H eadlines
Next-Generation Players Preserve Mahjong
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
MAHJONG PLAYERS want
you to know that the tile game
isn’t just for bubbes.

“Over the last five years,
it’s just unbelievably grown,”
said Gail Stein, who teaches
a beginner’s mahjong class at
Old York Road Temple-Beth
Am in Abington.

Stein began teaching the
class over a decade and a half
ago, with membership hovering
at around 35 to 40 per week.

Although COVID-19 forced
in-person attendance to drop,
the Sisterhood-sponsored group
still meets weekly, maxing out
the capacity of their meeting
space. Stein said five people
have spots on the waiting list.

Although the group skews
older, and still consists mostly
of older women reaching
retirement age or becoming
empty nesters, the class has
seen a few new faces.

“We’re starting to get the
next generation,” Stein said.

The youngest player to join
the class was 13. A man in his
20s or 30s started attending the
weekly meetup as well.

“They know if they walk in
our door that they are accepted
and that we will find a place for
them to play,” Stein said.

Mahjong is a strategy game,
with Japanese, Chinese and
American variations. Players
aim to create a certain “hand”
of tiles that contain various suits.

Beyond being an enter-
taining game to play, mahjong
is mostly played for social
purposes, Stein said. It’s been
this way since she was young,
when she learned at 7 years old
how to play mahjong from her
mother. Stein played the game
with a group of 16 friends in
high school.

“It’s just fun,” she said. “It
gives me so much pleasure
to watch these girls have
something to do that’s fun
because we all work so hard in
our lives, and you don’t have
time for fun.”
Although Temple-Beth
Am Sisterhood’s mahjong
group leans toward the typical
demographic, their core interest
in playing the game for its social
benefits is what’s piqued the
interest of more young players.

Just before the COVID-19
pandemic began, Tribe 12, a
Philadelphia-based organi-
zation connecting 20- and
30-something-year-old Jews,
hosted a Mahjong 101 night
for women and non-bi-
nary Jews to learn the game.

The programming stopped
due to the pandemic. When
Tribe 12 asked members what
programs they wanted to see
in the coming year, mahjong
made several appearances on
people’s lists of requests.

“We had a few people say
that they’re really interested
in mahjong — either people
who were in the group before
wanting to start up again or
people who have never played
it, wanting to be part of a
game,” said Polly Edelstein,
Tribe 12’s program manager.

“It seems to be a very big
thing in pandemic life to have
people being nostalgic for
things, even goofy things that
they did in middle school,”
Edelstein said.

For young people with
grandmothers who grew up
playing the game, mahjong is
not only a throwback game, but
also a cultural touchstone and
connector to past generations.

“The pandemic has really
highlighted that people are
not interested as much in
the superficial anymore,”
Edelstein said.

The younger generation’s
interest in mahjong has been
present for a while now,
but it has been latent, said
Sarah Allen, co-leader of the
Philadelphia Riichi Mahjong
Club, which holds weekly
mahjong games at the Thirsty
Dice game cafe in Philadelphia.

Allen, 25, first found out
about mahjong when watching
an anime in high school. She
started playing the game online,
but she soon forgot about it
until she encountered a group
of people playing the game at
the Thirsty Dice in late 2019.

She’s been playing regularly
with the group since July.

Mahjong is one of many
tabletop games that has witnessed
a growing audience overall.

Mahjong is a tile game mostly
played for the purpose of socializing,
players agreed.

Photo by Gail Stein
“Recently there’s been this
renaissance or resurgence of
tabletop games,” Allen said.

Allen added that she’s drawn
to the physicality of the game.

Although she first picked up
mahjong online and enjoys
playing virtually, the online
game isn’t the same as playing
with a group in-person.

“There’s something more
fun about playing it in-person
— actually sitting at the table,
moving the tiles around with
your hands,” Allen said. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
Antisemitism Breaks Out in South Jersey
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
ANTISEMITISM HAS
been breaking out too often
for comfort in recent years,
according to local and national
Jewish leaders.

And in December, antisemi-
tism struck South Jersey.

Two incidents, one at
Marlton Middle School and
another at Congregation Adath
Emanu-El in Mount Laurel,
happened in Burlington
County specifically.

On Dec. 5 at Adath Emanu-
El, a sixth-grade religious
school student walked into
the office and told synagogue
leaders about a swastika sticker
6 DECEMBER 30, 2021
on a sign in the parking lot.

“We are everywhere,” read the
text above the swastika.

Then, on Dec. 16 and 17
at Marlton Middle, two
swastikas were found in boys
bathroom stalls. Next to one
was the sentence “Hitler was
right,” according to Evesham
Township School District
Superintendent Justin Smith.

The other had a stick figure
with X’ed-out eyes beside the
word “Jew.”
Leaders at both institutions
informed local law enforce-
ment about the swastikas, and
investigations are ongoing.

Police removed the sticker at
the Reform temple and kept it
for their records, according to
Rabbi Benjamin David.

Evesham Township Police
Chief Christopher Chew told
the Courier Post that his
department is reviewing video
from Marlton Middle.

Burling ton
Count y
Prosecutor Scott Coffina called
both incidents “extremely
disturbing.” He said he thought
they could be related to a larger
rise in antisemitism in New
Jersey and the country. But he
didn’t necessarily see them as a
problem specific to the county.

Regardless of the reason,
though, the outbreaks “need
to be confronted,” Coffina said.

After both
incidents, Burlington and South Jersey
residents and leaders did just that.

See Swastika, Page 16
JEWISH EXPONENT
This swastika was found outside Congregation Adath Emanu-El in Mount
Laurel in December.
Courtesy of Rabbi Benjamin David
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM