Rabbi Finds a Way to Blend Basketball and Religion

First, there was a little lecture.

The coaching rabbi, Daniel Bouskila, wearing jeans, sneakers and a yarmulke, spoke to a quiet circle of teenage girls at 7 a.m. at the West Side Jewish Community Center on Olympic Boulevard. His tone was stern. “I am seeing girls, even after a 33-point victory, going home upset,” Bouskila said. “I need to see people with confidence and with joy, even if you play a poor game. There is no greater feeling than going home happy after a game, no matter what. Even in the WNBA I see people blow layups. Even in the NBA, men being paid millions of dollars, they blow layups. That’s life. You are having one of the best experiences you can have in life, to be part of a school team. I want you to be happy.”

The girls nodded and walked to a row of chairs. Rabbi Bouskila put on a shawl and each girl opened a book and prayed. For 10 minutes the girls prayed out loud, bowed their heads, sat, stood, bowed, stood, sat. The rabbi took off his shawl, clapped his hands and then said, “Let’s talk about the box and one.”

Rabbi Bouskila coaches the Shalhevet High Lady Firehawks. Shalhevet means “flame” in Hebrew and since Bouskila became coach, the Lady Firehawks have heated up in the Coastal Life League. Shalhevet has gone to the Southern Section playoffs the last two seasons and is 15-4 this year. A year before Bouskila took over, Shalhevet won one game.

The Los Angeles high school is for modern Orthodox Jewish students. When it was decided to offer girls’ basketball, Bouskila said, there was a long, hard discussion about uniforms. Would they be shorts or should the girls wear pants? Could the shirts be sleeveless or did they need to have sleeves?

When the girls go to class after their 5:45 a.m. practices, they put on skirts that touch three inches below the knees, and long-sleeved blouses. But on the basketball court the Lady Firehawks wear spiffy black and red uniforms.

“Patterned after a certain pro team in Chicago,” Bouskila says.

The Bulls were big a couple of years ago, when the uniforms were designed.

We notice the big changes with women in sports--the women’s World Cup soccer team, Olympic softball, the WNBA, colleges. But when girls going to an Orthodox Jewish high school are willing to get up at 4:30 in the morning for basketball practice--they do this because at Shalhevet, students take double course loads, traditional academic subjects first each day, then Judaic studies later--then it should make us all realize the lessons of sports can be so much more than earning college scholarships or getting rich contracts.

“Basketball has become a big part of my life and experiences,” says Shira Loewenstein, the only senior and the leading scorer. “The whole group setting, the idea of team, it has taught me so much.

“And Rabbi Bouskila brings our religious teachings into his coaching. He will bring in sayings from the Torah and we can see how the Torah can apply to all parts of our lives. Then it strengthens the basketball parts of our lives as well.”

Danielle Rohatiner, a 5-foot-3 freshman who has already caught the attention of some college coaches, could not be any more of a gym rat. She loves Kobe Bryant, wants to get his autograph, loves to copy his moves.

“My bubbe [grandmother] is going to try and get me an autographed picture,” Rohatiner says. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved basketball and now I have a great coach. I call him Coach, not Rabbi, and he teaches us lessons about basketball and about the Torah and it all works together so well.”

Bouskila, 35, had no grand plan to become a basketball coach. He is the rabbi at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel and began teaching at the 8-year-old high school, which was founded to incorporate the principles of Lawrence Kohlberg, a Harvard educator who developed a model of teaching based on democracy and moral development.

“This is the first Orthodox Jewish school applying these principles,” Bouskila says. “I loved teaching the kids and became close with them. Our first girls’ coach left to pursue a tryout in the WNBA. There were five seniors on the team whom I had been teaching. I felt really badly that the team was without a coach, so I said I would do it.”

Figuring that, as a teacher, he could teach himself basketball truths and then teach them to the girls, Bouskila took a full-body leap into coaching. He persuaded the school to help him raise money for new uniforms, “to uplift their image,” Bouskila said. He helped the girls believe they could be good players as well as religious students.

Bouskila says that the girls grow up in an insular community of Orthodox Jews.

“Basketball gives them the experience of meeting people of different races and religions,” he said. “It opens up a whole different world. And the same for some of the schools we play.

“We play Prince Christian and they always offer a prayer before the game. The last time we played, they asked me to give the prayer.”

When practice is almost finished, Bouskila talks to the girls about the next game. The opposition has a player who scores more than half that team’s points. Thus, the lesson on the box and one. And Bouskila has one other piece of advice.

“She uses her elbows,” Bouskila says. “She’s a big girl and uses her elbows to gain space inside. So don’t be afraid to use yours. That’s OK. That’s part of basketball.”

It’s part of life too. Being confident, being happy, throwing an elbow here or there if you need to reach a goal that you think is important. It’s a lesson these girls are learning every day. In school. In basketball.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.