The best way to understand what makes Chaim Galbut different — and, more than that, the two lives he’s trying to live — is to travel back to April. Galbut was in Pittsburgh at the time, visiting the campus of Duquesne University. There, he met with the head basketball coach, Dru Joyce III. He toured the gym and the locker room. He spoke to some players and had dinner with the staff.
Everything felt right. Galbut, a high-flying, 6-foot-7 teenager from Miami, accepted a scholarship offer for the following season. In the fall, he’d be playing basketball for a Division I program. All the work he’d put in, all those hours on the court and in the weight room, had paid off.
“A dream come true,” is how he’d describe it.
Galbut celebrated with his family. He shared the news with friends.
A few days later, he was back at his yeshiva in Jerusalem, where he was spending a gap year after high school and studying Talmud eight hours a day, hunched over a desk in a room surrounded by rabbis, learning about the various tort laws that can be found in the tractate of Bava Kamma.
“I also pounded out Maseches Makkos in one z’man,” Galbut said, referring to a separate Talmudic tractate and the amount of time it took him to do so.
This fall, Galbut will become the first yarmulke-wearing, Sabbath-observing player to suit up for a Division I men’s basketball team since Tamir Goodman at Towson in 2001. That means that whenever Duquesne plays on a Friday night, Galbut will be sitting out. It also means he’ll become the rare person to swap a room in an Israeli yeshiva for one on the campus of a Catholic school.
Galbut isn’t just embarking on a rare journey. He’s pursuing a life that many — rabbis from his past, Division I coaches who declined to be part of his future — say ends with him falling short in both worlds.
“I’ve had some people tell me I’m not going to be learning [Torah] as much as I should, and others saying that if I really want to chase this basketball dream, I need to fully devote myself to that,” Galbut said. “I get it, and I know this is not going to be easy.”
Galbut was saying this on the eve of his first official practice with the team. He was navigating the roads of Pittsburgh in his black, tinted-out Genesis, wondering if he could make it to Walmart despite the low tire pressure light glowing on the dashboard. When it comes to life’s more mundane logistics — returning phone calls, keeping track of apartment keys, maintaining a car — Galbut acts every bit like the 19-year-old that he is. Ask him about more serious matters, though, and he sounds a decade older.
“I’m a basketball player and I’m a Jew. Not one or the other,” he added after pulling into a gas station. “To me, there is no choice. And being both is how I’ve gotten here.”
He was speaking metaphorically, but there’s some literal truth to that statement, too. The novelty, after all, is part of what landed him on the radar of the country’s top scouts.
Growing up in Miami, Galbut mostly played for small Jewish day school teams. He dominated the competition, and loved putting in work, whether running stairwells between classes or shooting on his family’s driveway court until 11 at night. He started playing some AAU basketball around 10th grade, and transferred to a prep school for his senior year. But few people outside of his bubble knew who he was. When Galbut graduated high school in the spring of 2025, he didn’t have a single Division I offer.
By the end of the summer, that was no longer the case.
The previous year, Galbut had joined a new AAU team named JDS Elite. The program was formed with the purpose of giving high-level Jewish day school players a chance to compete on larger stages and against better competition. Its coach, Brendan Barile, also led the Riverdale Country School boys basketball team, in The Bronx. One day he got a call from an assistant coach at Harvard, Mike Sotsky, asking if he’d like to bring the Riverdale team to Harvard’s annual high school showcase. Barile said yes, but, he added, there was a second group he wanted to bring, too. He told Sotsky about JDS Elite.
“I said, ‘Look, I want to be transparent with you,’ ” Sotsky recalled. “ ‘We’re going to have some really good teams there, we don’t want anyone coming and being on the wrong end of lopsided games.’ ”
Barile told him he wasn’t worried.
A few weeks later, midway through JDS Elite’s first game, Sotsky’s phone started buzzing.
“Sotsky, you gotta see this,” his fellow assistant coaches wrote in a group chat. “The kid in the Yarmulke is the best on the floor.”
Sotsky hustled over to the gym. “Wow,” he thought to himself after a few minutes. Galbut was big and bouncy and tough, but it was more than that. He had good instincts. Great hands, too. And the way he just snatched rebounds out of the air was striking.
“They were beating one of the best teams there,” Sotsky said. “And Chaim was the reason why.”
Sotsky spoke to Barile about Galbut’s future. Harvard wasn’t the right fit — its focus on academics meant too many games on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, times when Galbut would be unable to suit up — but Sotsky was converted. A few weeks later, Barile asked for a favor. JDS Elite was scheduled to play at a tournament in Atlantic City. Hundreds of college coaches would be in attendance. Barile asked Sotsky if he could put in a word and get JDS Elite on the main court, where Galbut would get the most exposure.
Once again, Galbut stole the show.
