Sarina Roffe, interviewed May 30, 2012, Brooklyn Borough Hall: My most favorite memories from growing up as a Jew in Brooklyn are playing street ball and street games with the Italian neighbors that I had growing up in Bensonhurst. I used to live on 69th Street between 21st Avenue and Bay Parkway, and all of the kids, and all my cousins would go to the Marboro Theater, and we would go for matinees… Read More »Growing Up In Bensonhurst
Sarina Roffe, interviewed May 30, 2012, Brooklyn Borough Hall: My favorite memories from growing up in Bensonhurst are playing street ball and street games with our Italian neighbors. I lived on 69th Street between 21st Avenue and Bay Parkway, and all of the kids, and all my cousins would go to the Marboro Theater, and we would go for matinees and my mother would give us fifty cents for the… Read More »Growing up in Bensonhurst
By Sarina Roffé Neighborhoods in Brooklyn are a direct reflection of the changing ethnicities and religions of the people who live in them. During the last 100 or so years, Brooklyn has embraced Jews from all over the world, and holds first place for having the largest Jewish population on the planet. Brighton Beach, once the home of Eastern Europeans and Holocaust survivors, saw a drastic change as it embraced… Read More »Brooklyn’s Changing Neighborhoods a Reflection of Jewish Diversity and Immigration
After 15 years of research, BJHI Co-chair Sarina Roffé has completed Branching Out From Sepharad (New York: Sephardic Heritage Project, 2017). Dedicated to her grandparents, Joe and Frieda Missry, Roffé outlines the global journey of selected rabbinic families from Iberia to Syria to the Americas. With the Foreword written by Dr. Walter Zenner A’H, Branching Out From Sepharad outlines the history of Jews in Spain, the 1492 Expulsion, the history… Read More »Branching Out From Sepharad: Traces Community History And Selected Rabbinic Dynasties
Magen David Synagogue Documentary about the landmarked Magen David Synagogue in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, produced by Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative in cooperation with Sephardic Heritage Project. 2019 View BJHI Video Library
Steven Margolis Branford CT 12/30/2012 I have several remembrances going back to the 60’s of my time at the JCH of Bensonhurst. I am from New Haven – the New Haven JCC and the “J” had a fierce basketball rivalry. I was captain of the New Haven JCC varsity basketball team. When I stepped off the bus after the two and one half hour ride from New Haven I saw a… Read More »JCH of Bensonhurst
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
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