Next month JDS will make history by hosting their first ever basketball tournament for pluralistic Jewish day schools. The Capital Jewish Hoops Invitational Basketball tournament will take place during MLK weekend, from Jan. 18-20.
JDS will host the girls and boys varsity teams from three other pluralistic Jewish day schools: Donna Klein Jewish Academy, from Boca Raton, Florida; Jack M Barrack Hebrew Academy from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and Gann Academy from Waltham, Massachusetts. Though JDS has attended basketball tournaments in Memphis and Toronto, the other attendees at Memphis are mostly from Orthodox schools and those at the CHAT tournament in Toronto are mostly Israelis and Canadians, making this tournament unique by having purely American pluralistic Jewish day schools.
Ever since she came to JDS in 2013, Director of Athletics and girls varsity basketball coach Becky Silberman has wanted JDS to host tournaments. She worked with Head of School Mitch Malkus, who had also wanted to make JDS a hub for these types of events. Silberman has hopes of expanding the tournament and growing it in different ways as time goes on.
“We were like, this is something we want to do and there’s not really a home for it,” Silberman said. “And Jewish sports are growing. And how can we do this? So it was the combination of the two of our great minds.”
Junior Dylan Shank has been on the varsity team for three years and has been to both the Memphis Yeshiva Invitational and the CHAT tournament in Toronto. Shank is excited to meet new people from schools that haven’t attended these tournaments, but will be attending the one in January.
“It’ll be different kinds of people and much more diverse for the tournament, not just everybody doing the same thing constantly,” Shank said.
Senior and Captain Ella Longman is on the girls varsity basketball team for her fourth year and has gone to the CHAT tournament three times. Longman is looking forward to playing in the tournament and also getting the opportunity to experience other pluralistic school communities.
“There’s lots of different Jews who practice their Judaism in different ways,” Longman said. “So I think it’ll be nice to get to experience and be exposed to how other schools treat pluralism and also how other students from other schools relate to their Judaism and it’ll kind of give us all the space to connect together and talk about our Jewish identities, or just learn about other people in that way.”
Longman also enjoys the overnight trips to tournaments because they provide time to hang out and bond with her teammates. Since JDS is not going to CHAT this year, the tournament will be the team’s only chance to play basketball against other Jewish schools besides the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy. The tournament will also be the team’s chance to make connections with other Jewish teens through playing basketball.
Silberman has planned several events to bring together people from the different schools, including attending a Washington Wizards basketball game, making sandwiches for Martha’s Table, an opening ceremony and a party with games and a DJ.
Silberman said they will have pre-registration and ticket sales, similar to how they do ticket sales for the Berman basketball games. Selling tickets is one way of raising money for the tournament, as well as selling merch. She is trying to encourage people to come and support the teams despite it being over a holiday weekend.
“All of my family always comes to most of my games to support me, but having it being on a long weekend definitely makes it a lot easier, so nobody has to take off of work or anything like that,” Longman said.
Silberman is also hoping to boost audience engagement by getting members of the JDS community involved, and is hoping to have lots of student volunteers who will be broadcasting and making announcements. Volunteer chair Pete Federowicz is overseeing the details of the tournament, and many other parent volunteers are helping run and plan it. The parent volunteers have also arranged Uber Teen to be a sponsor, which helps JDS cover some of the costs associated with the tournament.
Players from both JDS varsity basketball teams are optimistic about their chances in the tournament and excited to be hosting it.
“It will be like good competition, and it’ll be fun. Everybody will enjoy it,” Shank said.
