‘Jewish Jordan’ Discusses Career over Shabbat Dinner

It’s not every day a rising basketball phenom hands back a full scholarship to one of the top college teams in the nation.

For Tamir Goodman, the decision came without hesitation.

At a Jewish Shabbat dinner held on campus last Friday, Goodman spoke to students of the inseparable roles basketball and religion have played in his life.

Goodman’s basketball talent as a youth was anything but unnoticed. He made the high-school varsity team in seventh grade and was scoring 35 points per game by junior year.

Goodman also participated in several prestigious national tournaments, including the Capital Classic All-Star Game, in which he joined the ranks of Michael Jordan and LeBron James as the MVP.

But what made Goodman stand out even more was his Orthodox Jewish faith: He always wore a kippah – a traditional Jewish head covering – during games and never played on Saturdays so he could observe Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

Hailed by Sports Illustrated as the “Jewish Jordan,” in 2000, he was offered a scholarship to play for the University of Maryland, which that year became the national champion.

“I was about to become the first Orthodox Jew to play division I basketball,” Goodman said. “We got 700 requests from the media in one week.”

Several weeks later, however, Maryland decided to no longer accommodate Goodman’s request to not play on Saturdays, and Goodman gave back the scholarship. His good fortune, which had seemed endless, came to a standstill.

But at nearby Towson University, Goodman’s story gained him so much respect from the team that it offered him a scholarship to play and rearranged the schedule so that no games would fall on a Saturday.

“It was crazy,” Goodman recalls. “They got the entire league to change its schedule so one kid could play.”

After playing as a Towson Tiger for one year, Goodman fulfilled a life-long dream by signing with an Israeli professional basketball league. He also served in the Israeli Defense Force.

When speaking of his religion, Goodman said God gave him his basketball talent and wanted him to help the world.

“Each and every person is very special and is destined to do their specialty,” Goodman explained. “It’s a matter of working as hard as you can and using your talent to better the world.”

Goodman currently resides in Israel with his wife and two kids but says he will begin playing basketball in the U.S. before the end of this year.

The dinner was held as a part of “2,000 for Shabbat,” an event sponsored by Jewish Heritage Programs in which 2,000 Shabbat dinners were held simultaneously across campus on Friday.