My Hebrew School Teacher Was the Jewish Magic Johnson and Your’s Wasn’t

This week marks the release of the top-flight documentary “The First Basket”, a film chronicling prominent Jewish basketball players of the 30’s and 40’s. As it turns out, before us Jews smartened up and decided to develop a stranglehold on sitcom writing, trial lawyering, and failing miserably in assessing the risk of credit derivative obligations, our best and brightest decided to express the early 20th century immigrant experience through hooping it up. One of those best and brightest was my private Hebrew school teacher, Jules Rivlin.

Not even the draconian administrators at Wilshire Blvd. Temple could reign in my free spirit, and after I inadvertently killed the class goldfish, Shmuel, I was told I would have to receive training for the Jewish right of passage somewhere else. Through a recommendation, my parents found Jules Rivlin. By 1993, Jules’ main functions consisted of wrapping tefillin, tutoring spoiled ADHD numbskulls in the vagaries of the haf torah, and searching for the most succulent gefilte fish. A little investigation into Jules’ past would reveal something else: THE GUY COULD BALL. Seriously.