Kikar is reporting about a bar mitzva in Bnei Braq that turned into a prison reunion.

A lawyer, a Haredi fellow named Elyashiv Rabin, made a bar mitzva for his son last night. Mazel tov. Much nachas.

According to the article, this lawyer is a powerful guy, formerly an activist for Shas and then for Eli Yishai, but also hobnobbed with the rich and famous. I didn't look it up but it seems he was also somehow involved in the Holyland scandal that ended up sending Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to jail - I think his brother went to jail over it as well and he was one of the witnesses against Olmert.

Either way, this Rabin fellow made a bar mitzva and invited all his buddies from the Maasiyahu prison. Ehud Olmert was there as was former Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, his brother Meir Rabin, and Eli Samchayoff..

There is nothing important here. I just thought it was funny that the guy invited all his prison buddies and turned the bar mitzva into a reunion for them.

you know how when a bar mitzva boy gets called  "chassan habar mitzva"? for example, when getting his aliya to the torah on his bar mitzva shabbos...

well, now you have a bar mitzva boy who was really also a chassan, and not just given the title for his bar mitzva...

According to Kikar, a young boy in Mea Shearim got married the day after turning bar mitzva. This 13 year old boy in Mea Shearim married a beautiful 12 year old kalla. I don't know if in this community they consider 8th grade to be kollel, or if he now has to leave school and find a kollel that he can learn in, or if maybe he will go out to work...or maybe his wife will support him in kollel for a few years in her work as a teacher or a programmer...

The young couple's families are from the burqa/shawl ladies community, and while they marry their children off very young, members of the community say this was unusual even for their community and most of them opposed it. The father himself was out of town and only learned of it upon his return. He got upset when discovering what happened and was arrested for his behavior, but then released shortly after.

Mazel tov!

Michael Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, have come to Israel to celebrate their sons bar mitzvah,

Interestingly enough, the son is not Jewish because his mother, Zeta-Jones, is not Jewish, though she considered converting at one point. As well Michael Douglas is not Jewish, because his mother is not jewish, though he considers himself Jewish, as his father is Jewish.

So, nobody on this trip is Jewish, but they are celebrating a bar mitzvah.

Heck - at least they are coming to Israel!

And Michael looks so old I am surprised he has a child bar mitzvah age....



Mazel tov!!!

Mazal Tov: Sharansky celebrates his bar-mitzvah

  -- NRG

Natan Sharansky is not turning 13 years old, but when he did he was anot allowed, by the Soviet regime, to celebrate his bar mitzvah. Upon his 65th birthday this week, he has decided the time has come to celebrate.

Sharansky will be reading the Torah portion of the week in his regular shul in Katamon, Jerusalem, and will get his aliyah.

Mazal tov!

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One of the great programs initiated at the Kotel in recent years is the Bar Mitzva program. Any Jewish boy can get a free bar mitzva ceremony at the Kotel, first being danced down with guys in robes playing the darbuka and some other music and singing traditional songs.

It looks like a really great experience, and you can see it happen over and over again by going to the Kotel on any Monday or Thursday and just hang around and watch. You can't miss it. You will see these traditional or even secular boys getting these exciting ceremonies with their families, dancing their way down to the Kotel where they then have a traditional ceremony of prayer and Torah reading. It is great. It connects the youth and families to tradition and to the Kotel.

Is all this now at risk? Probably not. I hope not. But you never know how the political machines will respond when the Arabs complain.

Jewish and Israeli sites (source: Kikar and JDN) are reporting that an Arab Israeli newspaper has reported on a complaint registered by the Islamic group the Al-Aqsa Institute, along with the Director of the Palestinian Committee for Jerusalem, who have said that these bar mitzva ceremonies are an attempt to Judaize the Kotel, and they are an expression of completing the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem, and it is damaging to the religious and historical symbols. As well, Israel has discovered new ways of Judaizing the holy Islamic symbols in Jerusalem.

