when the camera pans across to the empty seat that has the plaque "coalition of jewish athletes", is that a Black September joke?, i like that kind of humour myself but i could be reading into it too much
-You do know of course that this means an angry letter to The Times?
No, I think it's a reference to the empty seat at the Passover Seder table. A seat is saved for Elijah.
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
Both are wrong. There's hardly any Jewish athletes in professional sports. Since there's barely any, there's really no need for a guy to oversee that. That's the joke.
shareD-Wright's right. The same joke is used in Airplane!. When asked if he wants something to read a passenger says to give him something light. Instead of a magazine the stewardess gives him a pamphlet of Jewish sports stars.
shareDodger pitcher Sandy Koufax was Jewish. In the young Mordechai flashback, he is seen carrying a lunchbox bearing the picture and uniform number of Koufax.
shareYes, there's Koufax. There's also Hank Greenberg, Kevin Youkilis, and Bill Goldberg. The point of the joke is there aren't very many.
shareFrom Wikipedea:
Judah Maccabee strongly disapproved of athletic games and competitions, which were a clear influence of Greek culture, were introduced into Jerusalem by his staunch enemies the Hellenising Jews, and were abolished upon his getting control of the city.
Nevertheless, by the irony of history one of the main sports federations of contemporary Israel is named for him Maccabi, and most Israeli cities have athletics, football and basketball clubs of that name (some of them internationally famous). Also named for him are the Maccabiah Games, an international Jewish athletic event similar to the modern Olympics – in turn modeled on the Classical Greek ones, of which Maccabeus also evidently disapproved as part of a foreign and hostile culture.
The perfect human being is uninteresting. - Joseph Campbell