October 20, 2010

For Jewish families sick of the sometimes outlandish and spiritually empty MTV-style bar or bat mitzvah celebration, a growing number of Israeli hotels are creating family simcha experiences that accentuate Jewish history and adventure without skimping on the ceremonial aspect of the life-changing event. According to several Israeli hotel industry executives, Jerusalem and the Tiberias-Galilee regions have become bar/bat mitzvah magnets for American Jewish families.

Shay Vinitsky began studying privately for his bar mitzvah in spring 2009, a full year before his March 2010 date. But it wasn’t until the next winter, when Shay and his classmates at the Ohn School for the Physically Disabled, a Tel Aviv school for students with cerebral palsy, began to participate in a bar/bat mitzvah project that his excitement truly began to build. Enrolled in the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Program for Children With Special Needs, which is run by the Masorti movement, the Conservative movement’s sister in Israel, Shay and his friends spent three months studying the blessings, Shabbat, customs, festivals and performing mitzvot. At the end of the school year, the students participated in a joint bar and bat mitzvah ceremony in a Masorti synagogue accessible to the disabled.\n

Ben Shane loves cars. When he was a baby, his mother said, he slept with two Hot Wheels cars instead of a blanket. Now 13, he excels at auto-themed video games, attends monster truck shows, watches NASCAR races on TV and collects model cars. In his bedroom, motorcycles adorn his bedding. His nightstand is an old racing tire topped with Plexiglas. His clock is a tire with an embedded timepiece. When it came time to plan Shane’s bar mitzvah celebration, there really was only one theme to consider.

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, is one of the most commonly reported social fears. Add to it the raging hormones of 13-year-olds and the insecurities fueled by pressure to do a good job (or at least not to humiliate themselves in front of family and peers) and you could have a full-blown case of stage fright on your hands. While most tweens might have spoken in front of a class of 30 peers, which in and of itself is a big deal, on the day of their bar or bat mitzvah they could be chanting and speaking in front of 60, 100 or even 500 people.