Mah Jong may have had its origins in China, but members of the Jewish community have been playing the game with the enthusiasm of a Chinatown foursome for decades.
The Baltimore Sun reports the Project Mah Jong exhibition opened this week at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.
“A lot of people don’t see themselves as having a museum-worthy experience,” says Melissa Martens Yaverbaum, curator of the traveling exhibit. “But mah-jong has been an important part of Jewish-American life.”
Many young Jewish Americans have memories of their mother, aunt or grandmother playing much the same way many Chinese Americans have memories of their family and friends clanging the tiles together.
“The games were all about food,” Martens Yaverbaum said. “Most people would serve Entenmann’s coffee cake, pineapple slices and bridge mix. There was also Jell-O and jelly rings.”
There’s even statistics kept on the number of mah jong tiles sold…and those statistics seem to indicate that mah jong is gaining in popularity.
You can read about that and the traveling exhibition in the Baltimore Sun.
RE: What’s a mah jong exhibition doing at a Jewish Museum: thank you for the post, i love mahjong, i remeber my father and friends clanging the tiles