Park Slope Jewish Center, Brooklyn NY

Attended Selichot across Brooklyn. Moving experience in a lovely sanctuary.

I attended PS 107 (John Kimball) across the street from the PSJC from 1978-1984; Kindergarten-5th grade. I started taking Hebrew classes at PSJC around first grade in 1979. They were good classes, I acquired a working knowledge of conversational Hebrew, which is IMPORTANT even for assimilated secular American Ashkenazi Jews (like me) to have because the language is such a distinct part of Jewish identity and culture, and of course to prepare for being Barmitzvahed, and for those pilgrimages to Israel.

My grandparents wouldn't let me have my Barmitzvah there though, LOL PSJC was too: "Liberal" a Synagogue for them (hey, they were old-world European Hasidic Jews who'd escaped Europe just before the Holocaust got bad) so I had to do it at their old Synagogue, East Midwood Jewish Center (which was actually closer to our house in Ditmas Park than PSJC was) which they used to attend (and where my Mother had her Batmitzvah) before they moved out to Long Island from Brooklyn. Tradition, TRADITION! I wanted to have it at PSJC but I also had to please my grandparents out of respect. Plus they had to come all the way from Florida, so it was the LEAST I could do.