Updated Feb. 19
Charles Barkley, the NBA hall-of-famer and outspoken broadcaster who danced the hora at his daughter’s wedding in 2021, was gifted challahs by Rabbi Michael Lezak over the weekend during a tour of a homeless services center in San Francisco.
Barkley was in town to cover the NBA All-Star weekend. His visit was replete with controversy after the 11-time All-Star made disparaging remarks about the city last month, calling it “rat-infested.” He has previously described San Francisco as rife with homelessness and crime.
Needless to say, many Bay Area sports fans were not pleased about hosting him.
They also haven’t forgiven Barkley — who spent his NBA career playing with Philadelphia, Phoenix and Houston — for disparaging the Golden State Warriors starting a decade ago. In a 2015 statement that has aged about as well as a soft cheese in summer, Barkley called the Warriors a “jump-shooting team” that couldn’t win an NBA championship. (For anyone who is counting, the Warriors have won four championships since then.)
Over the weekend, an angry crowd gathered outside a taping of “Inside the NBA,” chanting “F**k you Chuck!” In retort, Barkley swiveled his chair around and lifted a pair of middle fingers.
Still, during his time in the Bay Area, Barkley appeared to make an effort to understand San Francisco’s problems rather than just ridicule them.
Barkley, who grew up poor in Leeds, Alabama, met with San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, and called him “tremendous.” And on Friday, he toured Glide Memorial Church and its adjacent social services center in the Tenderloin district where he served free meals to low-income and homeless people. He also pledged to donate $250,000 to the organization.
“He came for a couple hours to visit. He toured the whole building,” Lezak told J. on Tuesday. “He was really rocked by what he saw.”
Lezak, a director with Glide’s Center for Social Justice, said that Barkley was curious about the Jewish community’s involvement in Glide, a nondenominational church that was founded as a Methodist institution and led for 60 years by the late Rev. Cecil Williams. Barkley sought out Lezak, made a crack about the Jewish calendar and told the rabbi that his daughter married a Jewish man.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Rabbi, you guys have a lot of holidays!’” Lezak said.
Barkley’s daughter Christina Barkley married Jewish entrepreneur Ilya Hoffman in 2021. At the celebration, the 6-foot-5, 250-pound former basketball star was joyfully lifted on a chair during the hora, notwithstanding some reservations he shared about the maneuver.
Barkley has also earned appreciation from segments of the Jewish community for publicly condemning antisemitism coming from Black celebrities. “I don’t understand how you beat hatred with more hatred,” Barkley said in 2020. He again condemned antisemitism in 2022 from NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving.
Lezak, who acknowledged that he is a fan of Barkley’s from watching the NBA in the 1980s and early ’90s, said he was impressed by the visit.
“He was here for the big show,” Lezak said, speaking of All-Star weekend. “But he also had a menschy, sweet heart that wanted to understand the pain of the city.”
Lezak, who also said Barkley has a “sweet soul” and a “compassionate soul,” noted that he expressed particular interest in partnering with Glide to reopen a YMCA that closed in Selma, Alabama.
The rabbi, who helps bake 100 challahs every Friday in the kitchen for staff members (to “feed people who feed people,” he said), offered Barkley two challahs at the end of the visit and wished him a “Shabbat shalom.”
“He’s got my heart now,” Lezak said. “I’m on team Barkley.”