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JEWBALL (AUDIO)
by Neal Pollack, read by Peter Berkrot
Brilliance Audio, November 2012
Unabridged pages
$19.95
ISBN: 1469252600


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

JEWBALL is a funny and fast-moving story of the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association (the SPHAs) all-stars, alleged by Neal Pollack to have been the best basketball team in the United States in the 1930s. Its star player was point guard Inky Lautman, who at fifteen, was the youngest person ever to have played pro-basketball. Pollack has taken real players like Lautman and Harry Litwack (who later became Temple University's basketball coach) and woven them into his fictional narrative. The SPHAs competed in the Eastern Basketball League from 1925 on, when the sport was in its infancy, and quite a ferocious child it was. At a time when most children and adults practiced by tossing leather balls through old peach baskets, actual games were played in ballrooms or in any venue that could accompany two teams and an audience. Wire mesh fences or even cages were set up to protect the fans and sometimes the players from the fans, but rough play and collisions with the fencing could end the careers of the players. The scores were low, but the players were tough, very tough. After the game, it was not uncommon for the fans to attack the opposing team, if they won.

When the story takes place, in 1937, Inky is playing for the SPHAs and earning extra money by beating up deadbeats in the bar over which he lives in a free room. He is also working on the side for the Bund, a Nazi organization that blames the Jews for the Depression in the United States and for global problems in general. Though the Fascists often come to the games and attack the SPHAs afterwards and well as Jews in their Philly neighborhoods, Inky doesn't feel much loyalty to his fellow Hebrews, as they then would have called themselves.

His feelings change, however, when he meets Natalia, the sister of one of his teammates. An undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Natalia belongs to radical pro-Jewish and Socialist groups. She tries to enlighten Inky, who doesn't like to spend a lot of time thinking.

Inky finally has to choose between the Jews and the Bund after Eddie Gottlieb, the coach and team owner, loses a lot of money he has borrowed from the Bund for a bad gambling idea. In return, the Bund wants the SPHAs to lose a game to the Aryan team in Minnesota. Eddie and his team have to decide whether they will choose honor, crushing debt, and the murderous wrath of the Bund over a humiliating loss to the Aryan players.

There is a murder in the novel, and lots of violence both on and off the court. The novel will intrigue anyone interested in basketball and its history or Jewish history. However, the lengthy descriptions of the games can be tedious for those not interested in the finer points of basketball—or in any part of basketball. And for all of Pollack's descriptions of the sweat and blood of the games, I still could not picture the players and whether they were religious or secular Jews. Pollack does not enlighten the reader how, aside from not playing on the Sabbath, the religious orientation of the team affected the lives of players other than Inky.

Pollack also plays fast and loose with history, as he admits at the end of the novel; for instance, he moves the pro-Nazi 1939 Bund rally at Madison Square Garden to 1937. Some of the historical facts seem poorly researched, such as "The Star-Spangled Banner" being played at the games. Since the national anthem wasn't sung at baseball games until 1941, it seems dubious that that someone would have been performing it on a makeshift basketball court in the 1930s.

Peter Berkrot gives a fine performance of the members of the SPHAs. He does a particularly fine job with manager Eddie, often talking through his cigar or with noticeable indigestion. Inky comes across as uneducated and tough, but also unexpectedly endearing. The Bund members, unfortunately, sound a bit like caricatures from a World War II spy movie. Not all German immigrants speak like "zat."

For those interested in something different, this may be a good choice. Perhaps illegal gambling, fights, corruption, and even murders have become all-too-common in the contemporary world of sports to seem anything like fiction, but this look back at a time when players earned more bruises and broken bones than bucks is a compelling tale and a fun listen.

§ Karla Jay is a legally blind audio book addict, who lives in New York City, where she is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Pace University.

Reviewed by Karla Jay, December 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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