“If, by the time my husband comes home at night, the kids are still alive, I’ve done my job.”

Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky, 1894-1974)
A master entertainer with violin in hand, Benny’s jokes revolved around being tight with his money and somehow perpetually remaining 39 years old. With perfect comedic timing, the vain yet lovable skinflint could get a laugh with a single deadpan expression and his trademark comment, an exasperated “Well…” Benny always returned to a few time-tested gags throughout a long career spanning from vaudeville to TV. The most popular: When a robber would threaten him with “your money or your life,” Benny would slowly respond, “I’m thinking.”

“A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks, following a big schmuck dressed like a kid.”

Milton Berle (Milton Berlinger, 1908-2002)
The wisecracking, “cigaahh” chomping comedian became TV’s first superstar in a career that spanned silent film, radio and movies. The host of Texaco Star Theater, audiences howled at his outlandish costumes (he often appeared in women’s gowns) and slapstick sight gags. Berle earned the nickname “Mr. Television”—the popularity of the show forced restaurants and theaters to adjust their schedules so audiences would not miss the Tuesday evening program. Berle’s visual, manic style adapted easily for another generation at the movies in vehicles like “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” As the recipient of nearly every lifetime showbiz award and tribute and as a frequent master of ceremonies, “Uncle Miltie” never neglected his Jewish comedy roots, never failing to remind his audiences that “Anytime a person goes into a deli and orders a pastrami on white bread…somewhere a Jew dies.”

Mel Brooks (Melvin Kaminsky, 1926- )
A writer, director, actor and producer, whose work was labeled as “too Jewish” by Hollywood moguls, went on to be one of only three artists to win an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony in his career. Honing his brand of traditional Jewish humor into parody and farce as a stand-up in the Borscht Belt, Brooks later wrote for Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Brooks teamed with Carl Reiner to create one of the all-time comedy routines, starring as the smart alecky Jewish curmudgeon in the wildly successful 2000 Year Old Man skits that spawned five record albums. His spy spoof, Get Smart, was one of the most successful TV shows of the mid-’60s. Brooks’ broad film farces, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers (both versions, 33 years apart), are always in top movie comedy lists.

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger…Comedy is when you walk into a sewer and die.”

Lenny Bruce (Leonard Schneider, 1925-1966)
An iconic, groundbreaking and always controversial stand-up and satirist, Bruce pioneered the irreverent “anything goes” free association comedy, a tradition later carried on by George Carlin and Richard Pryor. His profanity-laced monologues and mordant jabs at religion and politics made him the first of the so-called “sick” comics and pushed the limits of First Amendment rights, which resulted in numerous arrests on obscenity charges. His encounters with the police and the courts then became the theme of Bruce’s uncensored club routines. By the time of his death from a heroin overdose, he had been blackballed from clubs and TV, effectively ending his career. His 1961 Carnegie Hall concert on vinyl and his autobiographical book, How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, reveal his take on a variety of taboo subjects and Jewish angst to contemporary audiences.

“The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.”

Isaac Sidney “Sid” Caesar (1922- )
The mercurial “Emperor of Comedy” learned to mimic the Russian émigrés that frequented his parents’ restaurant, giving rise to his hallmark doubletalk, rendered in hilarious phony foreign dialects. His pure buffoonery and array of exaggerated facial expressions made Caesar arguably the premier sketch comedian during the 1950s golden age of television. Star of Your Show of Shows and later Caesar’s Hour—live TV featuring madcap sketches that often parodied high brow culture, Caesar delighted audiences with his outrageous characterizations from the German Professor (a mock authority on everything) to the storyteller Somerset Winterset. Caesar later appeared in a number of popular films including It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie and Grease.

“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot…the guy who invented the other three—he was a genius.”

Jean Carroll (Celine Zeigman, 1911-2010)
While virtually unknown today, this very popular comedian of the ’40s and ’50s opened the door for all the future female comedians from Phyllis Diller to Joan Rivers. When she broke in, nightclubs were not considered “fit” places for “ladies,” and female comedians traditionally played the foil for a headlining male counterpart. With ready wit and impeccable timing, Carroll broke the barrier by headlining solo. Everything about her was a radical innovation: She was attractive and glamorous, appearing on stage in evening wear and diamonds, obliterating the notion that female comics had to be ugly and self-deprecating. Incorporating routines considered risqué at the time, Carroll’s observational humor poked fun at traditional suburban families as she described being driven crazy by spouse and kids. Carroll was a familiar sight in the ’50s, appearing over 20 times on the Ed Sullivan Show (at the time a true mark of consistency), eventually hosting her own The Jean Carroll Show. Standing proudly before an audience after Israel had been declared a state in 1948, she quipped, “I’ve always been proud of the Jews, but never so proud as tonight…because tonight I wish I had my old nose back.”

Richard Cheese (Mark Davis, 1966- )
Dressed in one of his patented Hawaii print tuxes, martini in hand and fronting his three-piece combo Lounge Against the Machine, the “hardest working Dick” in showbiz, Cheese performs to packed houses, belting out hilarious, cheesy lounge-style parodies of raunchy punk, rap and rock songs. When Cheese and his band give Billboard hits the Vegas treatment, U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday flawlessly turns into a mambo sung partly in Spanish with maybe even a few bars of Hava Nagila hidden in the back. His comic genius has fostered a cult following worldwide, not to mention enough material for eight albums.

Myron Cohen (1902-1986)
A master ethnic dialect comedian and raconteur, Cohen is regarded by many as the greatest Jewish storyteller. A garment salesman who became a headlining professional comic, Cohen is remembered for his slow, deliberate delivery, large ears and facial expressions. While he spoke perfect English, he perfected the ethnic accents of New York Jews for his comedy act, which often poked fun at immigrants.

Husband: “I just bought 4 white walled tires for practically nothing!”
Wife: “What the hell’s a matter with you? You don’t have a car!”
Husband: “What the hell’s a matter with you—you wear brassieres!

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971- )
Despite accusations from critics that his work is often anti-Semitic, Cohen was raised in a very religious Jewish environment. A graduate of Cambridge, his thesis explored Jewish involvement in the American civil rights movement. The creation of his alter ego characters Ali G, Bruno and Borat propelled him to cult status and recognition as one of the most provocative, groundbreaking comics of the last decade. Ali G, “voice of da youth” and host of the Da Ali G Show, a clueless, boorish, hip-hop wannabe, flustered many unwitting subjects from Newt Gingrich to James Baker III in contrived interviews. Afraid to look “uncool,” they were all lured by Ali G’s sincere manner into making hilariously embarrassing statements on what they thought was a real interview show. Cohen created Bruno, a caricatured Austrian TV reporter from “Gay TV,” to put homophobic guests on the spot, and Borat, the Kazakhstani anti-Semite speaking a mixture of affected Polish and Hebrew to steer his foils into exposing their own prejudices. Cohen won a Golden Globe as Best Actor for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit, quipping, “This movie was a life changing experience…thank you to every American who has not sued me so far.”

