I Found My Jewish Home at the Mah Jongg Table

This past Sunday, I attended Kveller’s Jewish Mah Jongg Festival at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Even though I don’t live in the Big Apple, I had never been to the museum, and I didn’t yet know the vast majority of people at the event, I felt like I was coming home.

And it was all because of a traditional Chinese game that is once again sweeping our country by storm, almost exactly 100 years after it was first introduced to the United States. 

My sister taught me how to play mah jongg about a year and a half ago. She learned from her mother-in-law, and I have since taught my daughters, as Jewish women have been doing for generations.

When I first sat down at that card table with three women and 152 tiles, I had no idea how meaningful this game would be to me and how it would bring together many of the most important parts of my life: family, community, Judaism, life-long learning, anxiety management and excessive amounts of trash talking. 

I grew up being in awe of my father for always knowing exactly which card I needed for gin Rummy, trying desperately (and rarely succeeding) to shoot the moon in Hearts, yelling at my cousins to get their grubby card off my card in Pounce, and celebrating loudly and quite obnoxiously when I finally beat my grandmother at Russian bank. As soon as we could, my husband and I taught our daughters to play Rummikub, and yes, I absolutely pointed out the game’s Jewish and Israeli origins every time we played.

Despite my devotion to game playing and my deep belief that there are few better ways to build and strengthen relationships, I never learned mah jongg. But once I got my hands on those hot little tiles, I was hooked. It wasn’t just because it was the most fun and challenging game I had ever played; it also became one of the strongest and most meaningful connections to Judaism of my life. 

I grew up in a completely secular family with no Jewish education, and it wasn’t until college that I became interested in Judaism. And even though I went on to join a synagogue, marry a Jewish man, raise Jewish daughters, work for a Jewish non-profit, and write an introduction to Judaism for middle grade readers (coming in 2027), I still say I speak Jewish with an accent. I’ve never felt entirely at home in Jewish spaces or practicing Jewish rituals.

Until I found mah jongg.

Photo via Grace Yagel

To be clear, American mah jongg isn’t a Jewish game. It’s a game with deep and meaningful Chinese roots, from the origins of the game to the symbols on each tile. But Jews (and primarily Jewish women) have developed, sustained and played this game in the United States for nearly a century, in the tenement housing of the Lower East Side, the bungalow colonies of the Catskills, the JCCs and synagogues of American suburbs, and now, thanks for Kveller and Modern Mahjong, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

Everything I love came together on that day. As my sister and I walked up to the Robert Morgenthau wing of the museum, I felt pride and gratitude for my family. Robert Morgenthau was my grandfather’s first cousin, and I was reminded that even though I don’t always feel Jewish enough, I come from a long line of Jewish men and women —  Naumburgs, Morgenthaus and many others — with a deep commitment to civil service, tikkum olam and tzedakah.

As we listened to the amazing Gregg Swain share the history of this game and how it has helped Jewish women build community and live their values for decades, I felt like I was part of the next chapter of the story she shared. And as I met and played with women who are members of the Mah Jongg Minyan (the Facebook group I started for Jewish and Jew-ish mahj players), I was reminded of the power of this game to bring people together. 

No matter what city we live in, what synagogue we attend (or would never step foot in), how Jewish we are (or not), and how we feel about the National Mah Jongg League (the organization founded by Jewish women in 1937 that still publishes the official rule book and yearly cards needed to play the game), we all have a seat at the table. (And it’s especially amazing when the table has a view of the Statue of Liberty in the background, as it did on Sunday.)

Photo via the author

As I spent enough money on Menschie Mahjong tiles and the most beautiful wooden racks I’ve yet seen from Vivien Judson of GoldieLox (a sponsor of the event) to trigger a fraud alert on my credit card (true story) and planned a European Mah Jongg and Jewish heritage river cruise with Jill and Susan of Crak Your Bags (another sponsor), I relished in the joy of finding just the right mah jongg set and looking forward to another opportunity to make friends with strangers and search for the perfect hand to play.

Most importantly, I got to play mah jongg — with my sister, my daughter, online friends I was meeting for the first time, and women I had never met before — and playing the game is the best part of all of it.