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2 A JEWISH GAME Every Jewish boy was playing basketball. Every phone pole had a peach basket on it. And every one of those Jewish kids dreamed of playing for the SPHAs. —Harry Litwack, quoted in Jon Entine, TABOO M uch 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 the host for the First Continental Congress, the Second Continental Congress (at which the Declaration of Independence was signed), and the Constitutional Convention. The city also served for a brief time as the capital of the United States. Eventually, the state and federal governments left Philadelphia, but the city remained an important political and economic hub due to its size and location along the Atlantic coast. Philadelphia continued to grow and in 1876 celebrated the first Centennial Exposition. By the late nineteenth century, the city’s population had swelled as immigrants from Europe, including Russia and Eastern Europe, flooded the city. Among these new residents was a heavy concentration of Jews who were fleeing persecution and seeking a new life. After the game’s invention in December 1891, basketball spread quickly and soon made its way to cities up and down the eastern seaboard, including 8 • THE SPHAS Philadelphia. It is not known exactly when this new winter game showed up in Philadelphia, but it is safe to presume that some time in 1892, the sport was being introduced to YMCAs throughout the city. On January 15, 1893, an article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the YMCA and some of its activities, remarking, “Among the other features of the evening will be a game of basket ball between West Philadelphia and Northwest teams. A gymnasium exhibition, the Y.M.C.A. Orchestra and the High School Banjo Club will furnish the music.”1 Several weeks later, an article reported that a game between the Camden (New Jersey) and Philadelphia YMCAs was played and that Philadelphia had held on for a 2–0 win. It is interesting to note that, less than two years after basketball’s invention, contests between different cities were being arranged. The game’s popularity continued to spread in Philadelphia and soon reached the college level. In 1894, basketball was added at Temple University; the first game was a 3–1 victory over the Purple Crescent Athletic Club, a team based in Philadelphia. The Temple Owls finished that first season 8–3, playing mostly YMCA teams, with one game against Haverford College. Concurrent with the rise of basketball through the YMCA and regional colleges, the game also spread quickly in the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA). The YMHA was impressed by the organization of the YMCA in the 1850s and 1860s. A few YMHAs began in the 1850s, but the association did not gain momentum until 1874 when the New York YMHA was established. A year later, the first YMHA in Philadelphia was established at the northeast corner of Broad and Spring Garden Streets. The YMHA stayed at that location until 1883, when it moved to the Odd Fellow Hall across the street. Over the next fifty years, the YMHA had several locations , until 1926, when it found a permanent home at Broad and Pine Streets, where it is still located today. The YMHA was a communal organization sponsoring programs that focused on educational, religious, and athletic classes. Clubs and classes on athletics became an avenue for Jewish immigrant children to participate safely in sports while becoming more American. Basketball became particularly popular with immigrants, especially Jewish immigrants. The game, which was still so new that the sport itself had yet to be formalized or codified in any significant way, was a vehicle for Jewish children to assimilate and become American. As opposed to football or baseball, which required large, open areas to play, basketball was an inexpensive sport for children to play. “The Jews never got much into football or baseball. They were too crowded then,” Harry Litwack recalled.2 Not much was...

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