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Tal Brody ( Basketball in
Israel) was born August 30, 1943, in Trenton, New Jersey. Son of Max and
Shirley Brody traces his roots to
Israel where both his father and grandfather worked in the 1920s, working as
an engineer Both his father and his grandfather lived in what was then
Palestine for 10 years.
Brody is an
American-Israeli former basketball player, and current Goodwill
Ambassador of Israel, who lives in Israel. Brody was drafted # 12 in
the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft, but chose to pass
up an NBA career to instead play basketball in Israel. He played on national
basketball teams of both the United States and Israel, and served in the
armies of both countries.
A New Jersey All
Star basketball player in high school, Brody led his team to an
undefeated state championship in 1958. Before that, he regularly played in
the YMHA basketball league. In college (University of Illinois), he was a
high-scoring, slick-passing All American. That year, he was drafted 12th
in the NBA draft.
Before the NBA season started, he
traveled to Israel where he led the U.S. basketball team to a gold
medal in the 1965 Maccabiah Games.
Convinced by Moshe
Dayan and others to return to Israel to help Israel’s basketball team,
he passed up a lucrative NBA career. He became captain of the
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, was voted Israeli
Sportsman of the Year in 1967, and was a member of the European All Star
Team.
Brody’s basketball career culminated
in 1977, when he led tiny Israel's basketball team to the European
Cup Basketball Championship. Along the way, his team defeated the
heavily favored Soviet Red Army team (CSKA Moscow). Brody's famous
remark upon beating the Soviets "We are on the map! And we are staying
on the map not only in sports, but in everything." became a part of
Israeli culture.
In 1979 he was awarded the country's
highest civilian honor, the Israel Prize. He was named the University of
Illinois "Man of the Year" and inducted into the International
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and inducted into the U.S. National
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.
After he retired as a player, Brody
continued with Maccabi Tel Aviv as an assistant coach and served on the
team's Board of Directors until 2007.
Brody was featured in a 2008
documentary entitled The Jewish Basketball Hall of Fame, Volume 1, produced
by Yisrael Lifschutz. He was also featured in a book by the
title: A Voice Called; Stories of Jewish Heroism, by Yossi Katz, which
was published in 2010.
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