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Bar & Bat Mitzvahs

Words from the heart

The nerve-wracking morning of a bar or bat mitzvah will eventually be all that\’s left standing between a student and his or her catered night of extravagant partying. The b\’nai mitzvah coach already has helped detangle the Hebrew and trope, but the pressure of reading the Torah portion and haftarah, as well as delivering a speech in front of hundreds of family members, friends and congregants, might make even a usually unassuming bimah look terrifying.

Snail mail or e-mail: How will your next invitation be sent?

My bat mitzvah invitation had bright purple embossed text on a hot pink card with my name enlarged in decorative script at the top and daisies adorning the bottom. Twenty-plus years later, I remember eagerly waiting for my friends to receive the invitations and running home weeks later to check the mailbox for the return of the RSVP envelopes. Secured in a scrapbook, the invitation is a treasured memento.

Barmitzvahman — Hero for more than a day

Who is the hero of a bar or bat mitzvah? It’s the 13-year-old, who, after a day of chanting, speaking and being bear-hugged by distant relatives, sees himself or herself imbued with powers of memory, eloquence and forbearance far beyond that of ordinary teenagers. But how do you help yours to hold on to that feeling?

Raising the bar brings zest, creativity to rite of passage

At his recent bar mitzvah, Noah Genco-Kamin managed to tell one of the most well-known stories in the Jewish canon — that of the Israelites wandering in the desert after the Exodus — in a way that no one present had heard it told before: from the perspective of a cow.

The mirth of the Bar Mitzvah

Think of what might happen to the Jewish calendar if literary scholars got their hands on it. Tisha B’Av would be classified as a tragedy, Tu B’Shevat would come under the heading of the pastoral, and Yom Kippur could serve as a soliloquy. But what would the bar mitzvah ceremony be? The answer is obvious: a comedy.

The double Bar Mitzvah — partners in time

Forty-five years after his bar mitzvah, Edward L. Moskowitz could not find the photos. They were lost in his garage, in a box, among shelves of such boxes, and were his only remaining evidence of a Shabbat he had shared in the mid-1960s with Marty November, his bar mitzvah partner.

A small voice with a big message

Jacob Tragarz didn’t take the easy route when it came to his mitzvah project — he went big. The 12-year-old student decided to raise awareness about the suffering and violence in Darfur by organizing an assembly for nearly 700 of his peers at Marshall Fundamental High School, a public school in Pasadena.

Have internet, will tutor

Some people live miles away from a synagogue that shares their philosophies and values. Others might have no shortage of resources but have overbooked lives that make fitting in yet another off-site commitment for their 11- or 12-year-old a near impossibility.

Trading iPods for machetes

While most teenagers are notorious for clashing with parents over their perceived rude behavior, Jonah Li-Paz may actually draw more sighs from his family for being overly polite.

‘Schindler’s List’ producer to mark belated Bar Mitzvah at Auschwitz

Branko Lustig, 78, two-time Oscar-winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Gladiator,” will celebrate his bar mitzvah on May 2 at Auschwitz, in front of Barrack 24. He missed his rite of passage as a 13-year-old because at the time he was a prisoner in the very same barrack, having been deported from his Croatian hometown to the death camp when he was 10.

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More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.