2012_Signature Event

Jews in Sports
Sunday, March 11, 2012
1:00 pm

Event co-chairs:  Jeff Azia, Steve Keith, Mark Merritt

Moderator:  Brad Drazen

Mark Kurlansky is the author of The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris.  Kurlansky has written, edited, or contributed to twenty prize-winning books.  His previous books, Cod, Salt, 1968, and The Food of a Younger Land, were all New York Times bestsellers.  In Hank Greenberg: A Hero who Didn’t Want to Be One, Mark Kurlansky explores the truth behind the slugger’s legend: his Bronx boyhood, his spectacular discipline as an aspiring ballplayer, the complexity of his decision not to play on Yom Kippur, and the cultural context of virulent anti-Semitism in which his career played out.

Doug Stark’s professional sports museum career includes positions with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the United States Golf Association Museum in Far Hills, New Jersey. He is Museum Director at the International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum, in Newport, Rhode Island.

Founded in 1918, the south Philadelphia Hebrew Association’s basketball team, known as The SPHAS, was a top squad in the American Basketball league – capturing seven championships in thirteen seasons – until it disbanded in 1959.  This is the first book to chronicle the history and achievements of the SPHAS, exploring the significance of basketball to the Jewish community in its early years.