Maccabi’s 1977 basketball victory still makes big men cry…

JACK MILNER

Those words were spoken by American-Israeli basketball star Tal Brody after underdog Maccabi Tel Aviv’s upset victory over powerhouse CSKA Moscow in the 1977 European Cup semi-finals.

Maccabi, led by Brody, would go on to win their first European title by defeating Mobilgirgi Varese two months later. It was one of those great David versus Goliath stories that make sport such a nation builder. 

Now the team’s dramatic success has now been brought to life in a new documentary film called “On the Map”, directed by Dani Menkin.

Who would have thought that basketball would become one of the biggest sports in Israel, and even more so, one of their most successful? 

Brody, now 73, still remembers those wonder years with Maccabi Tel Alviv.

“It has never been forgotten here,” said Brody. “Maccabi have won five European titles since then, but you always remember your first love and for 40 years we’ve been remembered like that in Israel. It’s amazing. It left a stamp. It was a win with very heavy meaning for generations.”

Brody said he was happy the story was now being told to the English-speaking world via the film, which focuses on the team’s six American players.

“Each time I’ve seen it, it has given me goose bumps,” he said.

The semi-final against CSKA Moscow – who featured the best players from across the Soviet Union – was played in a tiny gymnasium in Belgium because, for political reasons, the Russians would not allow the game to be played in either Tel Aviv or Moscow.

“To think that we could beat this team… it was something illusionary or a dream,” Brody recalled. “As sportsmen, you always go into a game feeling like you have a chance to win, but our fans were just hoping we wouldn’t be embarrassed. Yet every Israeli and Jewish person in Europe tried to find that gymnasium, and they did.

“So we had not only the majority, but around 99 per cent of the people in that gymnasium were rooting for us, with Israeli flags. That gave us spirit, confidence and adrenaline. And the Russians were really shell-shocked; they had never been in an atmosphere like that.”

Maccabi ended up winning the game 91-79 and Brody was carried off the court on the shoulders of ecstatic fans.

A New Jersey All-Star basketball player in high school, Brody led his team to an undefeated state championship. In college in 1965 he was a high-scoring, slick-passing player at the University of Illinois. That year, he was number 12 in the NBA (National Basketball Association) draft. Before the NBA season started, he travelled to Israel where he led the American team to a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabi Games.

Persuaded by Moshe Dayan and others to return to Israel to help elevate the country’s basketball team and lift its morale, he passed up his NBA career to instead play basketball for Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Menkin who directed the film was born and raised in Israel but now lives in Los Angeles. He grew up with the story. “The team was like a ray of light after the Yom Kippur War. I was just amazed that there wasn’t a movie about it. I’m really encouraged by the fact that so many Americans are loving the film and are seeing a positive story about Israel, which is not something they usually get in the news.”

The events portrayed in the film, Menkin told the Algemeiner, are “kind of like a ‘Forrest Gump’ of Israeli history. It’s an intersection that combines so many things in our journey and our destiny, including figures like Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin, the Russians and the Cold War, and the peace process with Egypt.

“So within this sports drama, it was not just a game, it was much bigger than sport.”

On Brody, Menkin said: “If there are still people like him out there, can you find them and please let me know? He is somebody who gave up the NBA to play in Israel. And for many Israelis his iconic statement, ‘We are on the map’, has become an 11th commandment. It’s beautiful how from the sports world, you can affect so many people.”

Nancy Spielberg, sister of Steven Spielberg, one of the film’s executive producers, said she loved the feel-good story about Israel. “We loved the feeling of Jewish pride. A key message I wanted out there was two-fold. First, there are those who want to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist and they will not win, just like the Soviets who refused to recognise Israel. That’s very current for today with the BDS movement. That’s just not going to happen. We’re never going to let that happen.

“We will be victorious, we will stay on the map, no matter what.

“And secondly, I loved the co-operative American-Israeli effort to rise above what lies in front of us – the hardship and the obstacles.

“I’m absolutely not a basketball fan, but you don’t have to be a basketball fan to love this film. At screenings I’ve sat next to big men who’ve cried out of pride. I love to see big men cry.”