William Edward “Billy” Crystal (1948- )
The irreverent yet affable, quintessential Jewish comic graduated from the downtown comedy clubs in NYC to a starring role as TV’s first openly gay character, Jodie Dallas on Soap. On Saturday Night Live, “You look mahvelous” was born, introduced by his character Fernando, the smarmy talk show host, and became a permanent entry in the pop culture lexicon. Crystal is known for stand-up featuring dead-on celebrity impressions, which included Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell and Sammy Davis, Jr. His iconic movie role in When Harry Met Sally earned him a Golden Globe nomination; he later garnered another for City Slickers. Crystal’s Jewish background is never disguised—his acclaimed one-man show, 700 Sundays, explores Jewish family life as he experienced it growing up on Long Island, while his film Mr. Saturday Night pays sentimental homage to the pioneer comics of the Borscht Belt era. Crystal’s off-the-cuff wit made him the perfect—and arguably the most popular at eight times—host of the Academy Awards.

“In high school I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is, the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at a football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.”

Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen, 1921-2004)
The bug-eyed Jewish everyman, nervously mopping his brow and tugging at his tie, was one of the last one-liner stand-ups from the classic mold of Jewish humor. His iconic “I don’t get no respect,” being the butt of his own joke monologues and his plaintive expressions made him a nightclub, TV and movie headliner for decades. Belligerent—“I haven’t spoken to my wife in years…I didn’t want to interrupt her,” neurotic—“I could tell my parents hated me…my bath toys were a toaster and a radio,” he honed his craft on Ed Sullivan and the Tonight Show before opening his own club, Dangerfield’s in NYC, which became a showcase for young comics. His classic film performance as the rich Jewish slob, Al Czervik in Caddyshack (entering a waspy country club with an Asian friend, Al says, “I hear this place is restricted, Wang, so don’t tell them you’re Jewish, OK?”) stole the show and made him a movie star appearing in audience favorites Back To School and Easy Money.

Robert Klein (1942-)
Furthering the evolution of contemporary, observational stand-up, Klein produces high energy comedy and comment drawn from what he sees as the absurdity of everyday life, often recalling childhood experiences ranging from “school lunch ladies” to “civil defense drills.” Accompanied by his lone prop, a harmonica, his monologues portray him as a hip yet simple guy caught up in the vagaries of the ever-changing modern world. Getting a break on Second City TV led to the first ever appearance by a comedian on an HBO special, during which he was free to use a full range of uncensored language, at times stopping just to shout out a four-letter word because he could, then continuing with his now classic “I can’t stop my leg…” routine. Much of his best material involved Richard Nixon and Watergate and the most popular of his wry routines became the core of his classic albums, Child of the Fifties and Mind Over Matter. A veteran of film, movies and Broadway (he received kudos for the long-running They’re Playing Our Song), the raspy-voiced Klein is still moving that leg for a new generation.

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch, 1926- )
Juvenile nonsense and brilliant. A love-him-or-hate-him legacy has followed this critically underappreciated genius, often hailed (especially in Europe) as the “King of Comedy” and decorated with not one, but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Like Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, Lewis is one of the few who has produced, directed, written and starred in his own films. His fledgling nightclub act with suave, straight-man crooner Dean Martin became a national phenomenon in the early 1950s and led to a run of 13 movies, in which Lewis perfected his cache of bizarre antics, funny voices and facial contortions, exemplified in the scene from The Stooge in which Lewis leans from a balcony and yells, “Hey, laaaady!” Following the act’s demise, Lewis embarked on his own storied movie career. Films like The Errand Boy, The Nutty Professor (regarded as his masterpiece), Disorderly Orderly and Family Jewels (Lewis played seven different roles) gave him the creative freedom to unleash his inventive visual gags and outrageous brand of slapstick. Critics pointed to the juvenile nature of a Lewis gag—he pushes a button and off goes an alarm that won’t stop or he pulls a thread and an entire garment unravels. But audiences for the most part loved them and him, and Lewis went on to appear in over 50 films. As host since 1966 of the Labor Day MDA telethon and the winner of numerous lifetime industry awards, Lewis remains a force in Hollywood to this day.

“I’ve had great success being an idiot…and get paid for what most kids get punished for.”

Richard Lewis (1947- )
The kvetching “Prince of Pain,” clad in all black with his hand pressed to his forehead, brought Jewish neurosis and misery to a new level in stand-up. Lewis, honored among his peers as a “comics’ comic,” has had audiences rollicking for over 40 years as he frets, suffers and endures in his virtuoso, freeform routines that cover any number of angst ridden subjects. When all is said and done, Lewis may be best remembered for coining the now oft used phrase “the ___ from hell,” into which he inserted date, roommate or any other aspect of his life causing him grief or annoyance. His “concerts from hell” on HBO, I’m Exhausted and the aptly named I’m Doomed, earned him ACE nominations, and his ’95 Magical Misery Tour was critically acclaimed. Recently the self-avowed world-class hypochondriac has been playing himself on Larry David’s popular HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“My grandmother was a Jewish juggler…she used to worry about six things at once.”

The Marx Brothers: Groucho (Julius, 1890-1977), Chick-o (Leonard, 1887-1961), Harpo (Adolph, 1888-1964), Gummo (Milton, 1893-1977) and Zeppo (Herbert, 1901-1979)
The sons of Jewish immigrants who appeared in vaudeville as teens refined their act for a sensational run on Broadway where, it is said, their very presence induced laughter. Their bizarre, free-for-all scripts pioneered the screwball comedy genre and laid the foundation for their incredibly madcap feature films, five of which the American Film Institute lists among the top 100 of all time. The brothers used the stage to perfect their comedic timing—many of their movie gags had been well rehearsed and re-worked on the boards for years. Each brother had a distinct persona onscreen: Groucho, the master punster, with his trademark greasepaint moustache, stooped walk and ever present cigar; Chick-o, in organ grinder’s costume with his fake Italian accent and distorted logic; Harpo, the mayhem-creating mute who chased girls while honking a bicycle horn; and Zeppo, the preppy straight man often cast as the romantic lead (Gummo left the act before they hit Broadway and worked behind the scenes during their films years). Their chaotic and still popular films, including Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, Monkey Business, A Day at the Races, Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts, often departed from the original scripts for hilarious ad-libbed, anarchic slapstick, each with its own unforgettable scenes that continue to survive the test of time.

