The New York Times sports story began: “So a basketball coach, an N.B.A. referee and a rabbi walk onto the court at Madison Square Garden locked in an argument. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.”
In a comic interlude during a pre-season game Sunday between the New York Knicks and Tel Aviv Electra Maccabi, the Israeli coach got called for two technicals, but refused to leave the court.
An NBA security official intervened to persuade Maccabi coach Pini Gershon to leave. Then the rabbi showed up:
Sometime during the 10-minute discussion in front of the visitors’ bench, Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, with a long white beard, a black hat and a black coat, crossed the court from his seat to intervene.
Grossman is the founder and the president of Migdal Ohr, a center for orphans and abused and underprivileged children in Israel that benefited from the proceeds from Sunday’s game. And he saw it as his duty to moderate.
Not knowing that two technical fouls result in an automatic ejection, he attempted to persuade the referee to change his call and allow Gershon to stay.
The Times story also mentioned that the rabbi told the officials: “This is not a regular game. In a game for friendship, you forgive.”
The court proceedings took place near former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was seated near the Maccabi bench, according to the newspaper account, which pointed out that Gershon declined to comment about the incident after the game, “even though he could have freely criticized the officials without fear of retribution from the league.”
Mark Cuban would appreciate that. — Mordecai Specktor
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