Court

Late-night with these ex-lettermen means a
little `R&R' and maybe even some business
on the basketball floor.

RICHARD PEARL

Staff Writer

I

t's a cold, rainy Thursday
night at the "palace." In-
side, the game is going on.
So this is Auburn Hills?
No, more like Farmington
Hills.
Pistons?
Huh-uh. Pick-up, as in
"pick-up basketball game."
Rodman?
No, rabbis. Three of them.
And a day-school head-
master, plus a bunch of high
school, college and other
guys like dentists and
lawyers.
What's going on? About
what one would expect in a
basketball-crazy town like
Detroit, where even rabbis
and teachers love the sport.
Especially these four —
Rabbi Elliot Pachter of Adat
Shalom Synagogue, Rabbi
Bill Gershon and Rabbi
Charles Diamond of Con-
gregation Shaarey Zedek,
and Dr. Mark Smiley of
Hillel Day School — all of
whom were students
together in the early 1980s
at the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York and
all of whom, by chance,

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wound up in Detroit in the
mid- to late 80s.
"It's very infrequent that a
city will have such a con-
stellation of seminarians,"
said Dr. Gerson D. Cohen,
JTS chancellor-emeritus and
the man for whom Rabbi
Gershon was a research and
administrative assistant for
six years.

Every Thursday night at
9:30 at Smiley's "palace" —
the gym at Hillel Day School
in Farmington Hills where
he's headmaster — this
quartet of JTS and Camp
Ramah alums, like many
other healthy and health-
conscious young men in
their early 30s, get together
for a vigorous, tension-

relieving workout playing
basketball, with maybe a
little schmoozing on the side.
"I'm the one with the
keys," jokes Smiley about
why Hillel is the game-site
and why he, the shortest of
the bunch at about 5-foot-7,
is part of the group.
Although his Thursday
evening meetings usually

Dr. Mark Smiley, Rabbi Elliot Pachter, Rabbi Chuck Diamond: "We have to come off the bimah
and talk to people."

end the earliest — at about
9:15 p.m., which means he
can open the building for the
others — and he lives within
walking distance of the
school, the truth is Smiley's
also one of the most athletic
in the group: he played var-
sity soccer and football for
his Community Hebrew
Academy of Toronto day
school, softball in the
summer and intramural col-
legiate basketball as an
undergrad at the University
of Toronto.
He met rabbis-to-be
Pachter, Gershon and Dia-
mond on the basketball
court at the seminary. Dur-
ing his three-year Jerusalem
Fellows sabbatical in Israel,
he was a co-founder of Fri-
day afternoon touch-football
at Sachar Park, a tradition
that continues to this day.
"I don't mind doing it," he
says of opening the school
after hours. "It's a great way
for me to see my colleagues
and relax and work out at
the same time."
The latter sentiment is
echoed by the others, all of
whom have similarly hectic
day and evening schedules.
Playing basketball together
since last October, they've
tried other sites and times