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Campaign Trail report: Obama and Clinton get credit for a young man’s Bar Mitzvah

[additional-authors]
November 6, 2016

Whether you support President Barack Obama or not, whether you intend to vote for Hillary Clinton or you don’t, you ought to give these Democratic politicians credit for facilitating at least one great Mitzvah: Thanks to them, a young Jewish American, his name is Joseph Gross, finally had a Bar Mitzvah. Gross is 18 years old – so this Bar Mitzvah is a belated one. It is also a highly political one. And a highly entertaining one. And, as far as I’m concerned – I was an accidental witness to this event – also a moving one. Four days have passed since this Bar Mitzvah, and I still wonder what door it opened for young Gross and whether it can change the course of his future.

It was Thursday afternoon, and I was standing in a very long line of people awaiting Barack Obama at the University of Northern Florida in Jacksonville. As long as the lines I remember from the 2008 campaign, when then candidate Obama – more magnetic than Clinton, more exciting than Clinton, fresher and more promising than Clinton – introduced his rock-star style charisma to crowds all over the country. Remember those lines? Remember the exhilaration of the 2008 election? Such exhilaration seems so outdated today, in this gloomy cycle of presidential elections. Yet last week, on Thursday, one could sense that it is not completely gone. Thousands of people waited patiently in the long line, hoping to get inside the hall where Obama was about to hold a campaign event for Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates. 7000 of them would eventually get in. Thousands more – I assume it was more than half than the people waiting outside – were sent home when the fire marshal closed the doors and said no more. 

Gross was one of the people waiting in line. He was one of the disappointed supporters who never made it into the hall. But his time was not wasted. That is, because he used his time in this line to have his Bar Mitzvah. Or at least to have something that Gross was convinced amounted to a Bar Mitzvah.

Rabbi Eli Wilansky of Chabad at the Beaches, located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, was responsible for this awkward moment of Jewish renewal on the sidewalk of a university road. Wilansky, wearing the well-recognized Chabad costume, was at the rally, searching for Jews. He was holding a sign on which a human arm decorated with Tefillin was depicted. He also carried a bag with Tefillin. In the Chabad manner of complete immunity to scrutinizing looks and complete indifference to what other people might consider odd or embarrassing, Wilansky was scrutinizing the line for Jews. Until he spotted Gross and the two women standing alongside him.

Did you put on Tefillin today, he asked young Gross. Not today – not ever was the answer. Gross comes from a family that is – as he told me – disconnected from Jewish practice. His sister and brother went through some years of Jewish education, but when it was his turn, the interest of his parents eroded to the point of no interest. Gross did not have Jewish education, and when asked if he wanted a Bar Mitzvah more than five years ago he figured that this would require “additional work” on his part. So he declined, like his brother did a few years earlier – a decision he now says both later regretted.

Rabbi Wilansky smelled an opportunity. Let’s have a Bar Mitzvah, he suggested. Here, asked Gross. Sure, Wilansky said. You will put on Tefillin and this will be your Bar Mitzvah. Gross did not hesitate much before agreeing. When I asked him later why he agreed to Wilansky’s suggestion, he gave me an answer I did not quite expect: “this was a prayer that we will not end up having Trump as our president,” he said, inadvertently echoing the religious sentiments of many Jews of his age group.

He offered his left arm and forehead to Wilansky and repeated the blessings in Hebrew word by word. As the two were having their little ceremony, the line kept moving slowly forward, so the rabbi and the young Jew had to walk as they were praying together. “What was the prayer that I was saying?” Gross asked me later. It was the Shema, I told him. “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” He seemed vaguely familiar with it.

I was standing in that line, a few meters after him, by chance. And I only introduced myself to Gross and to the rabbi when the ceremony was over, not wanting to ruin the moment for them by journalistic intervention. Gross told me that it was nice to have this ceremony, and that he was not bothered by all the foreigners in line observing him and wondering about his actions. He also told me that he would like to come to Israel on a visit, maybe with Birthright. He also told me that more urgent than a Bar Mitzvah or a visit to Israel is for Hillary Clinton to win on Tuesday.      

 

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