Remember
When

•

Former Pistons star Mahorn encounters a di erent
culture at training camp on a kibbutz.

Ethiopian, Italian, German, Russian
— it doesn't matter," he said.
"Whatever you are, basketball is on
another level."
The camp was subsidized and also
had a lot of corporate sponsors,
including Marriott and Nike, said
Tanya Mazor-Posner, Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's
senior community development
associate.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer

A

lthough the skill levels were
the same, the strong smell of
a cow pasture and the
sounds of different languages
told Rick Mahorn that he wasn't teach-
ing in an ordinary basketball camp.
"Basketball is a universal language,"
said the former Detroit Piston "Bad
Boy," but the kibbutz in Central
Galilee where he last month taught
basic offensive and defensive skills to
60 Ethiopian, Russian and Israeli
teenagers was a world away from his
more usual venues, like the hardwood
of the Pontiac Silverdome.
The three-day basketball camp
at Kibbutz Gevat, in Detroit's
Partnership 2000 region in the
Central Galilee, was his first
international camp, but
Mahorn said the language
differences actually
47* *OA
worked in his favor.
"Even though with
"''Vga,”"W• •
the language barrier
you can't really explain
to the ballplayers,
once you show them
something, they end
up working even hard-
er to prove that they
understood," he said.
Mahorn, who has
been doing basketball
camps for 20 years, said
that although the skill
levels of the kids in Israel
were about the same as
American kids, the interna-
tional rules and the difference
in the lanes made the Jewish kids
more fundamentally sound.
"They try the moves they see on
e art of stealing
television, and they'll try to emulate
the professional moves, but they know
On
more of the basics," he said. "They
the last day
want to learn how to spot up and
of the camp, the
kids who won awards got to scrim-
shoot the three-pointer. It's not neces-
mage with Mahorn and players from
sarily where they want to shake some-
the Israeli basketball team in an all-
body up real good."
star game. Whenever one of the kids
Mahorn said that all the students
sunk one from downtown, he recalled,
were eager to learn and got along well
Mahorn dropped and did the agreed-
with each other.
"It doesn't matter if you're
upon 10 pushups.

But Mahorn also had the experi-
ence of getting food poisoning from
‘`some bad salmon," and said, on the
way home I thought I was gonna die."
He checked himself into a hospital for
two days upon his return.
Mahorn joined the Pistons in 1985
after five years with the Washington
Bullets. He played with Detroit in
1988-'89 when the Pistons won their
first title. He spent the last two
months of last season with the
Philadelphia 76ers.
This was Mahorn's first trip to
Israel, which was in itself
a spiritual highlight.
He was thrilled
to walk in the

"

The Touro Synagogue in Newport,
R.I., the oldest synagogue in the
U.S. and the only one from colo-
nial times that houses an active
congregation, celebrated its 225th
anniversary.
Anne Henderson Pollard, wife of
convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, was
denied an early release on parole.

Former Detroiter Robert Rockaway
was awarded the Rabbi Harvey B.
Franklin Memorial Award in Jewish
History from the American Jewish
Archives of Hebrew Union College.
Judy Harris was elected president
of Congregation T'chiyah for the
new program year.

1989

The International Federation of
Airline Pilots threatened a general
strike unless the United Nations
secured the release of two Israelis
held in Syria after their TWA plane
was hijacked.
Karen Goren of Birmingham
returned from a six-week study tour
of Eastern Europe, which included
a visit to Russia.

.

9/3
1999

From the pages of the Jewish News
for this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.

1959

places
where
you felt
Jesus, like a
re-enactment
of the Bible," he
said. "Instead of
something that you've
envisioned in your mind, in
your subconscious, you could see
these physical, material things."
The low point for Mahorn, of
course, was being sick, but it wasn't
his only uncomfortable moment.
With the indoor court near a cow pas-
ture, "that just wasn't filtering through
my nose too well," he said. ❑

For the first time in Switzerland, a
course on talmudic study will be
offered at a university.
The Jewish Historical Society,
under the leadership of Irving I.
Katz, planned a pilgrimage to
the oldest Jewish cemetery in
Michigan, Beth El's first cemetery
on Lafayette.

The remains of a Samaritan syna-
gogue dating to the fourth century
were found near Latrun, on the
border of a no-man's land separat-
ing Israel and Arab forces.
Max Elkin, managing owner of
the Colonial Hotel in Mt.
Clemens, recently entertained
comedian Eddie Cantor.

—Compiled by Sy Manello,
editorial assistant