“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”—Groucho

Jackie Mason  (Yacov Moshe Maza, 1936- )
An ordained rabbi at 25, Mason resigned to become a cantankerous, politically incorrect one-man tour de force on Broadway in shows like the Tony award winning The World According To Me. A favorite act on Ed Sullivan, mixing quick, Yiddish-accent tinged one-liners accompanied by wild gestures, he was banned from the networks for a while after giving Ed the finger on live TV. By the time of his comeback, he had turned into the ultimate Jewish comic, never mincing words as he explored the differences between gentile and Jewish culture. Mason went on to have great success on stage with a succession of six shows, all written and performed solo. Younger audiences know him as the voice of Rabbi Hyman Krustofski on The Simpsons. A tough-as-nails showman, Mason has endured his share of criticism for alleged racism; nonetheless he continues to play packed houses.

“Jewish girls aren’t interested in oral sex…an oral surgeon maybe!”

Don Rickles (1926- )
“Hello Dummy.” No one, regardless of race, creed or color, escaped the verbal taunts of this ultimate put-down artist. As a young comedian, Mr. Warmth, as he was facetiously dubbed, found that his audiences responded better to his ad-libbed caustic retorts to hecklers than to his prepared material. Thus was born the king of the insult comics. A staple on the Tonight Show as both a guest and host, his smirk and rapid fire insults launched a career that included movie roles (Sgt. “Crapgame” in Kelly’s Heroes), appearances on numerous sitcoms, Hollywood Squares and Dean Martin roasts and, more recently, as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story. Rickles loved to needle his Rat Pack pals like Sinatra, who faithfully returned for more at his SRO shows in Vegas, where “The Merchant of Venom” inevitably greets audience members with his trademark, “Whaddaya lookin’ at, ya hockey puck!”

Joan Rivers (Joan Alexandra Molinsky, 1933- )
“Can we talk?” is the opening line always associated with the brassy, acerbic, raspy-voiced comedienne turned talk show host, who threw a brick in the glass ceiling for women stand-ups. As a gag writer for Phyllis Diller, Rivers learned how to joke about sex with a candor that most women comics had never attempted. Mentored by Johnny Carson during her years as a more or less “permanent guest,” she parlayed her “bitch patter” into her own Late Show where she got laughs using her sharp wit and her ingénue quality to poke fun at herself and her Jewish culture.

“I’m Jewish…I don’t work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.”

Mort Sahl (1927- )
The legendary comic was the godfather of intellectual comedy. Sahl’s dry, ultra-hip humor was drawn from newspaper headlines—his jokes were not just traditional one-liners, but pointed observations often delivered without real punchlines. At the top of his game, Sahl was just as likely to appear on college campuses as nightclubs, dressed in his trademark slacks and sweater and always carrying his rolled up newspaper. More than anyone, Sahl is responsible for creating the brand of current event driven political humor that comics like Jon Stewart, the half-Jewish Bill Maher and most late night hosts use so successfully today.

“Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Nixon couldn’t tell the truth and Reagan can’t tell the difference.”

Adam Sandler (1966- )
The lovable and often vulgar goofball comic and SNL mainstay by way of Opera Man and Canteen Boy, has an ever loyal fan base and has made it big at the box office with a string of movies including The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, You Don’t Mess With Zohan and The Longest Yard. But with all that and more, Sandler would make our list just for the Hollywood name-dropping, instant holiday classic Hanukah Song he wrote and performs with his band, The Driedels, now in its third incarnation.

“…So drink your gin-and-tonic-ah, and smoke your mara-juaninc-ah,
If you really, really wanna-kah, have a happy, happy Hanukah!”

Jerome Allen “Jerry” Seinfeld (1954- )
Among contemporary comics Seinfeld may best represent the life of the modern American Jew. His scriptwriting collaboration with Larry David created Seinfeld, the show “about nothing” that became a cultural phenomenon and the most successful sitcom since I Love Lucy. Seinfeld played a caricature of himself, a Superman-obsessed stand-up comic and straight man to the offbeat predicaments of his small circle of friends. Scripts seamlessly poked fun at Jewish culture, and nothing escaped Seinfeld’s observation and comment—one episode had Jerry’s neighbor Kramer perversely sneaking some lobster into an omelette made for Jerry’s girlfriend who keeps kosher. Many of Seinfeld’s creations have become iconic, from the famous “puffy” shirt (now part of a Smithsonian exhibit), the Soup Nazi and the phrase “yada, yada, yada” are just a few. “Not that there’s anything wrong with” Seinfeld, but he walked away from the show that TV Guide called the “greatest of all time” after a nine-year run and returned to stand-up and sold out concert tours. True to the Seinfeld soul, a much anticipated (and hysterical) “reunion” show with all original cast members was woven into many episodes of the last season’s Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David performing opposite his TV alter ego, George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander.

“Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from a woman—a little bit of support and a little bit of freedom.”

Sarah Silverman (1970- )
The sardonic and sexy “big S” bases much of her stand-up material on the Jewish experience and her caricature Jewish American princess persona.  Her video “I’m f***ing Matt Damon” and the clever “Great Schlep,” credited with wrapping up the grandparent demographic for President Obama in Florida, made her an “instant” internet sensation on YouTube even though she had already appeared in over 25 films and made many TV appearances. With her signature pause in delivery, Silverman commented on the U.S.–Iraq war:

“This is not the first time that Europe has been passive while a Jew-hating tyrant with a weird looking mustache killed the people by giving them gas…Obviously I’m talking about Chef Boyardee.”

Jon Stewart (Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, 1962- )
Host of the Emmy-award winning The Daily Show, Stewart has arguably become TV’s foremost (and hippest) political satirist. The smart-mouthed stand-up comedian with the impish grin has perfected delivering the “fake news,” mocking the absurdities of politics and popular culture while never shying away from dispensing quips on Jewish culture and stomping on Israeli politics.

Stewart on balancing his wife’s Catholicism with his Judaism: “We’re raising the children to be sad!”

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By Len Canter

Sometime long ago an enlightened soul realized that there isn’t a situation in life that couldn’t be improved by making a joke about it…and he was probably a Jew.

Jewish humor has always defined American comedy. Look at any list of top comics and you’ll find that it’s also a Who’s Who of Jewish humor. So it should come as no surprise that 70 percent of anyone’s top list—an inordinately large share for a group that makes up such a small percentage of the population—have at least one thing in common: Jewish heritage. “Better to laugh than cry” advises an old Yiddish proverb. “Suffer and give in…or laugh about it” proffers another.
“Look at Jewish history,” says Mel Brooks. “Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters.”

While not everyone will agree with all the names that made our list and while it   is admittedly not inclusive of every deserving performer, our group is, as the butcher used to say to my mother, “guaranteed all lean and no fat.” Here then our choices for most groundbreaking Jewish comics, each of whom has perfected his or her own schtick and shares a trait we can all agree on—having the chutzpah to put it out there.

Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg, 1935- )
Allen built his stand-up act portraying a schlemiel, lamenting on his shortcomings and unfailing bad luck in relationships with women. Following a stint as a scriptwriter for the Tonight Show, Allen established himself as a headliner, with a nebbishy persona and a gift for instant one-liners often inspired by his Jewish identity. After coming into his own as a playwright (Don’t Drink The Water and Play It Again, Sam—both were stage plays before they were movies), Allen began his distinguished film career as a writer, director and actor, garnering nearly every award and distinction available, including 14 Oscar nominations for screenplays and six for directing. The envy of his peers, Allen has rarely been required to submit scripts for prior studio approval. The titles of his dialogue-heavy films are synonymous with highbrow comedy, often poking fun at pretentious institutions and pseudo-intellectuals. Allen’s best films, including Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death, Zelig and the immortal Annie Hall, are replete with memorable characterizations (Fielding Melish) and classic scenes (being fitted for a suit by arguing Jewish robot tailors), all products of the Jewish experience.

“I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe, when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.”

Roseanne Barr (1952- )
Her off-key butchering of the national anthem on TV put her in the public doghouse for a bit, but the bawdy and brassy comedienne earned lots of laughs doing stand-up on HBO specials as she perfected her “domestic goddess” persona—the trailer trash housewife queen who struggled with the annoyances of paying bills and raising kids. The long-running Roseanne sitcom earned her an Emmy and later a career as a Hollywood power broker.

“If, by the time my husband comes home at night, the kids are still alive, I’ve done my job.”

Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky, 1894-1974)
A master entertainer with violin in hand, Benny’s jokes revolved around being tight with his money and somehow perpetually remaining 39 years old. With perfect comedic timing, the vain yet lovable skinflint could get a laugh with a single deadpan expression and his trademark comment, an exasperated “Well…” Benny always returned to a few time-tested gags throughout a long career spanning from vaudeville to TV. The most popular: When a robber would threaten him with “your money or your life,” Benny would slowly respond, “I’m thinking.”

“A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks, following a big schmuck dressed like a kid.”

Milton Berle (Milton Berlinger, 1908-2002)
The wisecracking, “cigaahh” chomping comedian became TV’s first superstar in a career that spanned silent film, radio and movies. The host of Texaco Star Theater, audiences howled at his outlandish costumes (he often appeared in women’s gowns) and slapstick sight gags. Berle earned the nickname “Mr. Television”—the popularity of the show forced restaurants and theaters to adjust their schedules so audiences would not miss the Tuesday evening program. Berle’s visual, manic style adapted easily for another generation at the movies in vehicles like “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” As the recipient of nearly every lifetime showbiz award and tribute and as a frequent master of ceremonies, “Uncle Miltie” never neglected his Jewish comedy roots, never failing to remind his audiences that “Anytime a person goes into a deli and orders a pastrami on white bread…somewhere a Jew dies.”

Mel Brooks (Melvin Kaminsky, 1926- )
A writer, director, actor and producer, whose work was labeled as “too Jewish” by Hollywood moguls, went on to be one of only three artists to win an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony in his career. Honing his brand of traditional Jewish humor into parody and farce as a stand-up in the Borscht Belt, Brooks later wrote for Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Brooks teamed with Carl Reiner to create one of the all-time comedy routines, starring as the smart alecky Jewish curmudgeon in the wildly successful 2000 Year Old Man skits that spawned five record albums. His spy spoof, Get Smart, was one of the most successful TV shows of the mid-’60s. Brooks’ broad film farces, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers (both versions, 33 years apart), are always in top movie comedy lists.

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger…Comedy is when you walk into a sewer and die.”

Lenny Bruce (Leonard Schneider, 1925-1966)
An iconic, groundbreaking and always controversial stand-up and satirist, Bruce pioneered the irreverent “anything goes” free association comedy, a tradition later carried on by George Carlin and Richard Pryor. His profanity-laced monologues and mordant jabs at religion and politics made him the first of the so-called “sick” comics and pushed the limits of First Amendment rights, which resulted in numerous arrests on obscenity charges. His encounters with the police and the courts then became the theme of Bruce’s uncensored club routines. By the time of his death from a heroin overdose, he had been blackballed from clubs and TV, effectively ending his career. His 1961 Carnegie Hall concert on vinyl and his autobiographical book, How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, reveal his take on a variety of taboo subjects and Jewish angst to contemporary audiences.

“The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.”

Isaac Sidney “Sid” Caesar (1922- )
The mercurial “Emperor of Comedy” learned to mimic the Russian émigrés that frequented his parents’ restaurant, giving rise to his hallmark doubletalk, rendered in hilarious phony foreign dialects. His pure buffoonery and array of exaggerated facial expressions made Caesar arguably the premier sketch comedian during the 1950s golden age of television. Star of Your Show of Shows and later Caesar’s Hour—live TV featuring madcap sketches that often parodied high brow culture, Caesar delighted audiences with his outrageous characterizations from the German Professor (a mock authority on everything) to the storyteller Somerset Winterset. Caesar later appeared in a number of popular films including It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie and Grease.

“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot…the guy who invented the other three—he was a genius.”

Jean Carroll (Celine Zeigman, 1911-2010)
While virtually unknown today, this very popular comedian of the ’40s and ’50s opened the door for all the future female comedians from Phyllis Diller to Joan Rivers. When she broke in, nightclubs were not considered “fit” places for “ladies,” and female comedians traditionally played the foil for a headlining male counterpart. With ready wit and impeccable timing, Carroll broke the barrier by headlining solo. Everything about her was a radical innovation: She was attractive and glamorous, appearing on stage in evening wear and diamonds, obliterating the notion that female comics had to be ugly and self-deprecating. Incorporating routines considered risqué at the time, Carroll’s observational humor poked fun at traditional suburban families as she described being driven crazy by spouse and kids. Carroll was a familiar sight in the ’50s, appearing over 20 times on the Ed Sullivan Show (at the time a true mark of consistency), eventually hosting her own The Jean Carroll Show. Standing proudly before an audience after Israel had been declared a state in 1948, she quipped, “I’ve always been proud of the Jews, but never so proud as tonight…because tonight I wish I had my old nose back.”

Richard Cheese (Mark Davis, 1966- )
Dressed in one of his patented Hawaii print tuxes, martini in hand and fronting his three-piece combo Lounge Against the Machine, the “hardest working Dick” in showbiz, Cheese performs to packed houses, belting out hilarious, cheesy lounge-style parodies of raunchy punk, rap and rock songs. When Cheese and his band give Billboard hits the Vegas treatment, U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday flawlessly turns into a mambo sung partly in Spanish with maybe even a few bars of Hava Nagila hidden in the back. His comic genius has fostered a cult following worldwide, not to mention enough material for eight albums.

Myron Cohen (1902-1986)
A master ethnic dialect comedian and raconteur, Cohen is regarded by many as the greatest Jewish storyteller. A garment salesman who became a headlining professional comic, Cohen is remembered for his slow, deliberate delivery, large ears and facial expressions. While he spoke perfect English, he perfected the ethnic accents of New York Jews for his comedy act, which often poked fun at immigrants.

