Jewish 'dominance' in professional basketball, by Arieh Sclar

ABL owners wanted to leave behind the chaos and instability of Progressive-era professional basketball where players had more control over their production.  The Celtics had illustrated the importance of continuity in building team success.  Other teams adopted the contractual model that both intensified the commodification of players and provided a massive salary surge.  ABL owners attempted to challenge all aspects of local basketball cultures, including scheduling, ticket prices, and most importantly, fan loyalties.  In some cities, fans decried an ABL team’s “unpopular attendance charge” and the possibility that the league would “unfavorably affect the popularity of local basketball games.”[1]

The ABL used major league baseball as a model as owners sought to structure fan loyalty solely around the team.  Ethnic spectatorship had led New York baseball managers in the 1920s to hire Jewish players who would attract a specific audience.  Basketball teams had the opposite problem as ethnic identification competed with the local team identification that ABL owners desired.[2]  The Celtics had succeeded as a multi-ethnic team and its broad popularity meant it felt little pressure to change its internal structure.  For other independent teams, however, the ABL exerted a tremendous amount of influence to discard, at least to some extent, pre-ABL identities.

Teams in Rochester and Philadelphia altered their identifiably Jewish rosters in the ABL.  Rochester’s entry in the ABL, the Centrals, had formed at the Rochester YMHA in the 1900s and the team remained exclusively Jewish into the 1920s.  In the ABL, however, the Centrals included “players of other nationality on its roster, [though] it retains its Jewish identity.”[3]  In Philadelphia, promoter Eddie Gottlieb owned the Philadelphia Sphas (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association), a team that had emerged out of Philadelphia’s Jewish basketball culture in the late 1910s.  By the mid-1920s, many commentators considered the Sphas one of the top teams in professional basketball.  Yet, Gottlieb disbanded the Sphas and formed a new team called the Warriors, which included both Jews and non-Jews, as Philadelphia’s ABL team.[4]  In order to successfully compete in the ABL, Rochester and Philadelphia had to represent the entire city and overcome their traditional identification as ‘Jewish’ teams.

Other teams included Jews for other reasons.  In contrast to existing teams, a new team in Washington attracted Jewish fans by including recognizable players.  The Baltimore Jewish Times celebrated the inclusion of three local Jewish players on Washington’s ABL entry, including “’Lefty’ Stern [who] has abandoned college in favor of signing with the team.”[5]  The inclusion of three local Jews indicated that unlike Rochester, the newly-formed Washington team had to build a fan base from the ground up.  Cleveland owner, department store magnate Max Rosenblum who humbly named his team the Rosenblums as a cheap form of advertising, brought in Marty Friedman to serve as player-coach during the ABL’s first two years.  Friedman’s presence in Cleveland indicated the true character of the league.  Before he arrived in Cleveland, Friedman had played his entire 15-year professional career for northeastern teams.  Friedman’s skill and knowledge as an ‘old-timer,’ not his identity as a Jew, best served the Rosenblums as he led them to the first ABL championship.[6] 

The ABL provided a central location in which to examine the Jewish presence in basketball.  By the middle of the decade, many of ‘old-time’ players of the pre-war era had started to retire, and though a new infusion of Jewish talent began to trickle into the professional game, only Holman and teammate Davey Banks served as preeminent Jewish talents.  In the first two years of the ABL, Holman and Banks of the Celtics were joined by Washington coach Lou Sugarman, also from the lower East Side, as prominent Jewish representatives of the league.  In addition, Eddie Gottlieb owned and Jules Aaronson managed the Philadelphia Warriors.  According to historian Peter Levine, Jews made up 19 of 101 players on ABL rosters during the 1927-28 season.[7]  At a time when American Jews consisted of less than four percent of the American population, such a disproportionate number of Jews in the major professional basketball league would have legitimized the claims of Conzel, Joel, and other commentators that Jews ‘dominated’ basketball. 

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[1] The ABL owners suspended a Brooklyn player during the first season for playing with a non-ABL team during the season.  See “Brooklyn Basketball Star Suspended,” Washington Post, November 20, 1925. Quote from “Thru Sportdom,” Baltimore Jewish Times, September 19, 1926. On salaries, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 84-94.  Holman received an annual salary of $10,000 from the Celtics during the mid-1920s.

[2] For other Jewish professionals of the mid- to late 1920s, see “Jewish Sport Notes,” Philadelphia Jewish Times, January 15, 1926.  The column contained an “All-Jewish All-American” professional basketball team. Levine explained he used name identification.  See Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbet’s Field, 61.  Levine explained he used a similar method as Paula Fass in her book, Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

[3] Quote from Original Celtics Game Program, 1927-28, Nat Holman file, Edward and Gena Hickox Library at the Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, MA. The Rochester Centrals were mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, but strictly as a team that emerged from the Rochester YMHA, with no comment regarding its connection to the ABL.  See Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 91.