A few months later, Chase Goldstein, an assistant coach at Duquesne, was sitting in his office scrolling on his phone when a viral video caught his attention. “Chaim Galbut Is The Best Jewish Hooper In The Country!!” read the caption. The reel had more than 100,000 views. Watching the two-minute, seven-second package of highlights, Goldstein was stunned. This wasn’t just another kid dunking a ball. What he saw was a mix of ferocious one-handed slams, some over outstretched arms, and sometimes after a smooth in-and-out dribble or swift spin move. The kid could shoot from deep, too. And he was doing it all with a yarmulke perched on top of his head.
Goldstein, who grew up in a Jewish home, had never seen anything like it. He was also surprised that, as a fellow native of South Florida, he’d never heard of Galbut. He made some calls. He learned about Galbut’s background, that he was a Sabbath observer, that he had yet to choose a college, and also that he’d be spending the following year in Israel learning Torah and studying Talmud. None of this deterred Goldstein. To the contrary.
“I thought this was a chance to show the world what an Orthodox Jew could do,” he said in an interview.
At his next weekly meeting with Joyce, the head coach, he showed him the video. He also told him that he believed Galbut was a Division I talent. Joyce was intrigued. But he also had questions. “I just needed to know more about it,” he said recently. Goldstein explained the situation, then received Joyce’s sign-off to both recruit Galbut and learn more. Goldstein spent a lot of time speaking to Galbut’s father, Eric.
“There was just a lot of gratitude,” Joyce said. “No demands or anything. And we knew it wouldn’t be easy. But it just felt like it was a great opportunity to both help a young man and also for our program and staff to grow.”
Duquesne made clear that the school would do its best to accommodate Galbut wherever possible. Galbut was thankful and honored. But he remained unsure. Yeshiva, coming off an electric Sweet 16 run, remained an option, and the easy choice. He’d be comfortable on campus. He wouldn’t miss games. But it wasn’t Division I. Torn, he went looking for input wherever he could. While spending his gap year in Israel, he ran into Ryan Turell, a former Yeshiva University star who played two seasons for the Detroit Pistons’ minor league affiliate, outside a Jerusalem mall.
“He wanted to know what I would do in his situation,” Turell recalled. “He was saying that he had so many different voices giving him advice, but the thing he really wanted to do was prove the people wrong who said someone like him couldn’t play at that level.”
In the spring, Galbut visited Duquesne. Soon after, both sides made the partnership official.
“They’re giving me a chance most people wouldn’t,” Galbut said.
Galbut moved into his new apartment in June. He’s spent the months since adjusting to his new life, learning how to blend the two he wants to live. He wakes up every morning at 6:50 so that he can make morning prayers at 7. Then it’s breakfast, then practice. He takes a few online classes early in the afternoon, then heads over to a nearby Kollel—a center for Jewish learning—to study Talmud with a partner from 3-6. After that is afternoon prayer, then it’s back to the gym to get up shots and work with a trainer, then dinner, then more learning, then, at 10 p.m., night prayers. After that, he goes to bed so that he can do it all again the next day.
“It’s been really hard,” he said. “Some days feel so long, but I also remind myself that’s what I wanted. One of my family’s sayings is to chase your dreams. And that’s what I’m doing.”
Little by little, he’s feeling more at home. He’s getting used to the speed and level of the practices, learning where to go and when to do so. He’s figured out that rebounding is where he can make an immediate impact. Someone recently referred to him as the Jewish Jordan.
“No, I’m the Jewish Rodman,” Galbut replied.
He was thrilled to discover that one of his teammates’ favorite ice cream spots is actually kosher. He laughs about how they think he spends all day in the synagogue, but he loves answering their questions about his practices and religion. In July, he had to miss a practice due to Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.
“I had to explain it all,” Galbut said. “I went deep.”
The team’s schedule hasn’t come out yet, but he’s not worried. He knows the school will do everything it can to make him comfortable. He knows because he’s already seen the extent to which his coaches and teammates are willing to go. The other day, a graduate assistant coach reached out. He was organizing a 5 p.m. team trip to the grocery store. Galbut is one of the few players with a car. The GA wanted to know if he could drive a group.
Galbut told him that he couldn’t make it, that his afternoon learning session wouldn’t end until 6 p.m.
“And they changed the grocery run to start at 6:15 so that I could go,” Galbut said. “It just showed how much they value and respect what I’m doing.”
He understands his life will only get harder. That there might be moments when he doubts the choice he’s made. Maybe the first time he’s forced to miss a game because of Shabbat. Or maybe the first time he’s forced to cut short his learning session because of a game. All he can do in the meantime is attack each day as best he can. During the difficult moments, he likes to remind himself what he’s chasing, that he’s at Duquesne for a reason.
“I know this is going to be a journey,” he said. “But that’s the whole point. This is the journey I’ve always wanted to take.”