Husband: “I just bought 4 white walled tires for practically nothing!”
Wife: “What the hell’s a matter with you? You don’t have a car!”
Husband: “What the hell’s a matter with you—you wear brassieres!

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971- )
Despite accusations from critics that his work is often anti-Semitic, Cohen was raised in a very religious Jewish environment. A graduate of Cambridge, his thesis explored Jewish involvement in the American civil rights movement. The creation of his alter ego characters Ali G, Bruno and Borat propelled him to cult status and recognition as one of the most provocative, groundbreaking comics of the last decade. Ali G, “voice of da youth” and host of the Da Ali G Show, a clueless, boorish, hip-hop wannabe, flustered many unwitting subjects from Newt Gingrich to James Baker III in contrived interviews. Afraid to look “uncool,” they were all lured by Ali G’s sincere manner into making hilariously embarrassing statements on what they thought was a real interview show. Cohen created Bruno, a caricatured Austrian TV reporter from “Gay TV,” to put homophobic guests on the spot, and Borat, the Kazakhstani anti-Semite speaking a mixture of affected Polish and Hebrew to steer his foils into exposing their own prejudices. Cohen won a Golden Globe as Best Actor for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit, quipping, “This movie was a life changing experience…thank you to every American who has not sued me so far.”

William Edward “Billy” Crystal (1948- )
The irreverent yet affable, quintessential Jewish comic graduated from the downtown comedy clubs in NYC to a starring role as TV’s first openly gay character, Jodie Dallas on Soap. On Saturday Night Live, “You look mahvelous” was born, introduced by his character Fernando, the smarmy talk show host, and became a permanent entry in the pop culture lexicon. Crystal is known for stand-up featuring dead-on celebrity impressions, which included Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell and Sammy Davis, Jr. His iconic movie role in When Harry Met Sally earned him a Golden Globe nomination; he later garnered another for City Slickers. Crystal’s Jewish background is never disguised—his acclaimed one-man show, 700 Sundays, explores Jewish family life as he experienced it growing up on Long Island, while his film Mr. Saturday Night pays sentimental homage to the pioneer comics of the Borscht Belt era. Crystal’s off-the-cuff wit made him the perfect—and arguably the most popular at eight times—host of the Academy Awards.

“In high school I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is, the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at a football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.”

Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen, 1921-2004)
The bug-eyed Jewish everyman, nervously mopping his brow and tugging at his tie, was one of the last one-liner stand-ups from the classic mold of Jewish humor. His iconic “I don’t get no respect,” being the butt of his own joke monologues and his plaintive expressions made him a nightclub, TV and movie headliner for decades. Belligerent—“I haven’t spoken to my wife in years…I didn’t want to interrupt her,” neurotic—“I could tell my parents hated me…my bath toys were a toaster and a radio,” he honed his craft on Ed Sullivan and the Tonight Show before opening his own club, Dangerfield’s in NYC, which became a showcase for young comics. His classic film performance as the rich Jewish slob, Al Czervik in Caddyshack (entering a waspy country club with an Asian friend, Al says, “I hear this place is restricted, Wang, so don’t tell them you’re Jewish, OK?”) stole the show and made him a movie star appearing in audience favorites Back To School and Easy Money.

Robert Klein (1942-)
Furthering the evolution of contemporary, observational stand-up, Klein produces high energy comedy and comment drawn from what he sees as the absurdity of everyday life, often recalling childhood experiences ranging from “school lunch ladies” to “civil defense drills.” Accompanied by his lone prop, a harmonica, his monologues portray him as a hip yet simple guy caught up in the vagaries of the ever-changing modern world. Getting a break on Second City TV led to the first ever appearance by a comedian on an HBO special, during which he was free to use a full range of uncensored language, at times stopping just to shout out a four-letter word because he could, then continuing with his now classic “I can’t stop my leg…” routine. Much of his best material involved Richard Nixon and Watergate and the most popular of his wry routines became the core of his classic albums, Child of the Fifties and Mind Over Matter. A veteran of film, movies and Broadway (he received kudos for the long-running They’re Playing Our Song), the raspy-voiced Klein is still moving that leg for a new generation.

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch, 1926- )
Juvenile nonsense and brilliant. A love-him-or-hate-him legacy has followed this critically underappreciated genius, often hailed (especially in Europe) as the “King of Comedy” and decorated with not one, but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Like Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, Lewis is one of the few who has produced, directed, written and starred in his own films. His fledgling nightclub act with suave, straight-man crooner Dean Martin became a national phenomenon in the early 1950s and led to a run of 13 movies, in which Lewis perfected his cache of bizarre antics, funny voices and facial contortions, exemplified in the scene from The Stooge in which Lewis leans from a balcony and yells, “Hey, laaaady!” Following the act’s demise, Lewis embarked on his own storied movie career. Films like The Errand Boy, The Nutty Professor (regarded as his masterpiece), Disorderly Orderly and Family Jewels (Lewis played seven different roles) gave him the creative freedom to unleash his inventive visual gags and outrageous brand of slapstick. Critics pointed to the juvenile nature of a Lewis gag—he pushes a button and off goes an alarm that won’t stop or he pulls a thread and an entire garment unravels. But audiences for the most part loved them and him, and Lewis went on to appear in over 50 films. As host since 1966 of the Labor Day MDA telethon and the winner of numerous lifetime industry awards, Lewis remains a force in Hollywood to this day.

“I’ve had great success being an idiot…and get paid for what most kids get punished for.”

Richard Lewis (1947- )
The kvetching “Prince of Pain,” clad in all black with his hand pressed to his forehead, brought Jewish neurosis and misery to a new level in stand-up. Lewis, honored among his peers as a “comics’ comic,” has had audiences rollicking for over 40 years as he frets, suffers and endures in his virtuoso, freeform routines that cover any number of angst ridden subjects. When all is said and done, Lewis may be best remembered for coining the now oft used phrase “the ___ from hell,” into which he inserted date, roommate or any other aspect of his life causing him grief or annoyance. His “concerts from hell” on HBO, I’m Exhausted and the aptly named I’m Doomed, earned him ACE nominations, and his ’95 Magical Misery Tour was critically acclaimed. Recently the self-avowed world-class hypochondriac has been playing himself on Larry David’s popular HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“My grandmother was a Jewish juggler…she used to worry about six things at once.”

