{"id":3154,"date":"2012-02-29T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2012-02-29T00:13:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:13:44","slug":"jewish-basketball-texas-stupidity-hank-greenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3154","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Basketball, Texas Stupidity & Hank Greenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hank Greenberg would be proud. The Beren\u00a0Academy boys’ basketball team stands to forfeit their semi-final game\u00a0on Friday <\/a>because the game is scheduled\u00a0after the start of\u00a0the Jewish Sabbath. Beren, an Orthodox Jewish day school in the Houston area, will be knocked out of the championship tournament\u00a0because the team refuses to violate their religious beliefs by playing on the Sabbath.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS),\u00a0will hold fast to their “rules”<\/em> which prevent tournaments from being rescheduled.\u00a0 An appeal by Beren\u00a0to have the game rescheduled was unanimously rejected by the TAPPS’ Board. Could the Board’s vote be construed as anti-semetic, given that Beren\u00a0is the only Jewish school among the 58 schools in TAPPS. Of the other 57, only 6 are non-Christian<\/a>. Why would TAPPS’ inflexibility\u00a0exhibited toward the only Jewish school possibly give rise to questions of anti-Semitism? Perhaps because the excuses<\/del>\u00a0emanating from TAPPS’ Executive Director, Ed Burelson, don’t seem to add up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr.\u00a0Burelson\u00a0cites TAPPS’ “long-standing policy not to change the playoffs date — a rule that has been in place since\u00a0 TAPPS’ inception in 1978”<\/em> — as the reason why Beren’s\u00a0request for rescheduling their game was denied. There are at least two problems with that answer. First, the policy that Burleson falls back on is apparently not that hard and fast. Just last year, a Seventh Day Adventist school’s soccer semi-final playoff game was rescheduled to avoid a conflict of playing on the Sabbath (which is Saturday for Adventists). Second,\u00a0the Executive Director — which would be Mr. Burelson\u00a0— actually has the authority, per\u00a0TAPPS’ By-Laws, to reschedule games:<\/span><\/p>\n

“If it appears not to be feasible to hold a contest at the scheduled place or time because of weather, facilities, or other cause (emphasis added)<\/strong>, the Director shall determine where, when, or if the contest will be held.” (TAPPS’ By-Laws, Sub-Chapter J — Contests, Section 75 — Rescheduling Contests<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would appear that Executive Director Burelson, irrespective of the Board’s vote, would have the power to reschedule the Beren basketball game for “other causes.”\u00a0 <\/em>Some might argue that rescheduling because of one school’s objection to playing on the Sabbath is simply not sufficient to justify the Executive Director acting. Well, how about Mr. Burelson\u00a0fulfilling his responsibilities, among which are:<\/p>\n

“to take such other, further, and reasonable actions that are necessary or desirable under and consistent with . . . the TAPPS Constitution, By-Laws, and Contest Rules”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the TAPPS’ Board of Directors and Executive Director want to uphold the spirit of their own\u00a0Constitution, they would do well to reacquint themselves with the purpose found in that document:<\/p>\n

“The Purpose of TAPPS is and shall be to organize, to stimulate, to encourage and to promote the academic, athletic and fine arts programs in an effort to foster a spirit of fair play, good fellowship, true sportsmanship and wholesome competition for boys and girls.” (TAPPS’ Constitution<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How much more wholesome can TAPPS get than to\u00a0encourage its member schools to stay true to their core values and principles, particularly when those values and principles\u00a0have a religious\u00a0foundation? And, wouldn’t “fostering a spirit of fair play”<\/em> and\u00a0demonstrating “good fellowship”<\/em>\u00a0necessitate TAPPS taking reasonable actions to accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of its member schools, even if the school’s religion was Judaism and not Christianity?<\/p>\n

In a culture that not only despises people of faith (except if you have a certain other faith associated with the Middle East that is not called Judaism or Christianity), but which seems to celebrate every deviant sports’ figure, wouldn’t it be\u00a0refreshing to see adults encourage young people to live out wholesome principles, particularly those principles which are rooted in a Judeo-Christian\u00a0ethic? You would think the answer to that question would be yes, especially if the adults in question were primarily from a Christian background (some\u00a0 even from a Baptist background, which makes this sad given Baptists’ historic advocacy of religious freedom for all groups). But, alas, you\u00a0would be wrong, at least in the case of TAPPS.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would happen if one of TAPP’s\u00a051 Christian schools had a championship game scheduled for the Christian Sabbath — Sunday? Would the team\u00a0forfeit the game rather than violate their principles? Luckily for the non-Jewish schools of TAPPS, they will never have to face that question because no games or activities of any kind are ever scheduled for a Sunday. Sadly, from my own observations, the answer to that question wouldn’t matter anyway. It\u00a0seems that far too many\u00a0“Christian” athletes and parents almost always put sports ahead of religious values and principles, even above worship\u00a0on Sundays. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from our Jewish brethren who demonstrated that some things are more important than playing basketball. This one’s for Hank:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Came Yom\u00a0Kippur<\/p>\n

A Hank Greenberg Poem<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Author:<\/span><\/strong> Edgar Guest <\/strong><\/span>\u00a9. Published: 1934. Appeared In: Detroit<\/span><\/strong> Free Press<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

“Came Yom\u00a0Kippur\u00a0\u2014 holy fast day world wide over to the Jew,<\/span><\/p>\n

And Hank Greenberg<\/a> to his teaching and the old tradition true<\/span><\/p>\n

Spent the day among his people and he didn’t come to play.<\/span><\/p>\n

Said Murphy to Mulrooney, ‘We shall lose the game today!<\/span><\/p>\n

We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him at the bat<\/span><\/p>\n

But he’s true to his religion \u2014 and I honor him for that!'”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Came Yom\u00a0Kippur A Hank Greenberg Poem by Edgar Guest<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Hank Greenberg would be proud. The Beren\u00a0Academy boys’ basketball team stands to forfeit their semi-final game\u00a0on Friday because the game is scheduled\u00a0after the start of\u00a0the Jewish Sabbath. Beren, an Orthodox Jewish day school in the Houston area, will be knocked out of the championship tournament\u00a0because the team refuses to violate their religious beliefs by playing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,38],"tags":[1653,133,1646,3370,1650,1644,1645,1651,573,1213,3392,1654,1655,1647,1648,1649,1652],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-sports","tag-baseball-on-yom-kippur","tag-basketball","tag-beren-academy","tag-christianity","tag-ed-burelson","tag-hank-greenberg","tag-jewish-boys-basketball-team","tag-jewish-school","tag-judaism","tag-principles","tag-religion","tag-sabbath","tag-seventh-day-adventist","tag-tapps","tag-texas-association-of-private-and-parochial-schools","tag-values","tag-yom-kippur"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-OS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3160,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions\/3160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}