The American All-Star who became the first sportsman to be awarded the Israel Prize is now Israel’s official goodwill ambassador
By MARION FISCHELTal Brody and family 521(photo credit: Courtesy)
Tal Brody turns 70 in a week, on August 30, but for anyone unaware of his status as a symbol of American Zionism and his link to important events in the history of the state, it would be hard to tell.The almost 6’2” (187 cm.) Brody is perennial, in the same way as his famous catchphrase, “Anahnu al hamapa v’anahnu nisharim al hamapa – lo rak be sport, b’hakol!”(“We are on the map and we are staying on the map – not just in sports, but in everything!”).In 1965, as a student at the University of Illinois, he won All-American and All-Academic honors and was the 13th pick in the NBA draft. By the time summer came around, however, he found himself on a plane bound for Israel for the first time. He had been courted by the US Maccabiah basketball team to lead them as captain in the seventh Maccabiah Games, and did them proud as the team brought home a gold medal.At that time the event consisted of 25 countries and 1,250 athletes. Today, the countries have more than tripled and the number of athletes has increased more than sixfold. Since that first time, Brody has been associated in one way or another with every Maccabiah in the past 48 years, and says he sees how they play “a major part in building love of the country.”“Even if the participants don’t decide to make aliya, when they go back home they become ambassadors,” he says.“I had never been to Israel. Never even thought I was going to get to Israel,” he recalls. Brody was not brought up in a Jewish neighborhood, although he did attend Jewish Sunday school. He found Israel to be unlike anything he had imagined, and saw there was “a very vivid cultural and social life. It was a fun country.”During that time Brody was approached by the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, “which had never placed first round in European championships. They presented me with the challenge of coming to Israel and taking them to another level.”Nevertheless, he decided to go back to school in Illinois for a master’s in educational psychology. At that time he was playing for the Baltimore Bullets, but wanted them to trade him to Philadelphia. When it didn’t work out, he returned to Israel to play basketball for the 1966-67 season – a decision he never regretted for a moment. “I saw what it meant to the country and how prime minister Levi Eshkol and [military leader] Moshe Dayan wanted to come to our games,” he says.“I was here until after the Six Day War,” Brody recounts. “The season had finished and I decided to stay on, although I received a letter from the US embassy advising all its citizens to leave. I volunteered and was sent to a unit near the Jordanian border, and right up to the day before the war, I taught physical fitness and sports in order to keep up the soldiers’ morale. I trained them in volleyball, basketball and soccer, in the field, just before everything started.”On the day the war began, Brody found himself in Jerusalem with the head of the Sports Ministry, Assael Ben-David. “We were near the Mandelbaum Gate, and suddenly the mortars started and we were at war.”He spent the rest of the week in Tel Aviv with friends. “I felt very good that I was here and able to offer moral support, and was thankful that the fighting was over quickly.”From 1968 to 1970, Brody served in the US army, preparing for service in Vietnam and playing on the US Army and Armed Forces All Star teams. He was chosen to the USA basketball team to the 1970 World Championships held in Yugoslavia. In 1969, the gold medal he and his team achieved in the Maccabiah Games was a first for the country, and the following year he became an Israeli citizen.In 1977 Brody led Maccabi Tel Aviv to a milestone victory. They won the European championship title. For a team that had never gotten past the first round, this was a dream come true.That the victory took place at the height of the Cold War during a Soviet boycott of Israel only made the victory sweeter. Israel played the Red Army’s CSKA Moscow team, USSR champions that had previously won an astounding succession of four European Cups. Before the game, the Soviets tried to make things as difficult as they could, forbidding the Israelis from going to Moscow and refusing to travel to Tel Aviv. Finally, the match took place in Belgium, and Israel won 91-79.It was after that match that Brody, whose Hebrew was still heavily American-accented, uttered his unforgettable phrase, claiming Israel’s place among the nations of t he world.Today, as he nears his 70th birthday, he is in good shape. “My wife, Tirza, and I have been together for 24 years, we have three children and six grandchildren, aged from three to 10. We are very busy enjoying life with them and keeping very active.”Brody’s activity these days comes in the form of public diplomacy, a career he had never imagined for himself – but one that suits him. “Public diplomacy is very important to me,” he says.In 2008, a New York Times supplement published for Israel’s 60th anniversary named Brody one of the 10 most influential Americans to have impacted the budding state. That same year, he recalls, “MK Yossi Peled, who had been head of the Northern Command [until 1991], called me to his office and asked me to go into public service. He wanted me to got to the primaries [in the 2009 elections]. I said it was the right time, but I would like do to more than become a member of Knesset. I wanted to be a representative of the prime minister to the Jewish world.“That was what I wanted, but in order to get that I would have to go to the primaries and everything – which I didn’t mind, I had never done it. I was less concerned about the actual politics, but it was an experience to be able to meet and get to know most of the politicians. And after everything, it took patience, but basically I got to be an ambassador.”Brody received the title of “Israel’s first goodwill ambassador,” and as with basketball, he has taken advocacy for Israel to a new high. Over 10,000 people receive updates from him via his two Facebook pages and his “Good News from Israel” mailing list. His friends and friends-of-friends multiply his messages and posts, thus reaching hundreds of thousands and occasionally millions of people, he says, enabling them “to better understand Israel and Israeli day-today life and what is going on in the Middle East, and combat anti-Semitism.”He provides important information for students standing up for Israel on college campuses, and travels often – especially across the US – lecturing and organizing sports-related activities that he uses as a platform for advocacy for Israel.He keeps himself updated daily and attends professional lectures and conferences put on by the Institute of Counter-Terrorism, the Herzliya Conference, the Presidential Conference, the Institute of National Security Studies, The Jewish People Policy Institute and the Begin Research Center at Bar Ilan University where he is a Fellow and updates from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Affairs Ministry.All of this is because, although born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1943, after being in the country for 48 years, “I know the real Israel, and it is an honor to be able to serve in this way,” Brody says.