The Marx Brothers: Groucho (Julius, 1890-1977), Chick-o (Leonard, 1887-1961), Harpo (Adolph, 1888-1964), Gummo (Milton, 1893-1977) and Zeppo (Herbert, 1901-1979)
The sons of Jewish immigrants who appeared in vaudeville as teens refined their act for a sensational run on Broadway where, it is said, their very presence induced laughter. Their bizarre, free-for-all scripts pioneered the screwball comedy genre and laid the foundation for their incredibly madcap feature films, five of which the American Film Institute lists among the top 100 of all time. The brothers used the stage to perfect their comedic timing—many of their movie gags had been well rehearsed and re-worked on the boards for years. Each brother had a distinct persona onscreen: Groucho, the master punster, with his trademark greasepaint moustache, stooped walk and ever present cigar; Chick-o, in organ grinder’s costume with his fake Italian accent and distorted logic; Harpo, the mayhem-creating mute who chased girls while honking a bicycle horn; and Zeppo, the preppy straight man often cast as the romantic lead (Gummo left the act before they hit Broadway and worked behind the scenes during their films years). Their chaotic and still popular films, including Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, Monkey Business, A Day at the Races, Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts, often departed from the original scripts for hilarious ad-libbed, anarchic slapstick, each with its own unforgettable scenes that continue to survive the test of time.

“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”—Groucho

Jackie Mason  (Yacov Moshe Maza, 1936- )
An ordained rabbi at 25, Mason resigned to become a cantankerous, politically incorrect one-man tour de force on Broadway in shows like the Tony award winning The World According To Me. A favorite act on Ed Sullivan, mixing quick, Yiddish-accent tinged one-liners accompanied by wild gestures, he was banned from the networks for a while after giving Ed the finger on live TV. By the time of his comeback, he had turned into the ultimate Jewish comic, never mincing words as he explored the differences between gentile and Jewish culture. Mason went on to have great success on stage with a succession of six shows, all written and performed solo. Younger audiences know him as the voice of Rabbi Hyman Krustofski on The Simpsons. A tough-as-nails showman, Mason has endured his share of criticism for alleged racism; nonetheless he continues to play packed houses.

“Jewish girls aren’t interested in oral sex…an oral surgeon maybe!”

Don Rickles (1926- )
“Hello Dummy.” No one, regardless of race, creed or color, escaped the verbal taunts of this ultimate put-down artist. As a young comedian, Mr. Warmth, as he was facetiously dubbed, found that his audiences responded better to his ad-libbed caustic retorts to hecklers than to his prepared material. Thus was born the king of the insult comics. A staple on the Tonight Show as both a guest and host, his smirk and rapid fire insults launched a career that included movie roles (Sgt. “Crapgame” in Kelly’s Heroes), appearances on numerous sitcoms, Hollywood Squares and Dean Martin roasts and, more recently, as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story. Rickles loved to needle his Rat Pack pals like Sinatra, who faithfully returned for more at his SRO shows in Vegas, where “The Merchant of Venom” inevitably greets audience members with his trademark, “Whaddaya lookin’ at, ya hockey puck!”

Joan Rivers (Joan Alexandra Molinsky, 1933- )
“Can we talk?” is the opening line always associated with the brassy, acerbic, raspy-voiced comedienne turned talk show host, who threw a brick in the glass ceiling for women stand-ups. As a gag writer for Phyllis Diller, Rivers learned how to joke about sex with a candor that most women comics had never attempted. Mentored by Johnny Carson during her years as a more or less “permanent guest,” she parlayed her “bitch patter” into her own Late Show where she got laughs using her sharp wit and her ingénue quality to poke fun at herself and her Jewish culture.

“I’m Jewish…I don’t work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.”

Mort Sahl (1927- )
The legendary comic was the godfather of intellectual comedy. Sahl’s dry, ultra-hip humor was drawn from newspaper headlines—his jokes were not just traditional one-liners, but pointed observations often delivered without real punchlines. At the top of his game, Sahl was just as likely to appear on college campuses as nightclubs, dressed in his trademark slacks and sweater and always carrying his rolled up newspaper. More than anyone, Sahl is responsible for creating the brand of current event driven political humor that comics like Jon Stewart, the half-Jewish Bill Maher and most late night hosts use so successfully today.

“Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Nixon couldn’t tell the truth and Reagan can’t tell the difference.”

Adam Sandler (1966- )
The lovable and often vulgar goofball comic and SNL mainstay by way of Opera Man and Canteen Boy, has an ever loyal fan base and has made it big at the box office with a string of movies including The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, You Don’t Mess With Zohan and The Longest Yard. But with all that and more, Sandler would make our list just for the Hollywood name-dropping, instant holiday classic Hanukah Song he wrote and performs with his band, The Driedels, now in its third incarnation.

“…So drink your gin-and-tonic-ah, and smoke your mara-juaninc-ah,
If you really, really wanna-kah, have a happy, happy Hanukah!”

Jerome Allen “Jerry” Seinfeld (1954- )
Among contemporary comics Seinfeld may best represent the life of the modern American Jew. His scriptwriting collaboration with Larry David created Seinfeld, the show “about nothing” that became a cultural phenomenon and the most successful sitcom since I Love Lucy. Seinfeld played a caricature of himself, a Superman-obsessed stand-up comic and straight man to the offbeat predicaments of his small circle of friends. Scripts seamlessly poked fun at Jewish culture, and nothing escaped Seinfeld’s observation and comment—one episode had Jerry’s neighbor Kramer perversely sneaking some lobster into an omelette made for Jerry’s girlfriend who keeps kosher. Many of Seinfeld’s creations have become iconic, from the famous “puffy” shirt (now part of a Smithsonian exhibit), the Soup Nazi and the phrase “yada, yada, yada” are just a few. “Not that there’s anything wrong with” Seinfeld, but he walked away from the show that TV Guide called the “greatest of all time” after a nine-year run and returned to stand-up and sold out concert tours. True to the Seinfeld soul, a much anticipated (and hysterical) “reunion” show with all original cast members was woven into many episodes of the last season’s Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David performing opposite his TV alter ego, George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander.

“Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from a woman—a little bit of support and a little bit of freedom.”

Sarah Silverman (1970- )
The sardonic and sexy “big S” bases much of her stand-up material on the Jewish experience and her caricature Jewish American princess persona.  Her video “I’m f***ing Matt Damon” and the clever “Great Schlep,” credited with wrapping up the grandparent demographic for President Obama in Florida, made her an “instant” internet sensation on YouTube even though she had already appeared in over 25 films and made many TV appearances. With her signature pause in delivery, Silverman commented on the U.S.–Iraq war:

“This is not the first time that Europe has been passive while a Jew-hating tyrant with a weird looking mustache killed the people by giving them gas…Obviously I’m talking about Chef Boyardee.”

Jon Stewart (Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, 1962- )
Host of the Emmy-award winning The Daily Show, Stewart has arguably become TV’s foremost (and hippest) political satirist. The smart-mouthed stand-up comedian with the impish grin has perfected delivering the “fake news,” mocking the absurdities of politics and popular culture while never shying away from dispensing quips on Jewish culture and stomping on Israeli politics.

Stewart on balancing his wife’s Catholicism with his Judaism: “We’re raising the children to be sad!”

