Gabby's Mahj Story

This article was originally published for the Humans of Judaism book.


My Family's Love for Mahjong
By Gabby Leon Spatt
Mahjong enthusiast and founder of Mahjong for Israel

Mahjong. Mah Jongg. Mah-Jongg, or just Mahj for short. While its English spelling may be all over the place (like Hanukkah), it's all the same game. It feels beautifully representative of the Jewish American experience, and the American melting pot experience writ large, that a South Chinese gambling game came to take over Jewish card tables from tenements in Brooklyn to bungalows in the Borscht Belt, to beaches in Miami.
 
When I was young, Mahjong was a game for old people. I remember watching my mother and grandmothers at the table, kibbitzing with their friends. My grandmother played with fellow holocaust survivors in Florida, perhaps a silly game for people who went through so much. But as I've gotten older, I realized it's not the game that matters, it's the kibbitzing, it's the friendships the game supports. Now, I get to watch my two-year-old son "play" with his grandmothers, yelling Mahjong and looking for monsters, aka, dragon tiles.  Mahjong sets last forever, and, like my grandmother's was given to me, are often passed down l'dor vador, from generation to generation.
 
The game was developed in the mid-1800s in China, and as one of China's national pastimes, Mahjong remains remarkably popular both there and among Chinese abroad. Tourists and entrepreneurs from the US brought the game back home with them in the early 1920s. Those early adopters changed the rules for an American audience, like the classic Chinese American dish, General Tso's Chicken. The National Mah Jongg League, formed primarily by Jewish women, was founded in 1937 to standardize the rules of the American game, and still creates new annual lines for the coveted Mahjong card.
 
During COVID, while people were home trying to find new hobbies, Mahjong had a comeback (supported by appearances in Crazy Rich Asians and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). It is perhaps not surprising that a game that was itself appropriated and redesigned for a new and foreign community, has seen its own recent revival by a new generation, one decidedly younger and less Jewish. In place of the crackled leather briefcases and yellowed tiles of my mother and grandmother, are bright pink Etsy bags, new designs that wouldn't look out of place in a Jonathan Adler store, and even playing card versions for those on the go.
 
Not only has the game picked up, but so has the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of those playing it. There are dozens of new women-owned small-business Mahjong companies and hundreds of side-hustle Mahjong teachers across the US. The game is being played by people of all ages at events with names like Tacos and Tiles, Saved by the Tiles, and even Men and Mahj. I've personally taught groups at homes, synagogues, and garden clubs, and created the "Mazel Card," a custom Jewish themed Mahjong card to raise money for Israel after October 7th.
 
One thing that has sustained the Jewish community over the years is the strength of our traditions. Even if Jews didn't invent Mahjong, to me it has become one of those unique cultural aspects that, like bagels, helps define modern American Jewry. I feel the history of those who came before me when I play, as my own matriarchs come to life in laughing technicolor instead of dour black and white. My husband and I use the tiles to teach our son how to count and sort, and then when the tiles somehow inevitably end up on the floor with a crash, how to clean up after himself. While its original heyday may be behind it, Mahjong is bridging the generational gap, one tile at a time.