New York: Throw the first pitch!

Take me out to the ballgame. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks. Throw the first pitch for the New York Mets vs St. Louis Cardinals game on Wednesday, July 28.

The US Holocaust Museum's New York Next Generation Board thought up a great fundraiser.

For a minimum donation to the USHMM of $20,000, you can throw the first pitch at the game, set for 6pm at Citi Field. This chance of a lifetime is courtesy of the New York Mets.

The winner of this honor will be joined on the mound by a New York–area World War II veteran who helped defeat Nazi Germany and liberate Holocaust survivors, and will also be invited to a special private-suite Museum event commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.

How to keep your eye on the ball:

The highest pledge received by Friday, July 23, gets the honor of the pitch and also of supporting the USHMM's efforts to promote human dignity, confront hatred and prevent genocide.

Interested? Learn more by contacting Jana Neil in the USHMM's northeast regional office.

Kentucky: From Daniel Boone to the Shapiras

Keeping with today's Southern theme, here's a glimpse of Jewish life in Louisville, Kentucky.

The story in the Jewish Exponent covers whiskey, the Kentucky Derby and MOTs.

The small community numbers about 8,500 and features the oldest and largest congregation in the state - Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom (AKA The Temple), chartered in 1843, as the sixth Reform congregation in the US.

Established in 1843 as K.K. Adas Israel, The Temple was a founding member of Reform Judaism's Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism) and an early proponent of Reform in American Jewish life. When Reform Judaism began in 1873, the congregation was the second largest congregation in the movement. Brith Sholom was founded by the next group of newcomers who did not want Orthodox rites but who wanted services in their native German (Adath Israel's services were in English). Eventually the two merged.

The Temple's archives are extensive and hold historic materials "chronicling the significant people, places and events of the past century and a half, since the establishment of our congregation by charter in January 1843." Items include Temple artifacts, books, records dating to the early days of both congregations and more than 80 oral histories. A personal video history project is currently underway.

Here are some additional tidbits:

-- Daniel Boone was hired by the Virginia company of Cohen and Isaacs to check out their lands in Kentucky. The Gratz family of Philadelphia set up Ohio River trading posts and joined the founders of Lexington.

-- Distiller and philanthropist Isaac Wolfe Bernheim modeled the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest after his German childhood home.

-- Louisville was the birthplace of late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

The article also has information on the area's American Bourbon and Whiskey Trail, particularly Heaven Hill Distillery, reopened following Prohibition by Shapira family members.

1934 -- Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc., originally known as "Old Heavenhill Springs" distillery, is founded by a group of Bardstown-area investors and the five Shapira brothers, David, Ed, Gary, George and Mose. ...

According to the distillery's communications director and Temple congregation member Larry Kass, its current status as a beverage industry leader is due to second-generation owners Max and Harry Shapira.

The congregation decided to dedicate the 2010 annual fundraiser to Max Shapira, but he wasn't interested in the spotlight, so the family and local rabbis expanded the theme into a week-long celebration of the role local Jewish immigrants played in the spirits industry and regional growth.

The event is titled "The Chosen Spirit Archival Exhibition and Tribute."

Kass worked with Rabbis Joe Rooks-Rapport and Gaylia R. Rooks to research archiva materials to demonstrate the family's legacy. from the archives to demonstrate the Shapira family legacy.

Learn about early American Jewish history by clicking the websites for Heaven Hill and for the congregation.

Philadelphia: Jewish basketball

In a Philadelphia Inquirer story about the city during 1928-30, discussing the economic woes at that time and interspersed with more contemporary comments, the following paragraph lurked:

Basketball also was big in Philadelphia, and no team got more Inquirer ink than the Philadelphia SPHAs of the recently reborn Eastern League. "SPHA" was an acronym for South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, and the players came from the city's immigrant Jewish neighborhoods.

The SPHAs wore blue uniforms with Hebrew lettering, and beginning with the 1929-30 season, they won three consecutive league championships.

Sportswriters were apt to attribute their success to genetics. Jews, it was said, were naturally more coordinated and athletic. The New York Daily News' Paul Gallico wrote that Jews did so well because "the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind."

Read the complete story here.

The 29th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will take place August 2-7. On the program schedule are talks about Philadelphia's Jewish history, which will include the Philadelphia SPHAs. For all conference details, click here.

Jewish athletes - a short history

A newly-released film details Jewish athletes' lost past.

Producer David Vyorst's documentary film, The First Basket, premiered recently at the National Center for Jewish Film's annual film festival. An article in the Brandeis University newspaper explains how the film chronicles a history of American Jewish basketball players.

In a memorable scene from the movie Airplane!, a passenger asks a flight attendant for some light reading. She promptly presents the passenger with a flimsy sheet of paper titled "Famous Jewish Sports Legends."

That gag, according to Vyorst, is contrary to the attitude toward Jewish athletic achievement he hopes to inspire.

"When I made [The First Basket], people said it must be a pretty short movie," Vyorst said. "[But] sports and physicality are important parts of Jewish history."

Click here for a JTA article about the making of the film.