But there’s a subtext throughout, not only one of sadness- for as I knew when watching, this 2007 season is, as of now, and orphan in Israeli baseball history- but one that is a question: how does anything take root?

It is a question repeatedly hinted at in the film- after all, there is no history of baseball in Israel- but more to the point, of Israel itself.

The parallels are striking. Israel’s birth in 1948 was the projection of a new country on this very same land. Yes, there is a monumental difference in tradition. But the question of where a Jewish homeland should be was an open one- and to many, the question of whether one was even necessary was open as well.

So I was struck by the number of Israelis who didn’t believe something new, something vital could take root in the Israeli soil.

This is not to say introducing a new sport is easy. Take the reverse attempts of people around the world to introduce soccer to the United States. The current version, the MLS, often struggles to build crowds or find the attention of even American soccer fans. Many of them simply watch the world-class action on television to be found in England or Spain.

What has helped soccer is the large number of immigrants in the United States from soccer-loving countries. 

Is it possible that Israel will have trouble integrating baseball into its culture as long as the Jewish homeland remains a distant second choice for residence to the overwhelming majority of American Jews?

That’s what Israel is to so many of us, of course. Across the political and religious spectrum, we support Israel, we support the idea of Israel. But live in Israel? Who among us says "Next year in Jerusalem" at the seder and means it?

The Israeli state, meanwhile, still prospers more than 60 years after its creation. Unlike the IBL, the state was able to weather bad times, troubles in leadership, even attacks beyond anything a baseball league could suffer.

And the MLS enjoys a position in the United States, if not of prominence, certainly of stability.

As the film progressed, and so many of the principals involved seemed to lose heart, it struck me that taking root is beside the point. Survuval is really about staying in place, with a long-term plan of how to do so.

Even this, too, is well-presented in the film. A subtitle could be "How Not to Succeed in Business Despite Really Trying."

This time around, the IBL failed, as did the North American Soccer League, the MLS’s predecessor, here in the United States. But I didn’t come away from the film with the idea that Israeli baseball is impossible. It just didn’t work this time.

(For more information, or to purchase a DVD of the film, go to www.holylandhardball.com.)

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While this is unsurprising- it is a nearly impossible standard to reach Michael Jordan’s eminence, even with the relative modifier "Jewish" in front of the namesake- what I find most interesting is just how quickly the Jewish community affixed this nickname to Goodman.

We are, as a people, desperate for our iconic modern sports hero. It’s been a while since we had one.

That is not to say there aren’t prominent Jews in sports today. As I have traveled around the country, giving talks about my book, The Baseball Talmud, I have been quick to point out that 2009 contained the most Jewish players in any single season of Major League Baseball.

And many of those players are not mere journeymen: Kevin Youkilis, Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler have all been standout hitters, while Scott Feldman and Jason Marquis have excelled in particular on the mound.

But what has struck me among the people I’ve met during my tour is the reverence for Sandy Koufax. It is at a level that surpasses even the Jewish baseball fan’s love for Youkilis locally in Boston, or for Braun in Milwaukee. He was an icon.

And so was Greenberg. Take a look at Philip Roth’s description in "The Conversion of the Jews" of a Hebrew school’s free discussion period.

It was a gusty, clouded November afternoon and it did not seem as though there ever was or could be a thing called baseball. So nobody this week said a word about that hero from the past, Hank Greenberg–which limited free discussion considerably.

Who among the Jewish people could so predominate today? No one. And American sport represents the path for such a person- musical taste is so fragmented, for instance, and politics so adult, but success in sport, coupled with identification with Judaism, would be the pathway for such a unifying force in Jewish life.

This is not to say such a person is guaranteed to appear. After all, it has been more than 40 years since Koufax retired, and it has yet to happen. We are fragmented as a society like never before, between disparate sources for news, information and entertainment, to even greaternumbers of pathways to definebeing Jewish in the 21st century.

But the haste with which Tamir Goodman was named "The Jewish Jordan" says to me that there is still a passion for such a figure among the Jewish people.

And for those who say it will never happen, I can only think to a few years ago, when I wondered, as a progressive, if I’d ever get to experience a leader who inspired my politics and made history. My mother and father had JFK, my grandparents FDR. Who would be that leader for my generation? Or had politics become too disparate, too intensely focused upon, for such a person?

American life constantly updates in ways that surprise and delight. Today, my president is Barack Obama. And soon, I hope,  a generation of Jewish children will wear jerseys of the as-yet-undiscovered True Jewish Jordan.

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