Jewish racial identity and basketball success, by Ari 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.  Throughout the 1920s, columnists in the Jewish press, though informed by the same assumptions used by Mitchell, used the belief in innate Jewish intelligence to construct a positive form of racial marking within the athletic world.  In doing so, they constructed a discourse that led to the reemergence of the basketball Jew.

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.[4]  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.”[5] 

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.”[6]  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?”[7] 

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.[8]  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.”[9]  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.”[10]

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.”[11]  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.”[12]

In the middle of the 1920s, Jewish basketball remained rooted in the racial scientific assumptions that had constructed the stereotype of the weak Jew.  Conzel confidently expressed his theory as he, like Elmer Mitchell and other commentators, fully accepted Jewish intelligence as a racial marker.  Jews succeeded in basketball because of the Jewish mind, if not the immigrant body.  As basketball moved further away from the Progressive moralism expressed by Elmer Mitchell, the APEA, and officials at Jewish centers, the American sport culture intensified the connection between Jews’ racial identity and their basketball abilities. 

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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.

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

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

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

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

[8] 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.

[9] “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.

[10] 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.

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

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

Basketball Jews, by Arieh Sclar

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.[1]  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.  The notion of Jewish dominance and innate ability also received notice in one of the era’s most thorough articles on Jewish basketball.

On November 3, 1929, the English-section of the Yiddish daily, the Jewish Daily Forward, published “Basketball Jews.”  The Forward and other Yiddish papers served a distinct role in American Jewish life.  They provided the daily news that English readers of the American Hebrew and other weekly Jewish newspapers would get from the mainstream media.  The Forward contained a full weekend sports page in Yiddish that provided information on broad athletic events as well as Jewish athletes, although in general, the Yiddish press provided little information on sports.  For instance, the same weekend as the publication of “Basketball Jews” in the English section, the newspaper’s Yiddish sports page contained no information on basketball.[2]  Nonetheless, “Basketball Jews” reflected the growing presence of Jews in a changing sport.

The Forward article did not view Jewish participation as illustrative of Jewish acceptance, but rather as a normal experience within basketball.  The author stated that basketball had become “a major activity among the young Jewry of New York and the vicinity.  In the YMHA’s of innumerable small cities in the New York region, regular Saturday night games are staged, where dancing before and after the games are a feature of the evening.”  These “community houses” produced “excellent basketball players, whose names later appear in the rosters of high school, college, and professional teams.”  The article also provided the name of 17 Jewish professional players and singled out Nat Holman, who remained “the greatest basketball player in the country. …[He] has been taken for granted for so long that one runs the risk of becoming a bore to repeat his praises.”  The Forward claimed Holman “is as full of deception as the traditional fox,” and praised the professionalism that made him “a great showman.”[3]

“Basketball Jews” advanced the notion that basketball “may almost be said to be a Jewish sport.”  Basketball became popular among Jews because “there are no football fields or baseball diamonds to speak of in lower Manhattan.”  Popularity, however, did not explain success and Jewish athleticism remained embedded to racial identity.  The Jewish professional presence was so great because basketball “is not essentially a sport where a huge body is a requisite. Brains, nimble thinking and speedy coordination between mind and muscle are more important and effective than mere physical brawn and power.”  The ideal player needed intelligence as much, if not more, than strength.  “The average athlete is a chap whose brains are located in his biceps and whose head is stronger outside than inside. Not so, however, with the average basketball player. …Of course, a strong and husky physique is an asset in basketball as in other sports, but in general basketball players are not so dumb.”[4]

Like previous commentators, the author of “Basketball Jews” presented basketball as a sport that required certain characteristics.  He distinguished Jewish basketball players from the ‘average athlete.’  The Jew succeeded because of Jewish intelligence and an unchanged Jewish body.  The Jewish athlete did not, and should not, need to conform to the physical ideal to succeed.  Indeed, the body of the basketball Jew could not change if Jews wanted to maintain their advantage in the sport.

