{"id":866,"date":"2019-04-13T14:49:45","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T19:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=866"},"modified":"2019-04-15T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T20:01:37","slug":"alley-oop-to-aliyah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/alley-oop-to-aliyah\/","title":{"rendered":"Alley Oop to Aliyah"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-11-12.08.06-e1555358331330-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-867\" srcset=\"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-11-12.08.06-e1555358331330-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-11-12.08.06-e1555358331330-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-11-12.08.06-e1555358331330-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-11-12.08.06-e1555358331330-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Alley Oop to Aliyah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For any of you that have spent time in Israel, you know that\nsports are a big part of the culture.&nbsp;\nOne of the enduring themes has been Maccabi Tel Aviv competing in\nEuropean Championship games using African-American players who were not able to\nget (or stay) in the NBA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend David Goldstein from Toronto, wrote a book\nentitled Alley Oop to Aliyah: African American Hoopsters in the Holy Land.&#8221;&nbsp; David is a long-time colleague from the\nSports Lawyers Association and he spent many years researching and writing the\nbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Listening to his presentation was extremely interesting,\nbecause he came at it not from the basketball perspective but from the cultural\nphenomenon that it represents.&nbsp; David\nexplained how his early interest in the story was driven by the passion his\ngrandmother&#8217;s friends exhibited when talking about a Toronto Raptors player who\nhad spent some time in Israel.&nbsp; Their\nexcitement when they heard David was from Toronto went beyond any reasonable\nrelationship or rooting interesting in the local team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to David, over 800 players have made their way to\nIsrael since the first known player Alcie Perry, who was a stalwart in Maccabi\nTel Aviv&#8217;s 1977 European Championship, perhaps one of the most important\nsporting events in Israeli sports history.&nbsp;\nAs a side note, I was in 7<sup>th<\/sup> grade and happened to be living\nin Israel at the time, and I can confirm the enormity of the event and the\nfeverish passion that was exhibited around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David shared stories about some of the favorite characters\nhe interviewed for the book.&nbsp; These\nstories included players that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Joined the Israeli army voluntarily.&nbsp; <\/li><li>Married Israeli women.<\/li><li>Converted to Judaism.<\/li><li>Raised children in Israel.<\/li><li>Became Israeli citizens.<\/li><li>Found less racism in Israel.<\/li><li>Became spokespeople for Israel.<\/li><li>Experienced anti-semitism by playing for an\nIsraeli team.<\/li><li>Celebrated Championships with an Israeli flag\n(instead of the team logo or flag).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The two events in Chicago were well attended and there was a\nlot of interest in his presentation.&nbsp; I\nencourage you to bring David to your community for an event.&nbsp; I think you will find him very engaging,\nempathetic and well-spoken, creating a lot of warmth and a positive experience\nfor your organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information about David or Alley-Oop to Aliyah&#8221;,\nplease email me at <a href=\"mailto:rkessel@sportsloop.com\">rkessel@sportsloop.com<\/a>\nand I am happy to make the introduction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For any of you that have spent time in Israel, you know that sports are a big part of the culture.  One of the enduring themes has been Maccabi Tel Aviv competing in European Championship games using African-American players who were not able to get (or stay) in the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,290,66],"tags":[426,429,427,428],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}