There must be something about high walls and hitting a ball as hard as you can that resonates with St. Louis Jews. In the 1970s and ’80s, Jewish racquetball champions helped put St. Louis on the national map. But long before racquetball had its moment, the Goldstein family and a circle of Jewish athletes were already building a dynasty on the handball courts — a legacy that defined Jewish sports life here for nearly a century and now finds new life at the U.S. National Handball Center in Hazelwood.

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A family tree built on handball

For Will Goldstein, a two-time national champion and 12-time state winner, the Hazelwood project isn’t just about the future of the game — it’s about carrying forward a family legacy.

“Stanley Goldstein was my dad,” he said. “He introduced me to the game. I started watching him play at a very young age.”

Stanley went on to win two collegiate national doubles championships at Washington University and earned a place in the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, housed at the Jewish Community Center. But, the tree runs even deeper.

“Hymen Goldstein was my great uncle. He served as president of the United States Handball Association and is in the United States Handball Hall of Fame,” said Will Goldstein. “Albert Goldstein, Stanley’s cousin, played doubles with Dr. Stanley London, the legendary St. Louis Cardinals team physician, in the 1960s and 70s. Albert’s two sons, Billy and Barry Goldstein, are also in the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Together, they won a number of state and national doubles tournaments. Unfortunately, Barry died in a tragic accident almost 20 years ago.”

Will Goldstein joined that lineage in 1986 while in law school. In 2014, he was inducted into the Missouri Handball Hall of Fame.

Family rivalries — and awkward introductions

For the Goldsteins, handball wasn’t just about competition — it was about family.

“My father and Uncle Hymen played in the JCC B class doubles championship against my mother’s father, my grandpa Lou Leve, and his partner Milton Harris,” Goldstein recalls. “This was some time before my dad met my mom. My dad and uncle won the match and needless to say, when he eventually made his way into my mother’s life, it was more than a bit uncomfortable meeting my Grandpa Lou officially!”

Why Jews chose handball

Handball fit the Jewish immigrant experience perfectly.

“Handball is just the perfect sport, all you need are gloves and a wall,” Goldstein says. “For Jews that grew up during the Depression, you couldn’t ask for a more accessible sport. You didn’t have to be particularly tall or even terribly strong to excel at the game. It was never about big dollars or great notoriety. From its inception, folks have played for the love of the game.”

Generations of Jewish families made it their own. “Both of my grandfathers played handball many years ago and of course, a host of great uncles and cousins were all players. I’m not certain if my grandfather taught my father or one of his uncles, but the game was very consciously passed down through the generations.”

A tradition remembered

Goldstein recently uncovered memorabilia showing just how central handball was to Jewish St. Louis: tournament brackets from the 1960s, a Handball Magazine cover featuring his great uncle Hymen, and letters from Jewish leaders I.E. Millstone and William Kahn supporting new JCC courts.

“If you want to know what handball means to me, it is all right there,” Goldstein says. “So many prominent St. Louis Jewish men grew up playing the game and continued to play well into their 70s, 80s and even 90s. It was one of the central ways for Jews to compete against each other and against the rest of the world. And because it was so inexpensive to play, it was accessible to all. So during a time when, like the rest of the world, Jews struggled because they were recent immigrants or because of the Depression, they scraped together enough money to buy a pair of gloves and a ball and got on the court and played, and played and played. There was really no other sport like it.”

Hazelwood and the future

Now, with the opening of the U.S. National Handball Center in Hazelwood, Goldstein sees a chance to carry that story forward.

“For today’s Jewish boys and girls growing up (and yes, there are plenty of girls that play today), I would say this: handball is a first-rate exercise that forces you to learn to use both sides of your body. It is a sport that reaches across all socio-economic sectors of our society and allows one to interact with folks from every walk of life.”

Beyond fitness, Hazelwood represents opportunity. “There are still at least 50 colleges with handball programs, many offering scholarships. We intend to be a pipeline for our St. Louis youth into those programs.”

That’s the impact Goldstein hopes to replicate in Hazelwood. “This is what we are creating in St. Louis: opportunities. I could not be more proud to be a part of something that will have such a lasting impact on our sport, on our community and on our collective well-being.”