It’s Friday night in Brooklyn and I’m on a reconnaissance mission to finally check out a venue that has local brownstone residents buzzing. Tucked away on busy Atlantic Avenue between a string of antique showrooms and overpriced boutique stores, there's a new high-end cocktail lounge that's been four years in the making. Unlike many nightspots with arbitrary names, this bar's moniker references the life of the building whose birth date and previous name are still engraved on the original façade. Welcome to Talmud Torah Beth Jacob Joseph est. 1917, now known as Deity.

Entering Deity: it's a great place to renew your bat mitzvah!Deity is the vision of financial consultant Caio Dunson (pron: Kuy-yu) and his fashion-designer wife Kristine. They bought the dilapidated building, which had not seen shulgoers for over 30 years, in 2003. The space had been an antique warehouse in the interim. The couple, with the help of family, friends and talented Brooklyn artists, tirelessly transformed the interior while consciously preserving the integrity of the building. They turned the top two levels into their residence. The bar below, as they see it, is like an extension of their living room.

The exterior hasn't changed much since the early 1900’s when Yeshiva students entered the hallowed building to study Gemorah and daven in its synagogue. Hebrew letters are inscribed into the limestone while decorative Magen Davids encircle the entrance. Tonight, a guy in a fedora hat smokes outside the wrought iron gates and a stylish brunette hostess in a red trench coat invites partygoers into the new sanctuary.

Waitresses: these uniforms look comfy.The exposed brick walls are lined with candles and a stairwell branches off to various doors on two levels. Upstairs, in the spacious lounge, patrons are appreciating the range of exclusive muddled cocktails like the ‘Uptown Again' -- a vodka, passionfruit, pistachio and champagne concoction -- and the Plymouth gin, lemon, lime and cherry flavored ‘Brooklyner.’

The large stained glass windows surrounding the main seating area are the most eye-catching feature. Illuminated goddess sculptures extend from the back wall and cocktail waitresses serve martinis in gold, Grecian one-shoulder dresses.

The Sanctuary: it's a holy place, with a full bar.It’s tempting to imagine the way the space must have once looked. Was the Bima where the elevated bar now is? Someone inevitably points to the carved out, altar-esque seating area -- was that where the Aron Kodesh lay? A giant fake fichus in the center of the room could symbolize the Tree of Knowledge, no? Even if you manage to overlook the overlook the sacrosanct aspects of the bar's decor, you’ll be reminded when you need to ‘break the seal’ and enter the bathrooms whose doors are labeled ‘God’ and ‘Goddess.’

Caio and Christine say their decision to incorporate Jewish symbols into the bar's decor evolved naturally. "The hexagram or the Star of David has a lot of words, and has different meanings for different people … for us it was more of a pagan history of the symbol, like the masculine and the feminine, so we thought we would use that theme. It was already on the façade. That’s why we have the goddesses on the walls and the stained glass and also the trees and the clouds and the sky and that kind of thing. And that by the way is our personality. I never felt like we were trying to make it something. It just became what it was meant to be. And people will take from it what they will. "

Downstairs in the cavernous nightclub, hip-hop tunes blare and a fashionably tattooed bartender serves up more drinks. Early in the evening, for a brief period, the bottom floor was predominantly male but any separation of the sexes was completely coincidental. No mechitzah in sight tonight. Now, it’s just some good, fun bump'n'grinding under a massive Star of David light fixture hovering over the dance floor.

The patrons seem to be digging Deity's look. "Repurposed places are cool. I’m just glad that there is a place with history and we are keeping some of the history without turning it into a sleek, glass place with no character. It’s maintained character and gives it a feel that is not possible to replicate," says a blonde freelance writer named Beth. "I think as a Jew it adds to the overall sentimental feeling to the space," adds Melissa, who works in public radio. Several other bar-goers compared the space to Limelight, the defunct but legendary Chelsea club that was once a church.

One dissenter, who declined to give his name, wasn't into the appropriation of Jewish symbolism. "What does that Star of David mean? Seriously, so if I were to think about it …I wouldn’t say blasphemous, it’s ultra consumerism for somebody to take what may be sacred to some, not that I give a shit about it and transpose it into a something that has nothing to do with that."

As the night progresses, people are busting their best moves, couples are making out in dark corners and the party is just getting started.

As I sneak out, my investigative work done, the hostess in the red trenchcoat casually shouts out, “Good Shabbas.”