Like blacks, Jews were considered morally and physically inferior by white America during theearly 20thcentury, and Jews and blacks both excelled in sports.Before WWII, basketball was considered a “white” sport, and few blacks played. Working-classJews in American cities became basketball stars, largely because athletic scholarships provided ameans for poor Jewish young people to escape the urban ghettos.Traditional sports such as baseball and football were already overcrowded with white Christian players.Early basketball had fewer rules, making the sport much more violent than it is today.Philadelphia produced the best Jewish basketball teams, and New York was second.The South Philadelphia Hebrew Association (SPHA) sponsored a high school basketball teamthat would prove one of the best in the country.The Jewish players faced anti-Semitism from fans and opposing teams during games, especiallywhen playing in smaller towns.In the late 1920’s, the SPHA’s were one of only three major basketball teams in America. Theother two were the New York Celtics and the all-black New York Renaissance. The latter wasconsidered the best team overall.Many of the Jewish players were physically small, even by the standards of the time, and somesports pundits opined that this actually imparted an advantage.Whites took observations of Jewish athleticism to reinforce existing stereotypes, as was donewith blacks. Jewish success was attributed to the fact that the game required deception and11
trickiness to pass the ball and to maneuver around opponents successfully
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47577241/Taboo-Why-Black-Athletes-Dominate-Sports-and-Why-We-re-Afraid-to-Talk-About-It-Review
