basketball in a shul

The Iryat Bet Shemesh recently publicized the upcoming (tonight actually) "Tournament Finals in the Shul Basketball League". The mayor and certain other members of the city municipality would be attending the final game.

I am not sure exactly what the sign said. I did not see the actual sign. I do know that there is no Shul League. There is, however, a tournament that has recently been running of teams based on shuls. It is not a league that operates all the time. Someone put together a torunament and the easiest way to do so is to base teams on shuls. So it is something like an inter-shul tournament.

The games are played in the municipal sports center and a number of shuls fielded teams, though in most situations the shul had nothing to do with the teams, rather somebody in each participating shul put together a team of people whow ere in the shul. No shul Rabbi was involved and no shul gabbai was involved (unless they were among the ones playing for their shul).. The shul aspect of it was just a way of breaking into teams.

Anyways, the local Charedi rag, "Chadash" printed a critical article in this past Friday's edition. They wrote the article without looking into the situation. All they did was see the sign put out by the Irya and print their own article. They did not speak to the organizers of the tournament, nor to any participants.

The Chadash editor writes (with my translation), " What is clear is a the slight to the holiness of shuls and all that the shul as a minor temple is meant to symbolize... We must protest their bringing the secular into the holy, and not only that but they take pride in it in public and publicize it..

The shul, which our ancestors gave their lives to protect its holiness and its standing, it cannot be allowed to bring into it foreign and evil winds. A shul is dedicated for Torah, prayer, and service of Hashem. Basketball and sport have enough of their own fields and locations...."

They clearly did not speak to anybody involved in the league/tournament. It is simply a series of games, with teams broken down based on shul affiliation. Games are not played in the shuls. They are played in one specific basketball court and nobody is harming the standing of any of the shuls involved. Again, no shul is involved. It is just a number of people from shuls playing ball together.

They are, supposedly, journalists. One would think a simple phone call to check the situation would not be beyond the scope of writing the article.