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Sports Quiz
Sports Mismash
The Yiddish word “mishmash” means exactly that— a bunch of different things all “mished” together and “mashed” up! And this mishmash is to honor all the Jews in different sports we haven’t mentioned yet, most of whom are the only major Jewish person in that sport. So grab your skateboard, skis, and squash ball… and get ready to mishmash!
1. One of the most popular sports these days is skateboarding. And Alan Gelfand invented one of its key moves! It’s a way to jump up… and have the board rise up with your feet! It’s called an:
2. Brazil’s Adriana Behar and her teammate won Silvers at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. They play a sport that is also played in a gym by a larger team, but they play on the beach! Either way, you try to get a ball over a next with your hands. The sport is called:
3. Chicago’s Abe Sapirstein created a basketball performance team in 1926 known for its tricks and stunts. They never played in a league, but they beat real professional teams. They claim to have only lost two games in 38 years! And they were so popular, they had their own cartoon show! They have played in 118 countries and so are called the Harlem:
4. He was born in Brooklyn, but Sidney Franklin was famous in Spain and Mexico for a sport that is famous in that culture. Some people don’t like it because it hurts an animal, and often the person ends up getting hurt, too! But Sidney was respected for his skill, even as an outsider. Even famous author Ernest Hemmingway was impressed! Sidney’s sport was:
5. One of the simplest, but fastest, sports of all involves just a small room, a rubber ball, and your hand. And Victor Hershkowitz is considered the greatest to ever play it! He won 40 national and world titles in about 20 years, including one title nine years in a row in the 1950s. His sport is:
6. Another Victor, Victor Niederhoffer, played a sport like Victor Hershkowitz’s, but with a small racquet. Within a year of learning how to play in college, he won a national title, and graduated the best college player in America. He went on to become the U.S. champion five times. His sport shares the name of a kind of vegetable:
7. Mike Yellen plays still another related sport, racquetball. In 1997, he was inducted to the USA Racquetball Hall of Fame. In 1983 alone, he claimed three national championships in one season to take the #1 spot. So far, he has won the most national titles in a row of anyone, with:
8. Colorado’s Jeremy Bloom played football for both teams in Pennsylvania, the Philadephia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers. But he is really known as an Olympic skier who also won six straight World Cup races in one season— a record! He was the youngest freestyle skier to make the Olympics team, at only:
9. Another Winter Olymian was Irving Jaffee. A speed skater, he won Golds in 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the 1932 Olymics. Now, 10,000 meters, just over 6 miles, was the longest he’d ever skated... but he still set the world record at a skating marathon, which goes for:
10. An amazing five Hungarian athletes are in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in the same sport! It’s like soccer, but you can use your hands. See, it’s played in a pool and you have to swim the whole time, no touching the sides or bottom. And there are no sea horses, either, even though it is called:

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