Tal Brody

Tal Brody 

Tal Brody (Basketball in Israel) was born August 30, 1943, in Trenton, New Jersey. Son of Max and Shirley Brody traces his roots to Israel where both his father and grandfather worked in the 1920s, working as an engineer Both his father and his grandfather lived in what was then Palestine for 10 years. Brody is an American-Israeli former basketball player, and current Goodwill Ambassador of Israel, who lives in Israel. Brody was drafted # 12 in the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft, but chose to pass up an NBA career to instead play basketball in Israel. He played on national basketball teams of both the United States and Israel, and served in the armies of both countries. A New Jersey All Star basketball player in high school, Brody led his team to an undefeated state championship in 1958. Before that, he regularly played in the YMHA basketball league. In college (University of Illinois), he was a high-scoring, slick-passing All American. That year, he was drafted 12th in the NBA draft. Before the NBA season started, he traveled to Israel where he led the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabiah Games. Convinced by Moshe Dayan and others to return to Israel to help Israel’s basketball team, he passed up a lucrative NBA career. He became captain of the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, was voted Israeli Sportsman of the Year in 1967, and was a member of the European All Star Team. Brody’s basketball career culminated in 1977, when he led tiny Israel's basketball team to the European Cup Basketball Championship. Along the way, his team defeated the heavily favored Soviet Red Army team (CSKA Moscow). Brody's famous remark upon beating the Soviets "We are on the map! And we are staying on the map not only in sports, but in everything." became a part of Israeli culture. In 1979, he was awarded the country's highest civilian honor, the Israel Prize. He was named the University of Illinois "Man of the Year" and inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and inducted into the U.S. National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2011. After he retired as a player, Brody continued with Maccabi Tel Aviv as an assistant coach and served on the team's Board of Directors until 2007. Brody was featured in a 2008 documentary entitled The Jewish Basketball Hall of Fame, Volume 1, produced by Yisrael Lifschutz. He was also featured in a book by the title: A Voice Called; Stories of Jewish Heroism, by Yossi Katz, which was published in 2010. He is now retired from a successful business career in importing/exporting sporting goods and spends his time with his wife in Israel.

With the moving of the Jewish population to the western part of Trenton, the Jewish Community Center (as the “Y”) was later known, built a wonderful facility on Lower Ferry road in 1955.

World famous architect, Architect Kahn designed the bath houses. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

It is neither in Trenton, New Jersey, nor is it a bath house, but the so-called "Trenton Bath House" commands attention from architectural historians around the world. Designed as part of a larger plan (never executed) for the Jewish Community Center of the Delaware Valley, the "bath house" opened in 1955 and served as the entrance and changing area for patrons of an outdoor swimming pool.

From a design perspective, the bath house actually appears as a simple cruciform -- four square concrete block rooms or areas, surrounding an open atrium. Each of the rooms is topped by a simple, wooden rectangular pyramid. At the corner of each room there is a large, open rectangular column that supports the roof. However, closer inspection reveals that in addition to the pure design elegance, Kahn also clarified his thinking about the utilitarian purposes of the various spaces, and it was in this building that he first articulated his notion of spaces serving and spaces served.

Kahn often spoke of this project as a turning point in his design philosophy, "From this came a generative force which is recognizable in every building which I have done since."