Brooklyn Hipster Bowling Alley Hosts Rosh Hashanah Event

(JTA) — Peter Shapiro — the owner of Brooklyn Bowl, a mid-sized music venue in Williamsburg that boasts a bowling alley and a Blue Ribbon restaurant — has referred to himself as the “rabbi” of his unique venue. But, come Monday, an actual rabbi will be taking over the joint.
The event, appropriately titled “Bowl Hashanah” will be a only-in-Brooklyn type of Rosh Hashanah morning service. Led by inventive Brooklyn Rabbi Dan Ain, it will feature music by blues-rock musician Jeremiah Lockwood (singer of the group The Sway Machinery) and include a meditation session led by “mindfulness expert” Miriam Eisenberger. Ain describes it as part religious service, part intimate concert and part space for people looking for a generally spiritual experience that’s tough to achieve in the bustle of life in New York City.
“We wanted to have fun,” Ain says. “A lot of people are turned off [from attending services] because they don’t connect with any specific agenda…We’re trying to do away with that.”
Ain, known to most as “Rabbi Dan,” has been holding Friday night Shabbat dinners and “klezmer brunches” with comedians, composers and other artists around New York City since leaving his post as director of tradition and innovation at the 92nd Street Y in May. The events are part of his new “startup,” Because Jewish.
The name, he says, stems from what he had heard at Jewish conferences: people being asked to “be Jewish because it can help you with relationships, or it can help for this social agenda.” His goal is to get people to connect to Judaism on their own terms.
“[Jews today] are not anymore interested in celebrating 1785 Poland than recreating 1980s Long Island,” he says.
This will be the fourth year that Ain and Lockwood have teamed up for High Holiday services. Lockwood — the grandson of legendary cantor Jacob Konigsberg — combines Old World-style cantorial singing with bluesy and, at times, reggae-infused guitar. He has toured around the world with his band and played with perennial New York subway performer Carolina Slim.
Bowl Hashanah will be the pair’s biggest event so far — and it’s something they hope could become an annual tradition.
bowl hashanah
Shapiro, whose family was very active in the organized Jewish community, opened Brooklyn Bowl in 2009; its unique formula has now expanded to London and Las Vegas. The venue is in one of Brooklyn’s most gentrified and trendy neighborhoods (mere blocks from Vice Magazine and the Brooklyn Brewery), and has hosted acts such as Kanye West, Elvis Costello and Paul Simon.
Shapiro — whose first venue, Manhattan’s storied “eco-club” Wetlands, shuttered in 2001 — also owns the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York and Relix, a magazine covering the jam-band scene.
“We have said for years that Brooklyn Bowl is our sanctuary, clubhouse, church and synagogue,” says Mike Greenhouse, the editor-in-chief of Relix.
In that regard, the venue will get to prove itself on Monday.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.