From Tal Brody to European Champions: Early Americanization and the "Golden Age" of Israeli Basketball, 1965-1979

Tal Brody (b. 1943) arrived in Israel in 1965 to play basketball for the Maccabi Tel Aviv team, marking the beginning of a period of tremendous growth in the sport there. Sport was closely tied to the political climate in Israel and teams were linked to political parties and forms of Judaism. As more Americans arrived, questions of what it meant to be Jewish arose, and regulations restricted the participation of some foreigners. In the late 1970's Israeli basketball teams won two major matches, lifting the country's spirit of nationalism and giving it pride in its international sports success.