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Ina Garter shares a recipe for the ultimate quarantine cocktail

Brooklyn Jewish Born Ina Garten Whips up the Ultimate Quarantine Cocktail!

INA GARTEN WHIPS UP THE ULTIMATE QUARANTINE COCKTAIL! Brooklyn Jewish born Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, shares a recipe for her version of a cosmopolitan, and it’s pretty much the ultimate quarantine cocktail. In stressful times, sometimes a drink is just what you need — and, obviously, no one understands this better than Ina Garten. Click on Image for Video and Recipe!

Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond Remakes Sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond shares ‘Sweet Caroline’ Remake Our fellow Jewish Brooklynite, Neil Diamond shares ‘Sweet Caroline’ Remake: ‘Hands, Washing Hands’.  A PSA that never seemed so good, so good.   Click on Image for Video

Max Brooks

Mel Brooks and his son explain social distancing for you

Legendary comedian Mel Brooks and his son took to Twitter with a very funny — but also very important — message about social distancing. Mel Brooks, 93, is in the group deemed high risk as the spread of COVID-19 continues due to his age . His son, Max Brooks, said he is practicing social distancing so that his father — nor any of his father’s famous friends and fellow legendary… Read More »Mel Brooks and his son explain social distancing for you

Three men standing at Crane's Chip Stand

CRANES POTATO CHIP STAND

by Sonny Crane Hi, As a young boy growing up on Kings Highway in the 50’s, the apartment building we lived in was an eclectic mix of families and quite special. One of the joys I had from my father was his stories of growing up in Brownsville with his father and him running CRANES POTAO CHIP STAND. You could get a hot dog and French fries for 5 cents.… Read More »CRANES POTATO CHIP STAND

Edward G. Robinson

Manny Pierre didn’t know where it came from, he only knew that it came and it helped in oh-so-many ways. The money always arrived with a small short note that simply said, “Keep up the great cause, we will prevail,” and was simply signed, “Manny.” Pierre didn’t know who Manny was – nobody did! Not then anyway, we do now. But this was during World War II when the Black Horror was sweeping Europe. That’s what Manny called it, The Black Horror, & of course he was referring to the Nazi plague that was taking over most of the continent. Pierre was a leader of the French Resistance, commonly called the underground. He fought with groups of French citizens in the best way he could, by living within main society and leading bands of armed resistance against the Germans in clandestine activities. They would ambush German patrols, blow up German installations and sabotage Nazi operations in any way they could. The Allies were good at providing arms and weapons, but the underground also needed money. That was a commodity that was very hard to come by during the war, especially when your country is completely occupied by an invading military force.

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Kane Street Synagogue’s Heroic Congregant

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Submitted by Judith Greenwald Among our early members was Civil War hero Brigadier-General Leopold C. Newman.  At the age of 22, already a lawyer and engaged to be married, he volunteered for duty in the 31st New York Infantry Regiment.  Newman fought in seventeen engagements and was promoted for valor to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.  On May 3, 1863 he led his company in the charge of Mary’s Heights in… Read More »Kane Street Synagogue’s Heroic Congregant

Jewish Neighborhoods

“Brooklyn Bridge” Teleplay

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Home Is a Place Over the Bridge Brooklyn informs most of writer and television producer Gary David Goldberg’s work. Goldberg, probably best known for the television series Family Ties, grew up in Bensonhurst in the 1940s and 1950s with his grandparents, parents, and older brother. They were three generations living under one roof. (Goldberg’s grandparents, immigrants from Russia and Poland, lived downstairs in the apartment building.) In 1991, he created… Read More »“Brooklyn Bridge” Teleplay

Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin of Bensonhurst

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A Leader Among Many: Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin of Bensonhurst Submitted by Sarina Roffe Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin was born in 1900 in the old city of Jerusalem and is a descendant of an unbroken chain of rabbis dating back to the mid-16th Century. Of Aleppan descent, he became the first Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Bensonhurst in 1933. A qualified Dayan (judge), shochet, mohel and kabbalistic… Read More »Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin of Bensonhurst