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Rabbi Alvin Kass

Rabbi Alvin Kass, ‘soul of NYPD,’ longtime police chief chaplain, dies at 89

Rabbi Alvin Kass Rabbi Emeritus Dr. Alvin Kass was the spiritual leader of East Midwood Jewish Center for 36 years until his retirement in 2014. He was a former head of the New York Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Kass was a chaplain for the New York City Police Department (NYPD) since 1966 and was the longest serving chaplain in department history. Rabbi Kass was inducted into the BJHI Brooklyn Jewish… Read More »Rabbi Alvin Kass, ‘soul of NYPD,’ longtime police chief chaplain, dies at 89

Phillip and Leonard Lopate and a photo of their mother Fran Lopate, spokesmodel for Levy’s Rye. Photo by Andrew Silverstein

How a Jewish mother from Flatbush became America’s most recognizable Italian on TV

How a Jewish mother from Flatbush became America’s most recognizable Italian on TV For Levy’s Rye and Alka-Seltzer, you didn’t have to be Italian to play Italian — and Fran Lopate definitely wasn’t Phillip and Leonard Lopate and a photo of their mother Fran Lopate, spokesmodel for Levy’s Rye. Photo by Andrew Silverstein By Andrew Silverstein August 7, 2025 Fran Lopate, a 53-year-old former Garment District worker and Jewish mother of… Read More »How a Jewish mother from Flatbush became America’s most recognizable Italian on TV

BJHI Hall of Fame

JBS Film on BJHI Hall of Fame 2023

Good News!! JBS-TV will be broadcasting our BJHI Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame Class of 2023 evening:Friday, August 9th – 4:00am & 1:00pmSaturday, August 10th – 8:00pm

Ani Maamin - Shlomo Carlebach

Ani Maamin – Shlomo Carlebach Feat. Eli Levin

The iconic Shlomo Carlebach and contemporary singer Eli Levin join together in an unforgettable music video transporting viewers to the streets of Jerusalem where the eternal promise of redemption hovers tantalizingly in the air. https://youtu.be/NwHO7Gpf0mI?si=Y1Y1xB4p_LOm_mOs BJHI Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Famer Cecelia Margules wrote this song for Reb Schlomo Carlebach. Margules and Danny Finkelman produced this video and BJHI’s music video, BROOKLYN with Nissim Black.

The Hon. Abraham Gerges

Council Members Past and Present Discuss Issues Then and Now

Steve Levin by Claude Scales on November 1, 2013 2:29 pm in Brooklyn History, Events, Government, Other Brooklyn The present–Steve Levin (photo above)–and past three–The Hon. Abraham Gerges (photo below),  Ken Fisher, and David Yassky–who have represented City Council District 33, which includes Brooklyn Heights, were in the Moot Court Room at Brooklyn Law School Tuesday evening for a panel discussion moderated by Brooklyn Law Professor David Reiss. The moderator opened the discussion by asking each panelist what was… Read More »Council Members Past and Present Discuss Issues Then and Now

Henry "Hank" Sapoznik

Henry “Hank” Sapoznik

A pioneering scholar and performer of klezmer music, Sapoznik was the first director of the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, from its founding in 1982, until 1994. As an outgrowth of that work, in 1985 Sapoznik started “KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program”, the world’s most important training venue for practitioners of this nearly lost art and, in 1994, founded the Yiddish arts… Read More »Henry “Hank” Sapoznik

Are We Funny or What?

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Submitted by Joe Dorinson Brooklyn produced a bumper crop of comic artists. Many of the nation’s premier humorists–Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Buddy Hackett, Jack Carter, Joan Rivers, Fanny Brice (and her avatar, Barbra Streisand),  Alan King, Lenny Bruce, Danny Kaye, Abe Burrows, Phil Silvers, Phil Foster, and Henny Youngman–mined their Brooklyn past and Jewish roots for comedic nuggets. Starting in local candy stores, they honed their… Read More »Are We Funny or What?

Sandy Koufax

Sandy Koufax

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Sandy Koufax 1961 Just in: Koufax was a baller of more than one kind Apparently Brooklyn Jewish baseball legend Sandy Koufax had short legs but also ups. He played basketball for Lafayette High School in Bath Beach, Brooklyn in the early 1950s, setting himself apart as an extraordinary player on the court before going on to his career as an all-star pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers. As an early teenager… Read More »Sandy Koufax

Remembering Maurice Sendak

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Brooklyn-born, Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83. The cause was complications of a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor. Mr. Sendak,… Read More »Remembering Maurice Sendak