Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Mahjong was the popular game played by my mother and most Jewish woman of her generation. I heard somewhere that it originated in China and that Chinese men are those who have played it religiously. Only recently was I given an article from Newsweek magazine by June Brown, a resident of Cascade Heights, describing the true nature of the game. It stated, “Mahjong was not invented by the Chinese, but by the Jews in early Palestine. The game began about the year 200 BCE among the more assimilated Jews, but was frowned on as a sinister debauchery by the ‘good’ Jews of Judea and Galilee. It continued to be played until the fall of the Second Temple and the dispersion of the Jews by the Romans in 70 CE. It was then carried to India by the family of Simon of Tiberias, worked its way eastward, and was considered as an example of high orthodoxy in the homes of Far Eastern Jews.”