Culture & Traditions

In Brooklyn Heights, local author to discuss South African upbringing

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June 5, 2022

Brooklyn BookBeat

By Samantha Samel/Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Dec 12, 2013

authors

Though she now calls Brooklyn Heights home, author Ellie Levinson is no stranger to the world abroad. In fact, she’s spent much of her life across the world in South Africa, as she poignantly relates in her recent memoir “Let’s Play Hopscotch, Growing Up Under Apartheid in South Africa” (Tate Publishing & Enterprises). On Tuesday, Dec. 17, Levinson will appear at the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library in conversation with Elizabeth Scholtz, director emeritus of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, who also hails from South Africa. Levinson will read passages from her memoir, which she will discuss with Scholtz, after which there will be a book signing.

In “Let’s Play Hopscotch,” Levinson enlivens her hometown of Welkom, the small region in which she grew up with five siblings. She recalls her experience being raised with a Catholic, Lebanese mother and an English father under apartheid rule and goes on to describe her extensive travels to 42 different countries.

Likening her life to a game of hopscotch, Levinson reflects on hopping from country to country and the endless array of characters she’s met along the way. Most notably, Levinson met Ivan, a Jewish medical student whom she married 36 years ago and with whom she has raised four children.

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June 5, 2022

By Paula Katinas
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Volunteers Ashlee Davis, Jennifer Smith and Joey Canoro (left to right) prepare food packages for delivery. Photo courtesy Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty

The Purim holiday which took place this past weekend was a lot more festive for hundreds of people in Brooklyn, thanks to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which distributed food packages to families in Flatbush, Midwood, Marine Park and Borough Park as part of its Kosher Food Network.

Volunteers from the Council of Jewish Organizations of Flatbush and the Jewish Community Council of Far Rockaway delivered 500 two-person meals to homes on Friday, March 14, in time for the Jewish festival.

The food giveaway allowed residents to partake in holiday festivities despite the often prohibitive costs of kosher food, organizers said. The meal included traditional staples such as challah, stuffed cabbage, vegetable soup, chicken, and potato kugel.

“Purim is a time for celebration and thanks to a generous Met Council supporter, 1,000 food insecure New Yorkers will be able to join the Jewish community in marking the occasion with joy and dignity,” Metropolitan Council CEO and Executive Director David M. Frankel said prior to the food distribution.

For Sandy victims in Brighton Beach, Purim story has a double meaning

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June 5, 2022

By Francesca Norsen-Tate, Religion Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Rabbi Josh Minkin (in foreground) holds the microphone, while colleague Malka Shagaraeva wears the crown. Photo courtesy of the Jewish Board of Family & Children’s Services

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services on March 17 treated the Brighton Beach community, which was seriously affected during Hurricane Sandy, to a festive Purim party at Tatiana restaurant on Brighton Beach Avenue as part of the UJA-Federation’s Post-Sandy Community Outreach Program. The program provides emotional and spiritual help to members of the Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Staten Island who have been seriously affected by the hurricane. The free program, which is offered in both English and Russian, is unusual because it combines pastoral with psychological counseling. Read More »For Sandy victims in Brighton Beach, Purim story has a double meaning

Borough President Eric Adams Hosts Pre-Passover Community Open Dialogue

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June 5, 2022

published in Brooklyn Eagle Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams recently hosted Jewish community leaders and representatives from city agencies, including the New York City Police Department, Fire Department and Department of Sanitation, for a pre-Passover community open dialogue in the courtroom of Borough Hall. The forum was an opportunity to discuss preparations for the holiday and ways to advance collaboration. “We need to work in collaboration, not isolation, which was… Read More »Borough President Eric Adams Hosts Pre-Passover Community Open Dialogue

Brooklyn’s Oldest Synagogue Celebrates Model Seder

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June 5, 2022

Apr 04, 2014 by Tanay Warerkar, Greenpoint News

Rabbi Joshua Fishman and congregants Courtesy Martin Needelman

Brooklyn’s oldest Orthodox and Williamsburg’s last non-Hasidic Orthodox Synagogue, Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Shalom (CBJOS), will hold its first-ever model Seder this Sunday to mark the upcoming celebration of Passover.

The model Seder is a way for the Rodney Street Synagogue to reintegrate the Jewish community in North Brooklyn and specifically to reach out to the influx of people who have recently moved into the neighborhood, as well as to introduce the Jewish culture, history and traditions to those who might not necessarily be devout practitioners of the faith.

