Hollywood loves fairy-tale endings, especially when it comes to sports movies, which have a habit of climaxing with last-second touchdowns, game-winning shots, and underdogs overcoming amazing odds to pull off unlikely victories.
In real life, though, such feel-good conclusions aren’t preordained, and Rebound: A Year of Triumph and Tragedy at Yeshiva University Basketball movingly captures the reality of persevering in the face of adversity. Pat Dimon’s documentary is a heartening portrait of resilience, camaraderie, and connection to friends, family, and homeland. Nonetheless, it’s colored by the fact that life doesn’t always play out like it does on the big screen.
Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university in New York City. Rebound, which premieres April 9 on Fox Nation, trains its gaze on the school’s men’s Division III basketball team as it endeavors to regain its former glory, including a recent 2019-2021 stretch in which they won 50 straight games thanks, in part, to all-time leading scorer Ryan Turell.
That’s an onerous task in any context, and it’s acutely arduous in 2023, when two days before practice for the new season commences, the world and, in particular, the global Jewish community is stunned and appalled by the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
Unsurprisingly, Yeshiva University’s Maccabees basketball squad—which, like its student body, is entirely Jewish, and boasts six Israelis—was rocked by this heinous massacre.
In Rebound, coach Elliot Steinmetz and many players recall the shock and horror of that fateful morning, when they woke to news that Israel had once again been dragged into a fight for its very existence.
Some, such as sophomore Tom Beza, had relatives in the army and knew individuals who had been killed and kidnapped by Hamas. Others, like Roy Itcovichi, were in Israel at the time, and forced to suddenly contend with being in the middle of a war zone. Dimon complements these and additional testimonials with media and cell phone footage from that traumatic day, bringing the incursion to vivid, harrowing life, even as he refrains from presenting the absolute worst of that monstrous non-fiction material.
Before fixating on the players’ reaction to Hamas’ invasion, Rebound—with comments from President Ari Berman and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft—affords a brief insider’s peek into Yeshiva University and, specifically, its athletic program.
It is, as one interviewee remarks, the most unusual place in college sports, given that the team doesn’t play on Friday nights or Saturdays in observance of Shabbat, it always takes a Torah along on weekend trips, and it practices early in the morning so the rest of the day can be spent on Jewish and secular studies.
Religious restrictions are an operational complication for the team, and yet as Dimon’s film elucidates, its members view these constraints as a blessing. They allow basketball to function as an extension of their love for their faith, their culture, and Israel—feelings that are also expressed by the playing of the Israeli national anthem before games, and uniforms that boast its flag’s blue-and-white color scheme.
Rebound’s depiction of this unique institute for higher learning is so fascinating that one wishes it was more detailed; the proceedings barely touch upon the school’s relationship to its New York City neighborhood and fellow Skyline Division rivals; its direct ties to Israel; its curriculum; and its confrontation of mounting domestic antisemitism.
Still, it’s apparent that, whether students are devout (like Zevi Samet) or not (such as Tom and senior guard Adi Markovich), all are staunch Zionists with deep respect for, and loyalty to, their homeland. Their devotion and sense of duty increases greatly in the aftermath of October 7, with the team—under the stewardship of coach Elliot, who when not in the gym earns a living as a full-time attorney—understanding and embracing its role as a potential beacon of light.
Grappling with loss and fear for the family members, comrades, and countrymen who live abroad, the Maccabees strive to give global Jews something about which they can be proud. This is a set-up for a classic uplifting saga of grit, hope, and success.
However, reality doesn’t necessarily conform to Screenwriting 101 formulas. As Rebound reveals, in the midst of ongoing chaos and madness, the team finds it difficult to focus on their on-court duties, and the season gets off to a rocky start. Dispiriting losses are compounded by injuries to key players (namely, junior guard Max Zakheim and sophomore forward Or Sundjyvsky) that threaten to derail their campaign for a conference championship and, with it, a ticket to the NCAA tournament.
Dimon’s film is most wrenching during its middle passages, when Elliot takes the team to Israel to meet with injured soldiers at Jerusalem’s Sheba Hospital, visit Tel Aviv’s hostage square and Nova Festival exhibition, and hear from Tom’s friend Ofir Engel, who fended off Hamas terrorists in his Kibbutz Be’Eri home and was released from captivity after 54 days.
In these sequences, the documentary provides a glimpse at the literal and figurative damage wrought in Israel by October 7, with Roy’s father explaining that, despite the nation’s superficial calm, he (and everyone else) is now constantly glued to the television for updates on the conflict.
Rebound‘s impact is partially undercut by its sketchiness; in the interest of maintaining a follow-the-team’s-season format, Dimon avoids intensely plumbing any one aspect of his story.
If his film stirs a desire for a deeper dive, however, it nevertheless makes an impact as the Maccabees struggle to right their wayward course—in the aftermath of the Israeli trip, concentration and effort are tough to come by—and secure a spot in the conference tournament. That quest proves a significant challenge, and though the players eventually come together, it doesn’t mean their triumph is guaranteed.
No matter cinematic convention, Rebound doesn’t close with confetti-drenched celebration. Even so, it underscores the many positive ways that sports, politics, religion, and culture inform and inspire each other. In that regard, it’s an uplifting tribute to the strength and resolve of its subjects and, by extension, all Jews, whose history continues to be defined by an unbreakable will to survive.
The post How a Jewish University Basketball Team Faced the October 7 Massacre appeared first on The Daily Beast.
