Leon Rose, the Jewish crew president who constructed the New York Knicks’ roster, is one win away from his first NBA title — nevertheless it wouldn’t be the primary time he’s gained championship {hardware}.
That’s as a result of he coached a Jewish neighborhood middle’s youth basketball crew in South Jersey, main them to 2 gold medals and two silvers on the JCC Maccabi Video games, which hosts JCC groups from round the USA yearly.
“We have been holding basketball tryouts,” recalled Rob Kiewe, who served because the Katz JCC’s health and wellness director for greater than 20 years, “and our Maccabi [Games] chairperson on the time was within the gymnasium.”
By this level, within the mid-2000s, Rose had constructed himself as much as grow to be a high-profile agent with famous person purchasers like LeBron James and Allen Iverson. And but right here he was, volunteering on the native JCC in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, the identical township the place he’d grown up.
Throughout a break within the tryout, the Maccabi chairperson took the children apart. “‘Guys, I simply need you to grasp who this man is, what his life is like,’” Kiewe recalled him saying. “‘And he takes trip on a Sunday morning to run a tryout and run this crew.’”
It could be one other decade-plus earlier than Rose moved into his function with the Knicks in 2020, however he was already a giant identify in skilled basketball on the time. Nonetheless, “you’d by no means know he was who he was; he walks the halls like an everyday Joe, at all times has,” stated Kiewe, who’s now chief operations officer of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey.
He added, “He’s a mensch. He’s the true embodiment of a mensch.”
Rose is just not the face of the Knicks franchise. He doesn’t have the celebrity of the crew’s’ gamers, nor the notoriety of crew proprietor and billionaire James Dolan. However because the chief of the entrance workplace, Rose is credited with making a collection of transactions — together with signing Jalen Brunson, and buying and selling for Karl-Anthony Cities, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges — which have guided the Knicks to the precipice of their first championship since 1973.
The Knicks’ Finals run has united town at a time when division has roiled some within the Jewish neighborhood. It’s sparked rallying cries just like the now-iconic “My mayor Muslim, my bagels Jewish” rhyme, and memes with Jalen Brunson’s head photoshopped onto the Lubavitcher Rebbe “Messiah is right here” fliers that dot town’s site visitors lights.
Leon Rose (prime left) and the Katz JCC boys’ basketball crew on the 2004 JCC Maccabi Video games, Washington DC. (Courtesy Rob Kiewe)
Whereas the celebration this yr has are available response to the Knicks’ on-court efficiency, Jewish teams have additionally beforehand celebrated Rose for his work off the court docket.
In June 2025, UJA-Federation of New York honored Rose because the recipient of the David J. Stern management award, named after the late commissioner of the NBA, who was Jewish. The award is given yearly to a sports activities business determine who “embodies Stern’s legacy of social duty, generosity {and professional} excellence.”
Within the speech he gave whereas receiving the award, Rose stated the respect “really encapsulates the values and passions which have impacted my life: my household and the sport of basketball.”
He continued, “It’s, as has already been stated, further significant at such a vital time in our folks’s historical past.”
Again in 2009, the Katz JCC awarded Rose with its “JCC Athletics Lifetime Volunteer Award” after he’d spent six summers teaching numerous basketball groups, together with ones that featured his son, Sam, and daughter, Brooke. Kiewe stated Rose “believes in giving again, doing the appropriate factor and educating these children the appropriate option to play.” Often, Rose would ask Kiewe to make use of a court docket for a tryout with a potential shopper to see if they’d NBA-level expertise.
In the meantime, Rose’s spouse, Donna Rose, was additionally closely concerned in this system. “Once we wished to know what to do for uniforms, or determine the follow schedule — ’Speak to Donna, she’s my GM,’” Kiewe recalled that Rose would say. Later, she performed a key function when the Katz JCC hosted the Maccabi Video games in 2014.
In 2009, the JCC made Rose the inaugural member of its personal sports activities corridor of fame, and the Philly Jewish Sports activities Corridor of Fame inducted him two years later.
In 2023, the Katz JCC devoted the identify of its basketball court docket to the Rose household — led by Leon’s father and the Rose household patriarch, Zev — after they’d donated an undisclosed sum of cash to repair it up.
Leon Rose (second from proper) with, from left to proper, his brother Adam, his father Zev, and his nephew Noah, standing on the Rose Household Courtroom. (Courtesy Katz JCC)
The elder Rose is one thing of a legend within the South Jersey Jewish neighborhood. Congregation Beth El in Voorhees honored Zev Rose with its lifetime service award final yr, and he served on the board of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey. Zev Rose has grow to be identified for holding a victory cigar — unlit, since he doesn’t smoke — at Leon’s groups’ video games.
In a latest interview, the elder Rose informed Newsday that Leon, as a senior in school, informed him about his aspirations to make a profession as a basketball coach. He had performed basketball all 4 years at Dickinson Faculty, a liberal arts faculty in Pennsylvania, and would go on to be an assistant coach at his alma mater, Cherry Hill Excessive Faculty East. His father supplied his help, in addition to a dose of actuality.
“He stated he needs to be a coach, and I stated, ‘Nice, be a coach. However a minimum of get a legislation diploma and you’ve got one thing to fall again on,’” Zev Rose stated.
After taking his father’s recommendation, Leon Rose grew to become a legislation accomplice at Sherman, Silverstein, Kohl, Rose and Podolsky, earlier than pivoting and ultimately becoming a member of CAA Sports activities as an agent.
Now, up 3-1 in opposition to the San Antonio Spurs within the Finals, his Knicks are on the point of an NBA championship — one thing that may’ve been unthinkable when Rose took the helm of a franchise that had been floundering for 20 years.
Again within the South Jersey Jewish neighborhood, the place Rose’s roots are and his father and brother nonetheless dwell, rooting for the Knicks is one thing of a taboo, because it’s Philadelphia 76ers nation.
“It’s a little bit of a sensitive topic,” Kiewe joked.
However, he continued, “All people loves Leon. There’s lots of people that aren’t essentially rooting for the Knicks — however they’re rooting for Leon.”
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