This year’s Academy Awards featured a well-received and widely seen, albeit unflattering, depiction of a Jewish ping-pong star; Marty Mauser, called “Marty Supreme.”
Mauser was based on the real-life Marty Reisman, and was played by Timothée Chalamet. The movie made waves, so it would be reasonable to think that the recent event at the Jewish Museum of Maryland titled “Game On! Open Court: Ping-Pong Pop-Up” was, at least in part, inspired by the release of “Marty Supreme.”
That’s actually not true — it was one very well-timed coincidence, said Andria Washington Hanner, the museum’s director of communications.
“This was planned before ‘Marty Supreme’ [was announced], which is crazy,” she said. “It was really amazing.”
The event came about largely because the museum’s director, Sol Davis, is a big ping-pong player. He wanted to give proper kudos to a sport that has been integral to the Jewish experience, from summer camps in Pennsylvania to resorts in the Catskills to community centers in Los Angeles.
While ping-pong may not necessarily conjure up the same level of pomp and circumstance as football or basketball, the team at the museum was committed to creating a unique environment for the opening event. It was held on March 29 and featured Davis playing in a marquee matchup against Isaac Simon, who is the internship programs manager at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and had a role in “Marty Supreme.”
“We have bleachers, we have scoreboards, we have archival video of people playing ping-pong. We also have images from our collection up on the wall, so it’s really an immersive experience. I’ve never experienced anything like it in a museum,” Washington Hanner said.
The matchup between Davis and Simon was the most anticipated battle on any of the museum’s three tables, but plenty of others have gotten to take their talents to the room, too. Since the event, the tables have been open to museum attendees, with plans calling for the exhibit to run through the end of May, as of now.
Washington Hanner said that the exhibit is meant to bring to light a Jewish pastime that isn’t necessarily widely known to be one.
“It was inspired by the deep history of Jewish ping-pong and how it’s played in the backyard, at summer camps, and how it’s able to be played during Shabbat,” she said.
The exhibit is also meant to work in concert with the other installations at the museum, particularly because it’s so different from what people expect of a museum.
“This kind of offers, I don’t want to say a reprise, but a contrast,” Washington Hanner said. “You’re able to go through the museum and look and learn and be educated, but then you can also go hit a ball across the table with a friend. We are really just making a full experience.”
When Washington Hanner says that she has never seen anything like this at a museum, she’s not alone. She said that those in attendance for the opening day event have echoed that sentiment.
The exhibit is less crowded than it was for that opening day, but folks are still enjoying it all the same. Simon’s attendance, Washington Hanner said, exemplifies why something like this that seems trivial is actually crucial to telling the story of American Jewry.
“Because he works in Holocaust studies, it was amazing to have him there. The correlation between culture and sport was really great for all of the people who were there, and it was really rewarding to see people in the space as we talked about it,” Washington Hanner said.
“There were people of all ages. There were grandparents and their children and their grandchildren and friends and colleagues and museum board members. We had all different kinds of people, and they were grateful to have that experience.”