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By Len Canter Sometime long ago an enlightened soul realized that there isn’t a situation in life that couldn’t be improved by making a joke about it…and he was probably a Jew. Jewish humor has always defined American comedy. Look at any list of top comics and you’ll find that it’s also a Who’s Who [...]

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By Len Canter Sometime long ago an enlightened soul realized that there isn’t a situation in life that couldn’t be improved by making a joke about it…and he was probably a Jew. Jewish humor has always defined American comedy. Look at any list of top comics and you’ll find that it’s also a Who’s Who [...]

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August 15, 2011

I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking Republican Party support while advocating Tea Party positions on major issues, e.g., reducing or eliminating entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and slashing federal government expenditures.

Candidates like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) have been described by some observers of the political scene as wackos or crazies.  I think those views are now changing.  I must admit here that I have used those words in describing the views of some candidates, but I won’t anymore.  The eight participants in the debate handled themselves extremely well.  While I was not persuaded by their arguments and views and remain a Democrat supporting many Democratic programs, I can well understand why they and their supporters demand changes in federal programs along the lines advocated by Tea Party philosophy.  Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, coming in one percentage point ahead of Ron Paul.  Tim Pawlenty came in third and has withdrawn from the race.

Liberal philosophy has adopted the Keynesian position that in times of recession and depression, government must prime the pump and spend its way out to achieve better times.  The Tea Party view and that of the Conservative government of David Cameron in Great Britain adheres to the old-fashioned view that my mom often expressed:  “You don’t spend money you don’t have.”  That was my view when I was mayor of New York City and in my personal life.  I have two credit cards.  I have never paid charges on either of them over and above my actual purchases.  I am one of those customers the credit card companies hate and may lose money on, if they are dependent on the usurious rates of interest they receive from those using their credit cards as access to bank loans.

When I was Mayor, I supported then and do now a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) balanced budget imposed by the state legislature requiring New York City to limit its operating budget to what was reasonable to expect the City to receive the year of the adopted budget.  The Tea Party believes in a balanced budget for the U.S. and wants to enact it into law by the adoption of a constitutional amendment.  Liberals are horrified with the idea.  My mother would have loved it.  It seems to me to make sense, provided there is an exception when the U.S. is at war.

We were a lower-middle class family when I grew up in Brooklyn.  Perhaps even poorer than we thought.  My father made $65 a week.  Our rent in Flatbush in 1941 was $65 a month – the then accepted ratio – and my parents were able to lead a reasonably decent lifestyle, bringing up three children and sending them to college.  I believe my parents values would be described as politically liberal.  Early on in my political career, I referred to myself as a liberal with sanity.

Mr. President, the country we all love is hurting enormously, with huge unemployment.  Isn’t it possible to create work programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and spend monies on infrastructure for bullet trains, repairing roads and bridges that are falling down and other truly needed capital programs by creating what we don’t have now – a separate capital budget (which states and cities have) that would permit borrowing and pay the cost of a capital item over its expected life, instead of maintaining the single unified budget which the U.S. currently has?  I am not an economist, but shouldn’t that be considered?  The need for jobs with our unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent is universally accepted.

People everywhere are asking why don’t you call the Congress back from their unearned vacations to address the huge problems now facing the nation.  You can still win back the support of the public by publicly setting forth in detail your plan to address these enormous problems.  It should be a plan fashioned not on consensus, but your plan and if your political adversaries oppose it, so be it.  Then you must go over their heads to the vast public, appealing to its common sense, asking them to support you.  Take your plan into the next election and make your proposed programs the referendum on which the public will be voting in the presidential election of 2012.

Remember what Harry Truman did in 1948 with the do nothing Congress?  While Harry Truman is my political hero, you are far more eloquent than he was.  You can bring the nation to your side if you convince people that what you are asking them to do is to join hands in self-sacrifice, sharing the nation’s burden proportionately to their economic status.  We are a generous nation, a patriotic nation, a nation like no other in our diversity.  Today, we are so divided and feel leaderless.  You can bring us together and lead us to the promised land.

Mr. President, doesn’t it appear strange to you that the war in Afghanistan has been going on for ten years and this month of August, we have already sustained 51 deaths there?  We spend billions annually on the military budget.  Indeed, our military budget is equal in the aggregate to the military budgets of the next 17 nations.  I suspect the Taliban spends less than $10 million on its military, maybe $50 million annually, and yet, they have fought us to a standstill.  Shouldn’t we be getting out this year, instead of waiting for 2014, or as appears to be the case, staying permanently in a land where the people hate us?

Mr. President, we have been in Iraq for eight years.  We have spent hundreds of billions fighting the insurgents in Iraq.  Probably over a trillion dollars for the two wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – that are bleeding us, killing and injuring our young soldiers, ripping off the billions we send to rebuild their country, while our people are suffering in an economic crisis.  Within the past week, Iraq’s premier aligned Iraq with Syria and Iran, our declared enemies.  Syria is now engaged in killing its own citizens, shooting them down in the streets of Hama and other cities.  Does it make sense that you criticize Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and now our supposed ally, the new Iraq, is supporting the butcher of Syria?  While he is doing that, The Times reports we are negotiating with Iraq to stay past the end of this year with no date set for our leaving.

We are told Iraq needs our soldiers to protect it until Iraqi soldiers become able to do so.  Mr. President, what happened to the Iraqi soldiers’ ability?  That army eight years ago was the terror of the region.  Mr. President, our country is hurting.  Please take the actions needed to assure us someone is in charge.

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August 15, 2011

I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking Republican Party support while advocating Tea Party positions on major issues, e.g., reducing or eliminating entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and slashing federal government expenditures.

Candidates like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) have been described by some observers of the political scene as wackos or crazies.  I think those views are now changing.  I must admit here that I have used those words in describing the views of some candidates, but I won’t anymore.  The eight participants in the debate handled themselves extremely well.  While I was not persuaded by their arguments and views and remain a Democrat supporting many Democratic programs, I can well understand why they and their supporters demand changes in federal programs along the lines advocated by Tea Party philosophy.  Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, coming in one percentage point ahead of Ron Paul.  Tim Pawlenty came in third and has withdrawn from the race.

Liberal philosophy has adopted the Keynesian position that in times of recession and depression, government must prime the pump and spend its way out to achieve better times.  The Tea Party view and that of the Conservative government of David Cameron in Great Britain adheres to the old-fashioned view that my mom often expressed:  “You don’t spend money you don’t have.”  That was my view when I was mayor of New York City and in my personal life.  I have two credit cards.  I have never paid charges on either of them over and above my actual purchases.  I am one of those customers the credit card companies hate and may lose money on, if they are dependent on the usurious rates of interest they receive from those using their credit cards as access to bank loans.

When I was Mayor, I supported then and do now a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) balanced budget imposed by the state legislature requiring New York City to limit its operating budget to what was reasonable to expect the City to receive the year of the adopted budget.  The Tea Party believes in a balanced budget for the U.S. and wants to enact it into law by the adoption of a constitutional amendment.  Liberals are horrified with the idea.  My mother would have loved it.  It seems to me to make sense, provided there is an exception when the U.S. is at war.

