Jewish Political Perspective: From Basketball Jones to Basketball Moses

Just give peace a chance! Sounds great conceptually but probably not practical in the Middle East. Very few Arab states recognize the existence of the state of Israel, which is roughly the size of New Jersey and surrounded by hostile dictatorships with 40 times as many citizens. It remains to be seen whether the Jewish community will finally wise up and stop voting more than 70% for #Dimorat presidential candidates as it has since 1968.

Factitiously, perhaps former President Barack Obama, a JV basketball player for Occidental (Calif.) and one of a number of politicians who played the game, would "be complicit" looking more favorably upon Israel if the landscape resembled several decades ago when there was a striking number of impact Jewish hoopsters. In a 30-year span from 1933-34 through 1962-63, occasional powerhouses CCNY, LIU, NYU and St. John's each featured three different Jewish All-Americans on CollegeHoopedia's comprehensive list.

Obama, who received more than 3/4 of the Jewish vote in 2008, said his commitment to Israel was "unshakable," but many Jewish State advocates think such an "I've-got-your back" claim is the height of diplomatic chutzpah. Obama's White House refused to allow non-official photographers to record a multi-layer lecturing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and no statement was issued afterward upon the PM being ushered out the back door like a scorned referee. The administration subsequently reinforced its stance by insisting that Israel stop building homes in Jerusalem, demanding it move back to pre-1967 indefensible borders and attempting to stall Israeli military action while neighboring Iran developed its nuclear technology.

Thus, the remedy for Israel generating more political support might be another prophet Moses surfacing for the Jewish community as it copes with a current U.S. basketball exodus of sorts for them. They're in the midst of wandering more than 40 years across the hoop desert seeking another All-American from this country. And the Promised Land isn't within sight since Tennessee's Ernie Grunfeld was the last American Jewish honoree (1976 and 1977). All-Americans aren't exempt from the horrors of war. Grunfeld, a Romanian-born Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, never saw his father's parents because they were murdered in Auschwitz.

Elite Ivy League institutions in particular have been embroiled in varying crimes, protests and public controversies in the aftermath of Hamas' barbaric atrocities igniting a war on October 7. A couple of months later, the testimony of a couple of Ivy Presidents at a Congressional hearing on the topic was abhorrent. The national debate includes backlash losing long-time donors as retribution for the schools' lame responses to the college campuses becoming flashpoints for demonstrations. In an AI (artificially intelligent) exodus, the number of Jews on Ivy campuses has been sliced in half or more over the past decade by woke doctrines downplaying merit in favor of ill-defined "diversity" and "privilege." A hostile environment and troubled history marginalizing Jews is nothing new. A century ago, Ivies sought underhanded ways to reduce the number of Jewish students. Social scholar wannabes supporting Palestinians who voted for Hamas barbarians are clueless when it comes to knowing the rich history of top-notch Jewish hoopers attending East Coast colleges. Beginning with Dartmouth's Rudy LaRusso in the late 1950s, more than half of the Ivy League members benefited from multiple-year, all-conference hoopers of Jewish descent by the mid-1960s (including Brown's Mike Cingiser, Columbia's Neil Farber, Penn's Jeff Neuman and Yale's Rick Kaminsky) before Brown's Arnie Berman, Penn's Steve Bilsky and Harvard's Lou Silver became multiple-year all-league performers in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Israel native Doron Sheffer, a Connecticut guard, was named an All-American in 1995-96. Additional Israeli products earning all-conference recognition included Connecticut forward Nadav Henefeld (Big East in 1989-90), Wright State center Israel Sheinfeld (Midwestern Collegiate in 1999-00 and 2000-01) and California forward-center Amit Tamir (Pacific-10 in 2002-03). In the current climate, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl has been far more outspoken than Jewish Duke counterpart Jon Scheyer about the tension stemming from dramatic increase in antisemitism. More than half of the following American Jewish All-Americans joined Grunfeld but secured such an honor before the State of Israel declared independence in mid-May 1948:

U.S. Jewish All-American, School (Year)
Irv Bemoras, Illinois (1953)
Jules Bender, Long Island (1937)
Meyer "Mike" Bloom, Temple (1938)
Harry Boykoff, St. John's (1943)
Tal Brody, Illinois (1965)
Howie Carl, DePaul (1961)
Marvin Colen, Loyola of Chicago (1937)
Irwin Dambrot, CCNY (1950)
William Fleishman, Western Reserve (1936)
Don Forman, New York University (1948)
Larry Friend, California (1957)
Moe Goldman, CCNY (1934)
Don Goldstein, Louisville (1959)
Hyman "Hy" Gotkin, St. John's (1944)
Ernie Grunfeld, Tennessee (1976 and 1977)
Art Heyman, Duke (1961 through 1963)
William "Red" Holzman, CCNY (1942)
Barry Kramer, New York University (1963 and 1964)
Jerry Nemer, Southern California (1933)
Bernie Opper, Kentucky (1939)
Lennie Rosenbluth, North Carolina (1956 and 1957)
Oscar "Ossie" Schectman, Long Island (1941)
Alan Seiden, St. John's (1959)
Sid Tanenbaum, New York University (1946 and 1947)
Irv Torgoff, Long Island (1939)
Neal Walk, Florida (1968 and 1969)