I got to play Mah Jongg!!

Note: this is my last post from Israel. Later this week, I will post from Oakland about the many wonderful Hadassah visits I had this spring and summer.

Throughout our first two months of life here in Jerusalem, I asked every English speaking person I met about Mah Jongg. I brought my card, and I wanted to find a game to play in. No luck. Until...

Mark was in his Ulpan class (kitah bet at the Baka Community Center), and they were talking about their hobbies. Well, one of his classmates Amy (who happens to be the cousin of our friend and congregant Bryna Ross), mentioned that she plays Mah Jongg. Mark talked to her about it and asked if I could join. She said yes! They have a big WhatsApp group of about 14 people but only 5-8 play together at any one time. I got added to their group, and they were playing at 5:45 pm on Shabbat afternoons and usually Wednesday evenings at 7 pm during the week. Sometimes they switched to Tuesdays (like this week because of Tisha B'Av). I met such lovely people in the Mah Jongg group. They were very warm and welcoming. I've played maybe 6 or 7 times overall. So much fun!

I didn't have the 2023 card yet when I left for our trip, so I asked Stacy to send me a photo, and I used my tablet as my card. Luckily on Shabbat I could borrow an extra card from other players as I wouldn't want to make the Shabbat observant people uncomfortable by using my tablet. 

If you don't play Mah Jongg, you can probably skip this paragraph. The "Jerusalem" version of the NMJL game is a little different. For example, the dealer does not roll any dice to break the wall. They just start dealing. And when I say dealing, I mean that East passes out all the tiles. This table rule was not troubling to me at all. It doesn't really change the game. However, the element I didn't like but had to play along with was the changes to the optional pass. Instead of passing across 0, 1, 2, or 3 tiles with the person that wishes for the least deciding, this group used a type of "mush." Whatever optional tiles we didn't want got put in front of us, and we went around taking any of the tiles on the table, matching the number that we put out. This does change the game, but only a little. I still didn't enjoy this part, and if I could, I always took whatever was right across from me to simulate what would happen in a regular optional pass.

I am very grateful to Mark and Amy for making the connection and was very happy to have gotten to play Mah Jongg here in Israel.