[4] For information on the Sphas, see Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 84, 91; Also see “Philadelphia Sphas” in Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States, eds. George B. Kirsch, Othello Harris, and Claire E. Nolte (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000), 360-361.  A group of young Jews formed the Combine Club as adolescents.  The members then competed for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, which eventually broke its affiliation with the team.  The kept the name and began to play in the Philadelphia League in the early 1920s.  The Sphas were first mentioned in Reach as a member of a local professional league and “the leading traveling club” of the city.  They were nicknamed the “Wandering Jews” by some locals. During the 1925-26 season, the Sphas defeated both the Original Celtics and an African-American team, the Harlem Renaissance in a special series.  The team included non-Jewish players during its participation in the Eastern League in the late 1920s.  The Warriors played two seasons in the ABL and then moved to the Eastern League.  See Abe Radel, “South Philadelphia Hebrew Association,” Reach Official Basketball Guide 1924-25 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1925).  On the Hakoahs and Warriors, see the files of Nat Holman and Eddie Gottlieb in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

[5] “Thru Sportdom: Basketball Again,” Baltimore Jewish Times, September 19, 1926.

[6] Friedman led Cleveland to the ABL’s first title, called the “world series” in 1925-26, the year before the Celtics joined.  On Friedman’s role with the Rosenblums, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 85-86. According to Albert Applin, Rosenblum was the true force behind the league.  Other owners included sport promoters like George Halas and George Marshall (both NFL owners) or business groups.  See Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 200-204.

[7] Levine, Ellis Island to Ebeet’s Field, 61.

Jewish Professionals in the 1920s, by Arieh Sclar

In the mid-1920s, Nat Holman received recognition as the coach of CCNY, a star for the Original Celtics, and as a prominent Jewish athlete.  The multi-ethnic identity of the Celtics contributed to the team’s popularity, and reflected the interwar sport culture that brought people of various backgrounds together.  Irish and German players joined Holman and Davey Banks, the team’s Jewish representatives.[1]  The Celtics’ barnstorming trips served as a unique attraction in places where few locals had seen quality basketball or had opportunities to identify with specific players.  Fan loyalties and identifications frequently crossed geographic boundaries and young American Jews who participated in the American sport culture had a strong desire to cheer for Jewish athletes.  Conscious of his status as a Jewish player on the Celtics, Holman explained that during barnstorming trips, “I was very much aware of the Jewish following that supported me in a number of cities on the circuit.  While I always played at my very best, I tried even harder when I knew the Jewish community was rooting for me.”[2]

Commentators had nominally noted basketball’s ethnic presence during the Progressive era, but the importance of group identification intensified as spectators gained more power in the 1920s consumer culture.  Reach noted that a Jewish team called the Danbury Separatists “enjoyed a prosperous season” in 1923 as “one of best attractions” in northeastern basketball.  The basketball guide believed that “the coming season is sure to find them supplanting that great old Roosevelt team that harbored players like Sedran and Friedman years ago in the hearts of Hebrew basketball lovers.”[3]  Danbury’s name did not identify it as a Jewish team, but knowledgeable basketball fans would have been aware of the team’s makeup.

Basketball’s growth in urban areas and among immigrant groups attracted both Jewish and non-Jewish entrepreneurs who sought to expand the sport’s scope.  Basketball promoters and commentators had discussed forming a ‘national’ basketball league in the 1910s and a national commission failed to control the various professional leagues of the northeast in the early 1920s.  In the middle of the decade, however, promoters formed the American Basketball League (ABL) as a ‘national’ league and attempted to reconstruct professional basketball into a mass, commercialized sport.[4]

The ABL attempted to turn basketball into a respectable sport.  The league banned profanity, used amateur rules, abandoned the ‘cage,’ and played its games in large urban arenas.  Moral condemnations of professional basketball declined as outright violence occurred less frequently.[5]  The ABL became the first league to serve as the pinnacle of a linear, though unstable, basketball hierarchy as a younger generation of former college players entered professional basketball.  Media attention remained fairly sparse, however, until the Celtics joined the league during its second season in 1926-27.[6]

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[1] On the Celtics, see Nelson, The Originals.  Neighborhoods, ethnic, racial, and religious groups, unions, department stores, and virtually every other type of organization developed athletic teams in order to participate in the broader athletic culture. Communal and ethnic identification during a fractious and anxious decade likely contributed to the situation.  Lizabeth Cohen explained that historians assumed consumption encouraged assimilation into mainstream society, but have provided little evidence.  She explained that there is evidence that during the Depression, mass culture united previously fractured ethnic and racial groups.  See Lizabeth Cohen, “Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots,” in Glickman, Consumer Society in American History, 147-162.

