Beren Academy is not the first Jewish day school to find itself in a Shabbat-related predicament at the end of the season. Many Jewish day schools are part of sports leagues with other private schools that are willing to accommodate the Jewish school’s commitment to observing the Jewish Sabbath during the regular season and not…
Tamir Goodman, known as “The Jewish Jordan,” made national headlines in the late 1990s when he decided not to play for the University of Maryland because they wouldn’t adjust their schedule to meet his Sabbath observance. Sports Illustrated even reported on Tamir’s decision to play for Towson State in 1999. However, a few years later…
NBA basketball players got a much longer summer vacation than they expected because of the lockout. It feels odd to have gone through the entire month of November without any professional basketball games to watch. So what have these NBA stars been doing with their newly found free time? NBA player Jordan Farmar has been…
There have been several former NBA players who have gone on to play for Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club. However, I can’t think of any players to do so while in the middle of an NBA contract. Sacramento Kings player Omri Casspi has announced that he may return to his former team in Israel…
Urban Dictionary defines “Boomshakalaka” as “An onomatopoeic ‘in your face.’ Originally the sound of a slam-dunk in basketball — the “boom” being the dunk, and the “shakalaka” being the rattling of the backboard.” In the early years of ESPN, it was common to hear an ESPN personality throw out an energetic “boomshakalaka” when showing the…
Since commenting here about how the assassination attempt of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has brought the “Who Is a Jew” debate back into the spotlight, I have had some really intriguing conversations with colleagues about how we define Jewish status. A number of colleagues, including Rabbi Irwin Kula, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, Rabbi Alana Suskin, and…
Just because LeBron James started meeting with a rabbi this summer doesn’t mean he’s ready to be dispensing theological statements. I’ve been thinking a lot about LeBron’s statement via his Twitter feed last week about the Cleveland Cavaliers’ huge upset to the Lakers. In what has become known as the “Karma Tweet,” LeBron tweeted the…
I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten more attention, but on the Tablet Magazine website (a project of Nextbook) basketball fans are able to create their own starting lineup among the best Jewish-American Basketball players of all time. Tablet teamed up with FreeDarko, “the amazing five-year-old collective of basketball writers known for its wit, one-of-a-kind drawings, and…
In Judaism the number 613 is a lucky number associated with the number of positive and negative commandments that can be found in the Written Torah (Bible). So, when LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade line up to display their new Miami Heat jerseys, many Jews in the know can’t help but smile at…
I was interviewed by a reporter yesterday about this blog. He asked me how I decide what to write about. I explained that if it’s about a subject I’m interested in –like sports– and I can find a Jewish angle on the story, then I write about it. With some stories the Jewish angle is…