Tal Brody Interview, circa 2000 from Ed Alpern on Vimeo.
In 2000, I took down all of the pictures that were displayed in the hallway at the JCC in Ewing and scanned them. They spanned decades of activities that were held at the JCC and the YMHA on Stockton Street before that. Thousands of kids played basketball at the JCC from the 1910's-2000. None of them were better than Tal Brody, who got his start at the JCC and went on to star at Trenton High School, then at the University of Illinois, the US Maccabiah team, Maccabi Tel Aviv and to this day is still revered in Israel as "Mr. Basketball". I did this interview over the phone with Tal Brody after seeing his name on a captioned photo.
On a personal note, when I was in Israel in the summer of 1973, Tal Brody led the Israeli Maccabi team against the US team. Four of my fellow Ramah campers came to my Aunt's apartment in Jerusalem to watch the game. My memories of that game are that we were bowing in front of the TV, chanting "We're not worthy!" after watching him play.
What a feeling when I found the photos at the JCC!
P.S. Most of the photos at the JCC were donated by Ben Olinsky, who ran the biddy basketball program from the 1940's-the 1970's.
