It used to be a joke, the snide answer to one of those “Thinnest Books in the World” riddles, a wisecrack so common it turned up in the 1980 movie farceAirplane!

Flight attendant: Would you like something to read?

Passenger: Do you have anything light?

Flight attendant: How about this leaflet, “Famous Jewish Sports Legends”?

Me? I never thought it was funny. Because my fatherwasa genuine Jewish sports legend, and I grew up knowing how very talented and famous he and his teammates were. Thanks to Douglas Stark, the story of the Philadelphia SPHAS is finally available...

On Sunday night, January 1, 1939, an estimated 13 million Americans around the country, including in the greater Detroit area, turned on their radios to listen to the popular weekly address of Father Charles Coughlin. Father Coughlin, the country’s most well-known radio priest, oversaw the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Throughout the 1930s, Coughlin grew increasingly disenchanted with President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. As the decade drew to a close, his rhetoric increasingly became anti-Semitic. Newspapers and radio were the two modes of keeping up with the news at that...

Much like the game of basketball, the city of Philadelphia was the result of one man’s vision. William Penn was granted a charter from the King of England in 1681 for what eventually became the Pennsylvania colony. Twenty years later, Penn himself issued a charter that established Philadelphia as a city. Quickly, Philadelphia became important for trading and government. The city improved and grew rapidly in the 1750s and 1760s, in large measure due to the efforts and direction of Benjamin Franklin. By the time of the American Revolution, Philadelphia was a central location for the colonies and acted as...

On October 30, 1933, a meeting occurred at 120 Wall Street in New York City. It marked the first league meeting for the reconstituted ABL. After two years during which all league operations had ceased due to the Great Depression that engulfed the nation, John J. O’Brien reorganized the league and made it more regional as opposed to national in scope. Eddie Gottlieb, representing the Philadelphia SPHAS, was present, along with promoters for the Trenton Moose, Brooklyn Jewels, Brooklyn Visitations, Bronx Americans, Union City Reds, Newark Bears, Hoboken Thourots, Camden Brewers, and New Britain Palaces. The league would have teams...

By the mid-1930s, the Great Depression had swallowed up the country hard and the economic crisis threatened the very future of America. Millions of Americans were without jobs and the prospects for employment of any sort were bleak at best. With the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe came an increase in anti-Jewish sentiment in America. The terrible economic situation and isolationist mentality of the country led to a rise in anti-Semitism, which was a fact of life in this country in the 1930s. The SPHAS were not immune to insults or threats. In a harsh environment, the team, referred to...

In the 1920s, Hank Greenberg and Joel (Shikey) Gotthoffer were childhood friends growing up just blocks from one another in the Bronx, New York. Both enjoyed sports and could often be found playing baseball, basketball, and other sports of the day with the neighborhood kids. When it came time for high school, they enrolled locally at James Monroe High School and continued their athletic pursuits. Basketball was popular, and each joined the team, eventually advancing to the varsity squad. Behind their play, James Monroe won three consecutive PSAL championships from 1926 to 1928. For Greenberg, that was the high point...

Late in the afternoon of Wednesday November 4, 1936, Red Rosan, Cy Kaselman, Inky Lautman, and Gil Fitch piled into Eddie Gottlieb’s car for the drive from Philadelphia to Kingston, New York. Meeting them there would be Shikey Gotthoffer, Moe Goldman, and Red Wolfe, who had traveled together from New York City. Another basketball season was set to commence, and the SPHAS looked to begin defense of their ABL championship with a victory over the Kingston Colonials, who were in their second year in the league. The year before, the Colonials had finished near the bottom of the standings in...

Growing up in South Philadelphia in the 1930s, Ed Lerner had a ritual every Saturday night during the winter months. After dinner with his family, Lerner took either the bus or subway to the corner of Broad and Wood Streets. When he arrived—always by himself—he paid his 40 cents and walked up the stairs to the balcony of the Broadwood Hotel. He sat in the same seat. It was in the middle of the balcony in the second row. He preferred that seat so he had an unobstructed view of the court below, where he could watch his...

