From Court to Community: Uniting Jewish Students Through Basketball
When people think about the Jewish college experience, a basketball tournament may not be the first thing that springs to mind. But one of the biggest weekends for Jewish college students all year is, in fact, centered around basketball!
From April 3-6, University of Maryland Hillel hosted the 2025 National Hillel Basketball Tournament (NHBT), an annual event that brings students together from around the country – not just to compete, but also to connect, find community, and experience an oasis of Jewish joy — something we all need right now. This year, more than 1,000 people attended the tournament, with 60 teams representing 30 different schools.
When I arrived this past fall as a freshman at the University of Maryland, I never imagined that NHBT would become such a key part of my college experience. I had heard about the tournament from my older brother, Ari, who has served on the NHBT board the past two years. Both of us love sports, which is partially why I decided to come to UMD in the first place. Even so, I could not have expected just how much NHBT would shape both my social and academic life. Through my role on the Tech team, I found not only a passion for programming but also an incredible group of lifelong friends.
What I did know was that Hillel would play a big role in my college experience. Having grown up in a vibrant Jewish community and spent a gap year in Israel, I came to college with both an appreciation for Jewish life and a determination to stay involved in it.
Since coming to campus, Hillel has become a home away from home. Whether it is Kabbalat Shabbat, meals, events, or just being around the community, it is a space I genuinely enjoy being part of. Beyond that, my involvement with NHBT has deepened my connection with Hillel in ways I had not anticipated.
As a member of the NHBT board, I played an active role in planning, and took on the challenge of building an app to keep players and visitors informed before and during the tournament. Seeing our team’s eight months of work come together – displaying live stats, schedules, and brackets in real-time – and hearing how much it helped people navigate the weekend, meant a lot to us all.
And as NHBT kicked into high gear, those months of effort paved the way for an awesome weekend. After all, NHBT is so much more than a basketball tournament; it is a full Shabbaton experience. Students from campuses across the country began arriving on Thursday, and that evening, we hosted a bar night open to all students (with hand stamps to distinguish who was under 21, of course). Games started first thing on Friday morning, but once the tournament paused for Shabbat, team rivalries and competition gave way to shared meals, services, and infinite Jewish geography.
Saturday was all about relaxing, spending time with new people, and building connections, until games resumed after Shabbat. And there were a lot of games: in total, 143 games were played across five men’s and two women’s brackets, which culminated in championship wins for Yeshiva University’s women’s team and the University of Pittsburgh’s men’s team.
Every moment from start to finish was packed with exhaustion, adrenaline, and incredible amounts of fun. People cheered, hugged, and celebrated the small and big wins. But it was our shared passion for building something meaningful within the Jewish community that made the weekend truly unforgettable.
As my first year in college comes to a close, being a part of NHBT has taught me a powerful lesson about the value of community and shared joy. The experience of working hard, spending time with my friends, and creating a space where Jewish students from across the country could feel like they belong is everything I was hoping to find through Hillel and NHBT.
The National Hillel Basketball Tournament was founded in 2010 by Maryland Hillel to bring Jewish students together around the inclusive and encompassing game of basketball. Solely organized by a board of 30 highly motivated students, what began as a small event has quickly developed into one of the largest collegiate gatherings of Jewish students in the country. Read more about this year’s tournament here.
Ezra Geller, first-year computer engineering student at the University of Maryland, served on the tech committee of the National Hillel Basketball Tournament leadership board.