Calling the Shots on "The First Basket"

The First Basket is the first feature-length documentary film to examine the connections between basketball and modern Jewish history. It is my first film.

I like to joke that it could well be the greatest Jewish basketball documentary ever. When people respond by asking, "Is it the only one?" I immediately know that I don't want to have lunch with them.

When I used to tell my mother that I wanted to be a professional basketball player when I grew up, she would - like any good Jewish mother - encourage me by saying, "Lots of doctors play basketball on the weekends."

These jokes play on the scarcity of any similar works, and on the popular notion that Jewish people are not now, and in fact have never been, very athletic.

Even people who may know something about the history of Jewish basketball players are not aware of the significant themes I explore in my film. For example:

•During the first half of the 20th century, much of college and semi-pro basketball was dominated by Jewish players. In fact, basketball was considered the Jewish game.

•Jewish athletes and entrepreneurs played a major role in the evolution of professional basketball.

• Basketball is an essential part of modern Jewish history. It was the most popular sport in Jewish neighborhoods during the first half of the 20th century, and a core element of Jewish community life. As such, basketball was a major part of how the children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants became American.

This all sounds pretty significant and interesting, right? So how come it's not widely recognized?

For a few reasons. Firstly, whether it be Torah study or medical school, Jewish culture has always emphasized the cerebral over the physical.  This, in turn, has fed the most dominant stereotypical image of Jews, especially that of Jewish men. Consider that image: It's one of physical frailty and bookishness. Jewish sports history does not fit conveniently into this myth. Nor does the fact that in the 1920s and 1930s, Jews dominated not only basketball, but boxing.

The second reason is that sports history and social history have, until very recently, been largely two different schools. Things that make up popular culture have not traditionally been considered the stuff of serious academic exploration.

It is very apparent to me, however, that it is exactly the things that we love and do that impact the way that we interact with one another and shape the very nature of our society.

And the role that basketball and sports have played in modern Jewish history illustrates very clearly that we have been a very athletic people, and that this has played an import role in our development.

Not to take anything away from all of the great Jewish intellectual accomplishments throughout history, but the cerebral life of the Jewish people does not tell nearly the entire story. We have been a very physical people, and physical endeavors are an important part of Jewish history.

For kids of the early twentieth century, just like for kids today, one of the main ways of being like the other American kids is by participating in sports. So Sidney and his friends are going to play American sports.  And, because they live in a poor urban neighborhood - like Bensonhurst or the Lower East side or the Bronx - they don't have access to big open fields or expensive equipment. So they play this new sport that is spreading like wildfire in Jewish neighborhoods called basketball. So Sidney and his friends play basketball, and it becomes the most popular sport in Jewish neighborhoods. It becomes so popular with the kids that every social institution, from the settlement houses to the YMHAs, develop basketball programs. Sidney Vyorst eventually goes to college at the City University of New York, which has the most dominant basketball team in the world.

Let me give you two more examples: Sammy Kaplan in Brooklyn and Eddie Gottlieb in Philadelphia. Both are the children of immigrants, and both love basketball. In Brooklyn, Sammy Kaplan forms a club called the Dux at a Jewish boys' club in Bensonhust, and in Philadelphia, Eddie Gottlieb forms a basketball club at the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association that becomes known as the SPHAs, short for "South Philadelphia Hebrew All-Stars."

Both start these clubs at a very young age. In the process, both learn to form organizations, make by-laws and collect dues. Both collect money to print uniforms, both schedule games and make profits from ticket sales. In short, both learn about being American.  The Dux end up becoming one of the top semi-pro teams in the New York area, playing many of the top college and pro teams of the 1930s. Sammy Kaplan runs for and wins a New York State Assembly seat in 1948, largely on his fame as a local basketball hero. Eddie Gottlieb eventually takes the best Philadelphia SPHA players and forms the Philadelphia Warriors, one of the original NBA teams, who are today's Golden State Warriors.

On November 1, 1946, Ossie Schectman scored the first basket for the New York Knicks against the Toronto Huskies in the opening game of the fledgling Basketball Association of America (BAA).  Four out of five members of that Knicks team were Jewish. They were picked by the Knicks in order to bring in local fans because they were the local New York college stars of the day.

A few years later, the BAA became the NBA, and Shectman's shot is considered the first basket in the NBA. That shot is now eponymous to me.

There is an even deeper thought I wanted my film to convey. Although it is seeded throughout the film, I would rather the statement be more overt. In making this film, I came to know an obsession among Jewish basketball fans. I discovered a subculture of Jewish basketball throughout the United States. This includes not only Jewish Community Center and Synagogue leagues, but groups like the South Florida Basketball Fraternity, a group of retired players from the golden age of Jewish basketball. They have an annual luncheon and semi-monthly breakfasts. Sadly, their numbers are dwindling, but I was fortunate enough to film two of the annual luncheons and one of the breakfasts, and they are prominently featured in my film. Ossie Schectman, who scored this famous First Basket, is among their members. I also discovered similar groups in New York and Philadelphia. The thing that strikes me to this day is the way their members' eyes light up when they talk about basketball.

This deeper concept that I would like to make overt has something to do with the connections between the Jewish soul and basketball. Is there something in the DNA of each that makes them copasetic? My lead historian, Jeffrey Gurock, says that the analogue for basketball is the urban factory, because it is a team game where the players produce together, comparable to a garment shop. Thus, Jews of the early 20th felt a connection to their lives in the sport. While this may be true, the connection that I'm looking for runs deeper. There is a Talmudic maxim that posits that all Jews are responsible for one another. A sense of "team" has been hammered into the Jewish consciousness through centuries of persecution and exclusion.

The "city game" developed by Nat Holman at City College and epitomized by Red Holzman's New York Knicks in the late 1960s and early 1970s is, perhaps, the pinnacle of the type of basketball that is the essence of the team game. This is, in some metaphysical way, related to the intrinsic Jewish sense of community. Both of those teams were celebrated champions. One of the main roots of this style of basketball is the leagues formed in the Jewish settlement houses of the early twentieth century. Conversely, when superstars play too individualistically, the entire game suffers. In this light, the 2004 Olympic team had lost sight of its Jewish basketball values, and the results were demonstrable. In the 2008 Olympics, those values were clearly redeemed.

So, as many Jewish sports fans take particular pride in the contributions of Jewish basketball pioneers, the story is bigger and deeper than that.  This is about how a global American cultural institution was forged by the aspirations of immigrant kids. It is the story of how a game played by those kids with ash cans on tenement steps is now played all around the world. This is, in fact, the story of the American 20th Century. -MPM

www.thefirstbasket.com
Read MPM's movie review

The movie opens October 29th in New York and November 14th in Los Angeles.

Photos courtesy of the filmmaker.