Friday Forfeit: Participation Issues in Jewish Junior Basketball

An ethnographic approach was used to investigate the significance of basketball participation to the development of Jewish identity in Melbourne, Australia. Informants suggested that participation in sport generally, and basketball specifically, allowed them to exemplify an identity that countered stereotypical views of Jewish people as non-sporting and bookish, held by many Australians. Sport also provided an attractive, and economic, site for many in the Jewish population to identify as Jewish with safety. It was concluded that these important benefits should outweigh any administrative difficulties that sporting organisations may face in catering for the requirements of the Jewish religion