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

[2] Oriard, King Football, 34.  According to historian Eddy Portnoy, many immigrants received their sports news from the New York Daily Mirror, whose Jewish readership was large enough that the paper occasionally printed messages in Yiddish on the sports page.  Portnoy also explained that the Yiddish press contained virtually no coverage of sport during the interwar period.  The author’s brief examination of the Forward confirmed this.  Eddy Portnoy, e-mail message to author, October 12, 2006.

[3] Bob Shelley, “Basketball Jews,” The Jewish Daily Forward, November 3, 1929.

[4] Ibid.

A Jewish presence in professional basketball

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.[1]  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.”[2]  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.[3]  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.”[4]  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.[5] 

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[1] 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).

[2] 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.

[3] 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.

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

[5] 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.

The growth of professional basketball, by Ari Sclar

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.[1]

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.[2]  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.[3]

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.”[4]

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[1] 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. 

[2] 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.

[3] “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.” 

[4] 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.

Jewish basketball's impact on college basketball - part 1

Jewishbasketball helped produce the “rise” of college basketball.  During the 1930s, Jewish players turned CCNY, NYU, St. John’s, and Long Island University (LIU) into nationally-known programs.  A significant Jewish presence existed at the Garden as players with names such as Goldman, Klein, Rubenstein, Pincus, and Rosen headlined the double-headers.  The mainstream press rarely commented directly on the Jewish presence in New York basketball, although Newsweek declared in December 1935 that basketball was “a sport at which Jews excel.” Newsweek did not attach any explicit meaning to this statement, but it served as a powerful piece of information and a potential source of pride for American Jews.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, New York became increasingly important to Jewishbasketball.  In particular, Jews began to play at St. John’s, a Catholic school, in addition to their continued presence at NYU and CCNY.  In 1928, a column in Minneapolis’s American Jewish World provided a fairly detailed account of Jewish basketball and commented on a loss by CCNY’s “all-Jewish team” to St. John’s, “a Catholic college, [that] had three Jews on its team.”  The column did not include the score (33-24), but stated that the three St. John’s players had “accounted for fifteen of the [team’s] points.”  The AJW also contextualized the game by explaining it was “the first big basketball game of the season between two first class teams” largely unknown outside of New York.

This St. John’s team, which would become the focus of the 1931 scandal, represented the growth of Jewish basketball within New York City’s basketball culture.  The AJW actually undercounted the number of Jews on the St. John’s team.  Nicknamed the ‘Wonder Five,’ the team consisted of four Jewish starters, the fifth being Polish, from the New York area.  The victory over CCNY occurred at the start of a remarkable three year run in which the team compiled a 67-4 record against both powerful programs like CCNY and ‘minor’ teams like the Albany Law School.  Prior to the 1931 scandal, New York sportswriters hailed them as the greatest college team ever.  Despite such praise, however, the Wonder Five’s prominence remained a local affair, even as the mainstream press began to play a pivotal role in promoting New York college basketball.

In the late 1920s, the New York press increased its coverage of the sport.  Sportswriters and coaches named annual All-Metropolitan teams that unofficially rewarded the best players in the city.  Often the only contact between teams and fans, sportswriters constructed a historical narrative of city basketball in which participants challenged legends and continued traditions.  Writers included pre-season forecasts, statistical analysis, and individual scoring totals alongside box scores, critical columns, and detailed descriptions of games.  Columnists debated strategies, coaching acumen, and players’ abilities.  Box scores and description of games provided information to readers about schools that played before relatively small crowds.  For instance, only 1,300 people attended the 1928 St. John’s-CCNY game.

The Depression provided the foundation for the remarkable growth of New York college basketball.  The economic downturn had a negative impact on most sports by 1931.  Baseball attendance declined, professional leagues such as the ABL and the American Soccer League (ASL) shut down, and college football teams often had difficulty filling the large stadiums built during the architectural boom of the 1920s. In contrast, the Wonder Five headlined a triple-header fundraiser for the city’s unemployment relief fund.  In January 1931, 15,000 spectators filled Madison Square Garden for a ‘Carnival’ that raised over $20,000.  Similar events occurred the following two years, which illustrated that basketball fans wanted first-hand exposure to local teams like the ‘Wonder Five.’