On November 28, 1939, with the Thanksgiving holiday past and the 1939-1940 basketball season just underway, newspapers and radios across the country reported that James Naismith, the game’s founder, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 78 years old. TheNew York Times, in its obituary, noted that more than 20 million people were now playing the game worldwide. “The fast, sprightly, colorful basketball of today, enjoyed in many lands by the young of both sexes in college, school, club, association, and society gymnasiums and on professional courts, bears at least the same resemblance to the early game as...

On December 29, 1940, just a few days before the New Year, the Philadelphia SPHAS headed out for a brief four-city tour of Ohio. Gottlieb had scheduled games in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus. It was a short visit. Only four games were scheduled, including two on January 1 in Dayton and Columbus. The SPHAS had played in Ohio many times before, and the trip at the end of the year was nothing new for the team. For a number of years, Gottlieb had taken his club out barnstorming the Midwest between Christmas and New Year’s. Facing the SPHAS were...

In the early morning hours of December 7, 1941, while the country slept, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, jolting America out of its isolationist mentality. The U.S. Navy, unprepared for an attack, suffered tremendous losses, as the Japanese, with an armada of sixty ships, crossed the Pacific Ocean undetected, launching a surprise attack. More than 300 Japanese planes shattered a quiet Sunday morning on Oahu and firebombed the Navy’s fleet and military installations with an arsenal of bombers and fighters. In little more than two hours of fighting, the devastation and loss were beyond comprehension. More than 2,400 Americans died...

World War II fundamentally altered basketball in America. The 1930s witnessed a game that was growing nationally in popularity, where different parts of the country were following the exploits of a team or certain star players thousands of miles away. College doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden and other arenas showcased the talents of rising players from across the nation. The NIT and NCAA tournament proved wildly popular and generated additional national exposure for college basketball. Even the World Professional Basketball Tournament attracted an annual following, as teams descended on Chicago for a monthlong basketball extravaganza.

But the war took the...

On August 15, 1945, Philadelphians awoke and grabbed a copy of thePhiladelphia Inquirer. The banner headline in six-inch capital letters read “PEACE.” For the first time since Pearl Harbor, the United States was no longer at war. President Harry Truman, in office less than five months, dropped two atomic bombs on Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945. World War II had finally ended. Philadelphia, like most American cities, went wild with jubilation. City Hall was a mob scene of joy, relief, and utter happiness. Confetti flew, horns were heard everywhere, and people danced in the streets. Rationing was...

On June 6, 1946, some two months after the Bullets defeated the SPHAS for the ABL championship, a group of hockey owners gathered at the Hotel Commodore in New York City to discuss the formation of a new professional basketball league.

Hockey, both the National Hockey League and its minor league counterpart, the American Hockey League, enjoyed great success in large eastern cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. When the teams were on the road, ice shows and college basketball doubleheaders attracted strong attendance and earned sizable profits. Despite that, the arenas stood empty many nights, and owners...

Eddie Gottlieb and Abe Saperstein became fast friends. Both were short, heavy-set, Jewish men. They were born promoters who loved to make a deal. And they made many deals in their lifetime. In the mid-1920s, each was getting his start in the world of sports. Saperstein assumed control of the Savoy Big Five of Chicago and renamed them the Harlem Globetrotters. Games were scheduled all through the Midwest. Saperstein did the driving, promoting, and coaching. Gottlieb, meanwhile, took over the SPHAS from friends Hughie Black and Chickie Passon. He, too, arranged the games, drove the car, and set the starting...

On a warm Saturday in the summer of 2007, I drove to Philadelphia to meet with Harry Boonin, a retired lawyer who devotes much of his spare time to Philadelphia Jewish history. Harry offers walking tours of the Jewish neighborhood, and he had agreed to show me South Philadelphia. Armed with a list of places affiliated with the SPHAS, I hoped that we would be able to find some remaining marks of one of basketball’s greatest teams. We drove around with Parry Desmond, himself a researcher, and tried to locate some of the original buildings associated with the SPHAS. In...