[2] Quote in Nelson, The Originals, 15-16.

[3] “Interborough Professional Basketball League of New York,” Reach Official Basketball Guide 1923-24 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1924).

[4] For information on the national commission and discussion of the need for a national league, which would standardize rules of professional basketball, see Introduction, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1921-22 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1922);  Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 194-196; Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 55. 

[5] As a ‘national’ league, the ABL had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Washington D.C., Rochester (N.Y.), Fort Wayne, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo. On the ban against profanity, see “’Oh, Pshaw,’ Limit in Epithets for Pro Fives; $10 a violation,” New York Times, December 31, 1927. For sporadic incidents of violence during basketball games, see “Celtics Win from Rosenblum Five, “New York Times, April 15, 1924; “Fist Fights as Jewels Defeat Celtics,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 26, 1932. Jewish players were involved in both fights as Marty Friedman and Nat Holman squared off in 1924 during a game played for U.S. Olympic fund under the auspices of the Mayor’s Committee on Municipal Athletic Activity.  The 1932 fight occurred during another fundraiser, this time for a retired player.

[6] “Youngsters Crowding Cage Pros,” Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1927.  The article describes the generational transfer within the professional game as “college-trained youngsters” began to replace “old-timers.” 

The Jewish Press praises the 'natural' Jewish basketball player, by Arieh Sclar

During the interwar period, syndicated sports columnists such as George Joel, Harry Conzel, and others wrote articles, columns, and annuals that appeared in a variety of Jewish newspapers.  Joel, for instance, wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), which had his columns, articles and annuals published in the Philadelphia Jewish Times and the Detroit Jewish Chronicle.[1]  These columnists merged the broad outlook of the distant and lionizing annuals with experiential content of local columns as they provided information on the accomplishments of well-known Jewish athletes and identified Jewish athletes to the readership.  They infrequently included non-elite athletes as evidence of Jewish athleticism, but these athletes rarely informed compilations beyond claims that “Americanized, practically every Jewish youngster participates in some sport or another.”[2] 

Jewish newspapers rarely contained sport pages, so readers in various cities often received their information on Jewish athletes from syndicated columnists.  Letters from readers countered claims of an athlete’s Jewish identity or the greatness of a team or individual, but few challenged the idea that “sport should be encouraged. It is a good school for life; it prepares us to will and to do.”[3]  Yet, some commentators noted that because of the annuals and columns, “the Jewish reader makes the inference that his strong brethren have conquered all the American sports and are equally successful at them all. …Can we, however, honestly claim that the Jewish athlete takes to all sports with the same degree of success?”[4] 

Most columnists asserted that Jews succeeded in basketball more than any other sport.  Outside of Nat Holman, the columnists generally emphasized the collective importance of Jewish basketball rather than individual players.[5]  Throughout the 1920s, columnists argued, “from a Jewish angle,” that basketball had become the “the king of sports.”  George Joel stated in his 1927 syndicated annual that, “it is hard to find a college team without at least one Jewish player on the squad.”[6]  The previous year, Harry Conzel boldly claimed, “it would be useless to list Jewish basketball players.  Collegiate and professional basketball teams all over the country contain almost a majority of Jews.”  As late as 1930, columnists continued to assert that in basketball, it remained “impossible to attempt to name the Jewish players. This is a sport that Jews dominate.”[7]

The perception of Jewish ‘dominance’ led columnists to ask “why Jewish athletes show such marked superiority in basketball above all other sports.”  This question “has puzzled the leading exponents of the game, although some advance the theory that their ability lies in their brainy playing and their uncanny accuracy in locating the basket.”[8]  In 1926, Conzel decided that since “it is a generally accepted fact that Jewish athletes dominate the sport of basketball,” he would make “a study of this puzzle.”  He concluded that, “basketball is the least dangerous sport.  Basketball requires more speed and rapid thinking than brute strength. …Basketball does not necessitate too rigorous training.  So there you are.  It is not an indictment against Jewish athletes; it is probably a tribute to their intelligence.”[9]

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[1] Oriard, King Football, 34.  According to Oriard, Joel published the first Jewish All-America football team in 1925.

[2] “Sports are in the Air,” American Hebrew, June 4, 1937.

[3] Harry Conzel, “Our Sport Column,” American Jewish World, January 30, 1925.

[4] “Jewish Sports Notes,” Philadelphia Jewish Times, December 18, 1925.

