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2024 Brooklyn Jewish Torchbearers Award

     BJHI Salute to Israel Click This Link to RSVP  to attend the 2024Brooklyn Jewish Torchbearers Award Ceremony at theEast Midwood Jewish Center on  April 3, 2024 at 6 pm. Brooklyn Region Hadassah Brooklyn Region Hadassah is being honored for their work in creating and continuing its health care agenda. In the early 20th Century Brooklyn hospitals were organized around the idea of healthcare for women. Henrietta Szold, who… Read More »2024 Brooklyn Jewish Torchbearers Award

Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Brooklyn Heights

Saving Abraham’s Children – Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum 

This article, by Suzanne Spellen, was published by the Brownstoner,  Sep 13, 2012. In 1878, a group of German Jewish philanthropists gathered at Temple Beth Elohim on Kean Street to do something to protect and shelter Jewish orphans. Before that time, Brooklyn’s Jewish orphans were being taken care of by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York, in Manhattan, in an orphanage on East 77th St. In 1878,… Read More »Saving Abraham’s Children – Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum 

A Discussion with Rabbi YY & Nissim Black: From Islam, to Christianity, to Judaism

Grand Army Plaza Menorah. Photo by Julienne Schaer - NYC and Company

Grand Army Plaza Menorah Lighting Times 2022 – 5783

Grand Army Plaza Menorah. Photo by Julienne Schaer – NYC and Company Menorah Lighting Times 2022 – 5783 Menorah Lighting Times 2022 – 5783 1st Night of Chanukah, Sunday, December 18 Kickoff Concert Event begins at 4:00 pm 2nd Night of Chanukah, Monday, December 19 at 6:00 pm 3rd Night of Chanukah, Tuesday, December 20 at 6:00 pm 4th Night of Chanukah, Wednesday, December 21 at 6:00 pm 5th Night of Chanukah, Thursday, December 22 at… Read More »Grand Army Plaza Menorah Lighting Times 2022 – 5783

My Brooklyn Jewish Experience

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Growing up as a Jew in Brooklyn involved unique experiences. It could have been playing stickball in the one of the borough’s many parks, enjoying the beaches of Coney Island in the summer, playing street games after school, taking in a Brooklyn Dodgers game or weekend matinees. Whatever it was, we would love to hear about your Brooklyn Jewish experiences. Click here to share Your Story with us!

Congregation Ahavas Israel

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Congregation Ahavas Israel is a 120 year-old synagogue located in the Greenpoint Historic District in North Brooklyn, New York. The synagoguge holds Sabbath and holiday  services, all of which are followed by communal meals. It also organizes classes by visiting rabbis and scholars, and hosts Hanukah and parties as well as other communal events. Ahavas Israel is the only remaining Jewish congregation in a neighborhood that once supported five synagogues.… Read More »Congregation Ahavas Israel

Synagogues and Jewish Centers

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Brooklyn synagogues are important centers for Jewish communities. For generations, synagogues in Europe and the Middle East were primarily for adult male prayer and study.  In the US, they began to expand their roles to include other spiritual, cultural and educational activities for the whole family. The synagogue became a place to congregate, to celebrate life cycle events and social occasions. Many synagogues began to build social halls where a… Read More »Synagogues and Jewish Centers

The Arts

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Brooklyn is famous for its writers, as well as its visual and performing artists. Much of the latter talent has been forged through the public high school system. “SING,” an annual Brooklyn high school tradition of student-run musical theater production, which was started by a music teacher at Midwood High School in Brooklyn in 1947, continues today across the city. Students develop their skills in choreography, singing, lighting, building sets,… Read More »The Arts

Brooklyn’s Jews have a Love Affair with Mah Jongg

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Mah jongg! That’s the call of a winning hand! Since the 1920s, the game of mah jongg has ignited the popular imagination with its beautiful tiles, mythical origins, and communal spirit. Come learn the history and meaning of the beloved game that became a Jewish-American tradition.

Mah jongg is much more than a game: it is a carrier of fantasy, identity, memory, and meaning. Three bam, two dot, flower, five crack, dragons, winds! The tiles, lined up against racks as four players sit around card tables concentrating heavily on making a viable hand and winning the game.

From early 20th century Shanghai, where Jewish men and women first began playing to Brooklyn, mah jongg is a popular game played in senior citizen centers, community centers and in private homes, mah jongg.  The game spread to the United States., becoming extremely popular among Jews from New York to California. The American version is slightly different than the Chinese. American sets have 152 tiles in four suits. In the early days, tiles were made of ivory, then bakelight and today different plastics and materials are used. The rules of the game are determined by the National Mah Jongg Association.

Jewish actors like Eddie Cantor and Woody Allen refer to their mothers playing mah jongg.

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Pat Singer Is the Mother of Brighton Beach

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By Tanya Paperny Published February 22, 2013, The Jewish Daily Forward

Pat SingerLocated on the main stretch of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach Avenue, among numerous Russian delis, Russian-language bookstores and a shuttered Russian travel agency, the Brighton Neighborhood Association stands out. Its window is one of the few on the block with signs predominantly in English, and it’s one of the few storefronts near the elevated tracks of the B and Q trains that doesn’t actually sell anything.

This doesn’t stop people — and definitely not elderly Russians — from strolling through the glass front door, unannounced, on a regular basis. Some mistake the office for a thrift store and start lifting up, one by one, the porcelain and enamel elephants, gifts from friends and other tchotchkes on the desk of Pat Singer, founder and executive director of BNA, a not-for-profit social service agency in Brighton Beach, a neighborhood that stretches for one mile along the Atlantic coast.

Singer has to break into her limited knowledge of Russian to shoo them away: “Not magazin, this office! Not for sale, nooo! Get your hands off my desk!”

Singer, the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Odessa, is a community leader in this predominantly Russian-speaking neighborhood: “I’m called ‘the Mother of Brighton Beach,’ but I’m a bad mother, because I can’t communicate with my children.”

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