At a time when I was experiencing loss and sadness, I moved to Coney Island. It took me a while to make friends, but when I did – every day became an adventure. We would walk down Surf Avenue, moving to the uplifting sound of the carousel. We’d ride it and attempt to catch the golden ring to earn another ride. The aromas of grilling hot dogs and French fries made us quicken our steps to reach Nathan’s. The crunch of that first bite gave our tastebuds a salty, yummy treat. Then on to play games such as skeetball.
by Joe Dorinson I grew up in the Williamsburg Housing Projects and lived there from 1939 to 1960. To qualify for residence in this FDR crafted New Deal experiment in public housing, you had to be poor. That didn’t bother my lifelong friends, Irving, Ivan, Mike, Vinny, Bernie, Richie, Leslie, Barbara, Howie and me because we were all poor. Fineshmecker snobbery did not appeal and we thought everyone was in the… Read More »Growing up in the Williamsburg Housing Projects
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.
Sara Erenthal grew up in a Neturei Karta community in Borough Park but split with her family after her parents returned to Israel. Her latest works draw on the life she left behind.
SHE HAS moved on, but she has not forgotten.
Sara Erenthal, who split from her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family as a teen, draws on the painful life she left behind in a series of intimate artworks on display in a Prospect Heights gallery.
“This is nice way to tell my story in a very minimal way,” the 33-year-old artist said.
Erenthal was born in Israel and spent much of her childhood in a small Neturei Karta community in Borough Park.
Her family returned to Israel when she was a teen, but she ran away to escape an arranged marriage, she said.
Erenthal had never really believed in the community’s strict teachings, which called for unwavering modesty for women and an end to the state of Israel.
“It’s not really about being good people,” Erenthal said. “It’s more about being afraid of God.”
Now estranged from her father, Erenthal reimagines her childhood in her show at the SoapBox Gallery on Dean St.
Exerted from NYTimes, Oct 3, 2014 In “Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food”(Brandeis University Press), Ms. Silver, an accomplished food writer inspired by the replacement of Mrs. Stahl’s knishery in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, by a Subway sandwich shop, explores the origins and evolution of the “pillow of filling tucked into a skin of dough.” Her book brims with nostalgia (including the lyrics to the Samuel J. Tilden High School… Read More »Obsessions, From Street Food to Rooftops
American Millennials follow Jewish dietary laws at nearly twice the rate of Baby Boomers, perhaps finding the ancient laws fit well with contemporary concerns about sustainability.
On July 11, 1883, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise held a historic gathering in Cincinnati: the ordination of the very first class of rabbis of Reform Judaism, a modernized version of the faith.
But Wise’s lesser known contribution to Jewish American culture lies in the four-course spread served at the banquet afterwards: little-neck clams on the half shell, saladeof shrimp, soft-shell crab, and frog legs in cream sauce.Thrilling as it was offensive, the dinner that went down in history as “The Highland House Affair” ushered Judaism into modern American culture—aside from a symbolic omission of pork, everything from the air of gourmet French cuisine to the sweetbreads screamed rejection of Jewish dietary law and Old World culture.
130 years later, some parts of the Jewish community are going through another modernizing shift—but this time, in trendy pop-up restaurants and artisanal craft-food production. With their embrace of sustainable—and slightly hipster—food culture, Millennial Jews are shaping a blossoming culinary movement, and bringing non-Jews along with them.
By Francesca Norsen-Tate, Religion Editor – Brooklyn Daily Eagle 10/7 Jews around Brooklyn find innovative, fun ways of celebrating the joyful festivals. This year, Brooklyn’s famous amusement park at Coney Island will be transformed into a Sukkot Spectacle. Sukkot is the festival of booths. Taking place in autumn, Sukkot celebrates trust in God and the gathering of community. Luna Park in Coney Island is preparing to host a Sukkot Spectacle… Read More »Luna Park Set to Host Large Sukkot Spectacle
Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Oct. 17, 2014 Remsen St. became a block party on Thursday night as members of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and Congregation B’nai Avraham spilled out onto the street to dance with Torah scrolls. They were celebrating Simchat Torah (or Joy of Torah). Simchat Torah marks the cyclical tradition of reciting the closing verses of Deuteronomy, which is the fifth book of Moses, and then starting over… Read More »VIDEO: Simchat Torah in Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 7 2014 NEW YORK — In this photo provided by Chabad.org, 10 Chabad-Lubavitch teens on “pedi-sukkahs” ride down Fifth Avenue in New York on Monday. The pedi-sukkahs, are modified pedi-cabs with a Sukkah — a hut-like structure covered with bamboo — attached in the back. The goal of the parade is to create awareness for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a seven day,… Read More »Pedi-Sukkah Parade Peddles Through NY
An exhibit by artist Esther Zibell, right, called “Jewnity” is on display at the Hadas Gallery at the Rohr Chabad Jewish Center serving the Pratt Institute in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Esther Zibell’s colorful and imaginative holiday paintings have left synagogue-goers inspired by Judaism, art and a rather ambitious theme—Jewish unity.
Her exhibit, “Jewnity”—currently showing at the Hadas Gallery at the Rohr Chabad Jewish Center serving the Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill, a neighborhood in the north-central borough of Brooklyn, N.Y., that borders Crown Heights—has been met with enthusiasm by a cross-section of visitors since it went on display in mid-September.
Built five years ago across the street from the Pratt campus, the gallery is run by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, co-director of Chabad at Pratt. It also functions as a synagogue for the downtown Brooklyn collegiate community and the surrounding area, which is known for its affinity towards the arts.
Indeed, the walls have seen a lot. Ongoing changing exhibits of all kinds—paintings, photography, mixed media and sculpture by local professional Jewish artists, students and professors—and congregants as diverse as the surrounding artwork bring a real mix of creativity and spirituality to the place. On Shabbat, the Torah scrolls are brought out, and Jewish prayerful songs and melodies can be heard; students also attend holiday meals and late-night schmooze sessions there.