[5] Baseball allowed for more extensive examinations regarding the Jewish place in the sport and in-depth analysis regarding individual ability.  Hank Greenberg’s MVP award in 1935 was essential in representing his athleticism as a Jew.  Likewise, Barney Ross’ success as a boxer was never separated from his championships.

[6] “Thru Sportdom,” The Jewish Times, December 3, 1926.  Local papers across the country concentrated on the activities of clubs, institutions, and organizations that would never have garnered the attention of the Hebrew; George Joel, “The Year in Sports,” Philadelphia Jewish Times, September 30, 1927.  Joel had been a member of ZBT and wrote for the fraternity’s publications.

[7] Harry Conzel, “Jewish Athletes of the Year,” American Jewish World, September 3, 1926.  The annual stated that Conzel was the “foremost American authority on Jews in sports.” “The Year in Sport,” American Jewish World, September 19, 1930.

[8] Sidney S. Kluger, “An Account of Jewish Athletes as Jewish Stars,” American Jewish World, April 18, 1924.

[9] “Jewish Sports Notes,” Philadelphia Jewish Times, January 29, 1926.

'The Racial Traits of Athletes' - anti-Semitism in the 1920s, by Arieh Sclar

In 1922, the American Physical Education Review published a series of articles entitled “Racial Traits in Athletics.”  The author, non-Jewish physical educator Elmer Mitchell, wrote: “Nowhere, does it seem to me, can we find people closer and truer to their fundamental character than in their free and spontaneous play.”  The Eugenical News printed a summary of the series, which reinforced the dominant racial paradigm in American society.  Mitchell analyzed fifteen racial groups, although he arranged Latins, The South American, and The Oriental into broader classifications than the Irish, Greek, or Jew.  Mitchell explained that the ‘American’ athlete, “a composite of many races: conspicuously the English, Irish, German, and Scandinavian,” had become the “greatest in the world.”  Southern and eastern Europeans, however, “are less ready assimilable” than northern Europeans and they illustrated this on the athletic field.[1]

Mitchell believed that Jewish athleticism demonstrated Jews’ racial inferiority. “We see the same distaste of the Jew for outdoor life, his industry in the intellectual side of his pursuit, his subtlety in applying social or individual weakness to his own benefit, and his lack of moral sensitiveness.”  He explained that contradictory to public opinion, Jews possessed both physical and moral courage, although certain “distinctive qualities cling to the Jew when he participates in athletics.”  Sport did not change the Jewish temperament: “The average Jew is an unpopular team-mate; he is assertive, individualistic, and quarrelsome.”  Mitchell concluded that any observer would concur “by watching a group of Hebrew children on the playground.”  Even more disturbing, Jews’ ability to “face adverse circumstances” often manifested itself in “the villain role,” which he believed they seemed to enjoy.[2]

Mitchell’s imaged Jew remained physically inferior in the small immigrant body.  The Jew had vitality, caused by “clannishness,” sacred family ties, and adaptability to “the bustle and change of modern commercial life.”  This vitality was “a wonderful thing,” especially since sport did not produce the physical change many had expected. “The typical Jew is not robust in appearance,” explained Mitchell.  He used football to prove his point.  Only in “exceptional cases” do Jews star in this team sport, “where size plays so important a part.”  Yet, a small body could help Jews succeed in other sports.  “Along with boxing and dancing, gymnastics and basket ball are popular, all of them types of athletic exercise demanding dexterous footwork and dodging ability and carried on indoors.  Basket ball is easily their favorite sport.”

The unchanged Jewish body reflected, in Mitchell’s view, Jews’ unchanged intellectual ability that served as an advantage in the athletic world.  Jews retained their mental advantage as “quick thinkers, alert to grasp the strategy of the game, both of their own team and of their opponents.”  Yet, the intelligent Jew corrupted pure sport since his “individualistic tendency” produced “a spirit fostering the professional game, rather than the game which is played solely for the joy of participating.”[3]  Mitchell did not view Jewish athleticism in similar terms as Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent, but he attached negative characteristics to Jewish intelligence.  Mitchell believed that when Jews willingly participated in American sport, it resulted in professional or tricky behavior that reflected Jews’ racial inferiority. 

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[1] Elmer D. Mitchell, “Racial Traits in Athletics,” American Physical Education Review 27, no. 3 (March 1922), 93; The summary was in the Eugenical News 7 (1922).  Mitchell cited studies from Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, and other prominent eugenicists.  In the late 1910s, the APER included a permanent eugenics section under its monthly bibliography.

[2] Elmer D. Mitchell, “Racial Traits in Athletics,” American Physical Education Review 27, no. 5 (May 1922): 197.

[3] Ibid.  For analysis of Mitchell’s articles, see Oriard, King Football, 255-257, 283-284.