We were a lower-middle class family when I grew up in Brooklyn.  Perhaps even poorer than we thought.  My father made $65 a week.  Our rent in Flatbush in 1941 was $65 a month – the then accepted ratio – and my parents were able to lead a reasonably decent lifestyle, bringing up three children and sending them to college.  I believe my parents values would be described as politically liberal.  Early on in my political career, I referred to myself as a liberal with sanity.

Mr. President, the country we all love is hurting enormously, with huge unemployment.  Isn’t it possible to create work programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and spend monies on infrastructure for bullet trains, repairing roads and bridges that are falling down and other truly needed capital programs by creating what we don’t have now – a separate capital budget (which states and cities have) that would permit borrowing and pay the cost of a capital item over its expected life, instead of maintaining the single unified budget which the U.S. currently has?  I am not an economist, but shouldn’t that be considered?  The need for jobs with our unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent is universally accepted.

People everywhere are asking why don’t you call the Congress back from their unearned vacations to address the huge problems now facing the nation.  You can still win back the support of the public by publicly setting forth in detail your plan to address these enormous problems.  It should be a plan fashioned not on consensus, but your plan and if your political adversaries oppose it, so be it.  Then you must go over their heads to the vast public, appealing to its common sense, asking them to support you.  Take your plan into the next election and make your proposed programs the referendum on which the public will be voting in the presidential election of 2012.

Remember what Harry Truman did in 1948 with the do nothing Congress?  While Harry Truman is my political hero, you are far more eloquent than he was.  You can bring the nation to your side if you convince people that what you are asking them to do is to join hands in self-sacrifice, sharing the nation’s burden proportionately to their economic status.  We are a generous nation, a patriotic nation, a nation like no other in our diversity.  Today, we are so divided and feel leaderless.  You can bring us together and lead us to the promised land.

Mr. President, doesn’t it appear strange to you that the war in Afghanistan has been going on for ten years and this month of August, we have already sustained 51 deaths there?  We spend billions annually on the military budget.  Indeed, our military budget is equal in the aggregate to the military budgets of the next 17 nations.  I suspect the Taliban spends less than $10 million on its military, maybe $50 million annually, and yet, they have fought us to a standstill.  Shouldn’t we be getting out this year, instead of waiting for 2014, or as appears to be the case, staying permanently in a land where the people hate us?

Mr. President, we have been in Iraq for eight years.  We have spent hundreds of billions fighting the insurgents in Iraq.  Probably over a trillion dollars for the two wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – that are bleeding us, killing and injuring our young soldiers, ripping off the billions we send to rebuild their country, while our people are suffering in an economic crisis.  Within the past week, Iraq’s premier aligned Iraq with Syria and Iran, our declared enemies.  Syria is now engaged in killing its own citizens, shooting them down in the streets of Hama and other cities.  Does it make sense that you criticize Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and now our supposed ally, the new Iraq, is supporting the butcher of Syria?  While he is doing that, The Times reports we are negotiating with Iraq to stay past the end of this year with no date set for our leaving.

We are told Iraq needs our soldiers to protect it until Iraqi soldiers become able to do so.  Mr. President, what happened to the Iraqi soldiers’ ability?  That army eight years ago was the terror of the region.  Mr. President, our country is hurting.  Please take the actions needed to assure us someone is in charge.

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August 15, 2011 I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking [...]

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August 15, 2011 I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking [...]

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.

By Len Canter

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.

By Len Canter

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants [...]

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants [...]

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If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and $5 (and they are nowhere more overpriced than at Maison du Chocolat, albeit a bastion of silken ganache and other treats, but still…), it seemed almost worth the drive in from my hinterlands in CT…until I remembered that gas is $4 a gallon and a round trip is about 7 gallons, best case scenario.

Just to show you how reality can never keep pace with trendy, macarons are already considered passé in some dessert circles. But still many people haven’t heard of, much less tasted a macaron, so it’s understandable that the New York Times would announce the freebie in the food section last Wednesday and then report on the events in today’s paper. The reporter even took the time to explain that a macaron is not a macaroon as in Passover coconut cookie macaroon. HOWEVER, I have two salient points to make. 1. One “o” or two, these are perfect for Passover because almonds substitute for flour the same way coconut does and 2. We are privileged to include Joan Nathan’s recipes for a variety of flavors here and in the new issue of Chutzpah.

Like the chocolate-covered ganache Chanukah gelt we brought you in our last issue, you can make this on your own. Don’t worry about the cracks the Times warns of. Having had the original at Laduree in Paris and those at Pierre Herme and other Jean-come lately’s, I can assure you that yours will melt in your mouth as easily as theirs. Of course, you haven’t really lived until you’ve sat down and eaten an entire box (as I typically do after begging any family member and friend who visits Paris to bring them back to me).  If you’ve got the money for shipping, you can now get them from Florian Bellanger’s madmacnyc.com, he of Fauchon in Paris, Le Bernardin in NYC and most recently Cupcake Wars. And they’re reasonably priced. Don’t scoff at the rose flavor until you try it. Sublime!

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If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and $5 (and they are nowhere more overpriced than at Maison du Chocolat, albeit a bastion of silken ganache and other treats, but still…), it seemed almost worth the drive in from my hinterlands in CT…until I remembered that gas is $4 a gallon and a round trip is about 7 gallons, best case scenario.

Just to show you how reality can never keep pace with trendy, macarons are already considered passé in some dessert circles. But still many people haven’t heard of, much less tasted a macaron, so it’s understandable that the New York Times would announce the freebie in the food section last Wednesday and then report on the events in today’s paper. The reporter even took the time to explain that a macaron is not a macaroon as in Passover coconut cookie macaroon. HOWEVER, I have two salient points to make. 1. One “o” or two, these are perfect for Passover because almonds substitute for flour the same way coconut does and 2. We are privileged to include Joan Nathan’s recipes for a variety of flavors here and in the new issue of Chutzpah.

Like the chocolate-covered ganache Chanukah gelt we brought you in our last issue, you can make this on your own. Don’t worry about the cracks the Times warns of. Having had the original at Laduree in Paris and those at Pierre Herme and other Jean-come lately’s, I can assure you that yours will melt in your mouth as easily as theirs. Of course, you haven’t really lived until you’ve sat down and eaten an entire box (as I typically do after begging any family member and friend who visits Paris to bring them back to me).  If you’ve got the money for shipping, you can now get them from Florian Bellanger’s madmacnyc.com, he of Fauchon in Paris, Le Bernardin in NYC and most recently Cupcake Wars. And they’re reasonably priced. Don’t scoff at the rose flavor until you try it. Sublime!

Start uga_filter:

If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and [...]

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If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and [...]

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