VIDEO: Bar Mitzvah the Tradition

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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Hadassah Hospital inspires bar mitzvah charity project

By Emily Pauker, Contributing Writer

"Oprah's Big Give" challenges contestants to perform charitable acts by giving them money and resources. But Michael Feldman didn't need the artifice of a television show to inspire his desire for a genuine big give.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The second time around, Dubin is still a mensch

By Rachel Heller

While most people celebrate their only bar or bat mitzvah at age 13, a passage in the Book of Psalms has in recent times led to the notion that one's first need not be the last. According to King David, the average person's lifespan is 70 years, and those who live past that age are thought to start life anew. Thirteen years later, tradition says, the time is ripe for another bar mitzvah.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

My (early) ‘golden years’

By Jay Firestone

My nursing home is my mattress, my "stories" are Sunday morning football and my "meals-on-wheels" program is a delivery of Buffalo wings. At 24 years old, this is my retirement -- from teaching religious school.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Books: Identity search comes from a familiar place

By Cindy Mindell

Nora Raleigh Baskin's fifth novel for middle-graders is her first "Jewish" book. Her books are the kind that draw young readers with the simple truth all good writers seem to share

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Teenagers reveal why this service is different from all other services

By Jeff Bernhardt

Since the recent holiday of Passover was one of asking questions and thinking about transitioning from one state of being to another, it is an appropriate time to think of the bar and bat mitzvah in a similar context. These four questions -- or more accurately one question and four answers -- can be recited by 13-year-olds, but their explanations are particularly relevant for all of us.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Bark mitzvah goes to dogs in unique tzedakah project

By Rachel Heller

When the boys decided to raise funds for developmentally disabled children in Israel, they made an effort to involve their families, their community and even their four-legged friends.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

My bar mitzvah

By Wyatt Isaacs

Wyatt Isaacs recently celebrated his bar mitzvah through Nes Gadol, a Vista Del Mar and The Miracle Project program that helps children with varying degrees of learning challenges become sons and daughters of the commandment

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Valley couple shares bimah for rite of passage

By Nick Street

When Lee Larsen and Bob Clarke met in the 1970s at the 8709 Bathhouse -- one of Los Angeles' best known gay social spots of the time -- they never imagined that they would one day share a very different kind of aquatic experience.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Advertise joys of Judaism to others during simcha

By Ted Roberts

Given the condition of Judaism in 2008, a bar mitzvah is an ecumenical stew. It's not only the non-Jews who wonder about the significance and meaning of the ceremony, but even some of our fellow Israelites stare with wonder and, sometimes, awe.That's why a booklet of origins, explanations and exegesis is useful.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Unique party planning isn’t chopped liver

By Michele Alperin

Some things never change, or do they? Bar and bat mitzvah parties overwhelmingly follow a recipe that everyone assumes is written in stone, said Gail Greenberg, creator of mitzvahchic.com. The only room for creativity, people think, is to have a unique theme.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Will ‘Bro Mitzvah’ find roots in African American community?

By Jane Ulman

Lillie Hill knew that 16 marked a turning point in her son DJ's life. And while she had looked into several African rites of passage, she believed the Jewish bar mitzvah ceremony, with its emphasis on family heritage and good deeds, gave her the best blueprint to validate her son's dedication to family, school, community and church and to pass on her family's values of education, worship and social outreach.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Identity and connection spur more adult b’nai mitzvah

By Peter L. Rothholz

The reasons why milifers and seniors have gravitated to adult b'nai mitzvah programs since the trend first took off in the 1970s are numerous, including the fact that most women didn't have such ceremonies until the 1980s (the first bat mitzvah was held in 1922). One perennial influence is a child or grandchild reaching b'nai mitzvah age, and the divergent issues brought about by intermarriage can sometimes compel one or more adults in a family to take on b'nai mitzvah study to serve as a role model.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

How to throw a great party for less than $3,000

By Anne Phyllis Pinzow

We all wanted to give my nephew the bar mitzvah party to not just match but surpass all of the one's he'd been invited to during the year. Yet the family's fortunes were not equal to the task. All we could scrimp together was $3,000. It could only have been divine inspiration that led us to the conclusion that this actually made the job of putting together a bar mitzvah to remember a lot easier than it seemed.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Curacao shul offers venue with Caribbean flavor

By Buzzy Gordon

Compared with the millennia of Jewish history, the scant few centuries of Jewish settlement in the Western Hemisphere is like a drop in the ocean those Jews had crossed from Europe. The history of the Jews in the American colonies is even shorter: more than 100 years before the Jews of Newport, R.I., built their synagogue (now the oldest continuously active synagogue in the United States), the Jewish community of the Caribbean island of Curacao had built theirs -- Congregation Mikve Israel, which holds the record as the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Stumbling through my bat mitzvah

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen

My bat mitzvah was an unmitigated disaster.

I'd hoped the guests would be as taken as I was with my dress, first high heels and the orange and yellow petit fours at the Kiddush.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

‘Shul for Kids’ redefines concept of youth services

By Jay Firestone

Each week, a group of more than 120 congregants gather together at Kol Yakov Yehuda for their regular Shabbat prayer. The rabbi gives a sermon, the president makes announcements and the congregation follows along with the occasional chitchat, followed by a Kiddush. In addition to having its own Web site and an annual fundraising banquet, Kol Yakov Yehuda seems like any highly functional congregation.

Except the congregants are too young to vote or drive, and many can't see a PG-13 movie without a parent.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

But Mom, I don’t want a bar mitzvah!

By Amy Hirshberg Lederman

I saw the blinking light on my answering machine and listened to the frantic voice of my girlfriend, Debbie, as I put the groceries away.

"Heeeeeelp! Jason says he doesn't want to do his bar mitzvah anymore. We've got the date and the place, I've hired the DJ and he's already begun to prepare. He's making me crazy. What should I do? Call me."


Wow, what a bummer, I thought to myself.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Congregations, rabbis try to stop the ‘Big Day’ from becoming the last day

By Michele Alperin

The bar and bat mitzvah is traditionally viewed as an entry point into the adult Jewish community, but for many, it's also seen as the door out of both Jewish education and the synagogue. For those who become congregants, Los Angeles synagogues are trying to help b'nai mitzvah students and families understand that the ceremony and its preparation symbolize one point on a continuum of Jewish life and learning. Their goal is to strengthen the communal ties of their marginally committed congregants.