Brooklyn, NY – New Art Gallery Aimed At Jewish Artists Opens In Crown Heights

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June 5, 2022

published on Apr 29, 2014 at 12:00 AM By:Mitch Stern on www.vosizneias.com Creative Soul, founded by Yitzchok Moully, is a group of Orthodox Jewish artists who offer exhibitions, dance groups and open mic nights. Moully, 35, is a Hasidic rabbi and artist who works with photo silkscreen works that portray important symbols of Jewish life. Monthly art exhibitions are shown at the Mayan Center, a newly renovated community space rented by Creative… Read More »Brooklyn, NY – New Art Gallery Aimed At Jewish Artists Opens In Crown Heights

Program Explores Odyssey of Jews to Brooklyn

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June 5, 2022

By Francesca Norsen-Tate, Religion Editor –Brooklyn Daily Eagle The Institute of Living Judaism in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative and the Kane Street Synagogue present “Strangers in a Strange Land: How We Ended Up in Brooklyn” next weekend. A panel of leading Jewish History scholars will be featured, including Drs. Ilana Abramovitch, Annie Polland, Gerald Sorin and Daniel Soyer. Dr. Ilana Abramovitch, co-editor of Jews of Brooklyn (Brandeis University… Read More »Program Explores Odyssey of Jews to Brooklyn

Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass to Be Honored

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June 5, 2022

By Francesca Norsen-Tate, Religion Editor – Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass to Be Honored for 36 Years of Service To East Midwood Jewish Center at June 8 Dinner-Dance
Honoree Is Also Longest-Serving NYPD Chaplain

Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass will be honored at the East Midwood Jewish Center’s (EMJC) 90th Annual Dinner-Dance for 36 years of service as the Center’s esteemed and distinguished spiritual leader this coming Sunday, June 8.

“This event is the highlight of the Center’s social season,” said Toby Sanchez, co-president of EMJC. “It is a time to pay tribute to a leading rabbi, who is also chief chaplain of the New York City Police Department and who has contributed so much to our Center and city, enjoy each other’s company and, not coincidentally, it is a major fundraising event.”

Sanchez continued, “Rabbi Kass is a gifted orator whose uplifting, insightful and intellectually-stimulating sermons inspire us at Shabbat Services, the High Holidays and life cycles, as well as at community events.

Randy Grossman, co-president of the Center, pointed out, “Over the years, Rabbi Kass has exerted a powerful influence over the spiritual life of the synagogue and has devoted his entire professional life to ministering to the needs of others in the wider community, in the armed forces of our country and in the Police Department of our great city.”

Jewish, Muslim Communities Break Bread Together in Brooklyn

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June 5, 2022

Published in the Brooklyn Eagle – August 5, 2014

Dinner Brings Together Communities for Ramadan And ‘The Three Weeks’ of Bein HaMeitzarim

Members of Brooklyn’s Jewish and Muslim communities broke bread together at a unique multi-cultural dinner on Thursday, July 24 at Congregation Mount Sinai.

The Ramadan Iftar dinner coincided with the Jewish period of Bein HaMeitzarim (The Three Weeks) and gave participants the chance to get to know each other and explore a religious tradition that may have been unfamiliar to them. The event featured music and dancing by Jewish and Turkish performers.

The importance of brotherhood and learning about each other’s traditions was the evening’s theme.

Program Nurturing Jewish Identity Expands Throughout Brooklyn

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June 5, 2022

By Francesca Norsen Tate, Religion Editor – Brooklyn Daily Eagle

https://brooklynjewish.org/2014/08/program-nurturing-jewish-identity-expands-throughout-brooklyn/

Keshet, a successful and well-known educational community afterschool program for Israelis in Brooklyn, is expanding with the support of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and will be renamed IAC-Keshet Programs.

IAC-Keshet is an afterschool Hebrew dual language program for both Hebrew- and non-Hebrew-speaking children, ages 3 and up. In addition to Hebrew-language education, IAC-Keshet also explores different aspects of Jewish and Israeli identity, helping students make a strong connection to Israel. The Hebrew word Keshet means “rainbow.”

With the change, IAC-Keshet Programs will be moving from Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform congregation in Park Slope, to Kings Bay Y at Windsor Terrace, a JCC with multiple locations in Brooklyn. The program is expanding in order to reach out to the broader Israeli and Jewish communities in Brooklyn and beyond.

This new development reflects a growing trend in which Israeli-American programs are expanding, while engaging the broader Jewish community under the IAC’s leadership.
Yehudit Feinstein-Mentesh, the newly appointed IAC New York regional director and the founder of Keshet, told the Brooklyn

Eagle during a presentation at the Kings Bay Y that she and a group of Israeli parents started gathering several years ago to create a space for sharing cultural identity.

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