Obviously Rav Rabinovitch, rav of the Kotel and head of Keren Moreshet HaKotel, rejects the claim and criticizes them for politicizing such a beautiful activity that is so natural to every Jew.

I hope nobody will feel the need to pull the plug on this beautiful program so as not to upset the Arabs. They should stick their noses out of the Kotel. In response, the government should say that they have had enough of the Islamisizing of the Har HaBayit and knock them down a notch or two up there and remove some of the authority that has been given to them...

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Jewish-American actor David Arquette is in Israel and just decided to have the bar mitzvah he never had. Arquette is 41 years old, and was going to be at a bar mitzvah ceremony for an Israeli boy as part of a tv series he is shooting for the Travel channel while touring parts of Israel. It was suggested he also have his own bar mitzvah because he never had done so before, and he agreed.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitchm rav of the Kotel, helped Arquette put on tefillin and conducted the ceremony calling him up to the Torah...

Mazel tov!


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IDF Confrontation with Bar Mitzvah Boy in Jerusalem

Here is a nice video from Akiva...

What happens when a bar mitzvah boy and his family run into a secular Israeli army (IDF) unit, both on the way to the Kotel (Western Wall) in the Old City, Jerusalem?

NRG (Maariv's online edition) says that Rahm Emannuel's son Zach celebrated his bar mitzvah this morning by being called up to the Torah at Park Davidson, very near to the Kotel.

This despite the best efforts of far-right extremists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel to stop the affair from taking place. They had partial success in getting the actual party moved over as it is against the law to have food and music where it was planned, but the aliyah near the Kotel still happened.

Not only did the Emannuel family succeed to circumvent the extremists and have the aliyah, they also circumvented the fact that there is no Torah reading on a Sunday morning...

Hey, maybe that is how they fooled the extremists. Marzel and Ben Gvir never expected the Emannuels would have the aliyah l'Torah on a day when there is no Torah reading, so he fooled them and picked Sunday specifically!

Not really such a big "fashla" by such a leading Israeli paper, but still a journalistic "oops".

I think the Issue of the Week for this week is going to be whether or not Rahm Emmanuel is actually coming for his son's bar mitzvah, and whether or not it will be held at the Kotel.

The whole event has become shrouded in secrecy, and to boot, extreme right-wingers Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir are threatening that if he shows up at the Kotel they will do everything they can to ruin his simcha.

This memorial break, I am taking my son, my nephew Noah with Ari my brother, so they can have their bar mitzva in Israel,” Emanuel boasted in the November 10 speech, winning cheers from the crowd. “Not to add humor to this moment, but that’s cheap applause. I’ll take an $18 check on behalf of him if you like. That’s obviously illegal as a public servant. That was a joke.”

But as the bar mitzva date approaches, the White House, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry have declined to give any details whatsoever about the event. A White House representative said Emanuel’s visit to Israel was “a private trip” and diplomatic officials in Jerusalem said they also didn’t provide details when National Security Council official Dennis Ross came for his son’s wedding.

The lack of information has led to speculation in the Hebrew press, with Haaretz reporting incorrectly that Emanuel would arrive in Israel this week and Ma’ariv suggesting that he had moved the bar mitzva away from the Western Wall, either because of threats from right-wingers or because the Obama administration considered the wall in the territory of a future Palestinian capital.

Neither Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz nor Rabbi Jay Karzen, who has conducted more than 2,000 bar mitzvas at the site, was contacted by Emanuel’s family or his office.

“We would have known about it if they inquired about it, so I don’t think they canceled a bar mitzva at the Wall or planned one,” Rabinovitz’s spokesman said.

But an official close to the Emanuel family insisted that the bar mitzva would indeed take place at the Western Wall, while another family friend hinted it was scheduled for Saturday, May 29.

He may have turned out to be a jerk of a court Jew in the White House, but if he is coming to the Kotel for a family simcha maybe there is room for him to get closer to Judaism and change his ways. On the one hand he wants us to give East Jerusalem, possibly including the Kotel and what is on the other side of it, to the Palestinians in an eventual peace agreement, on the other hand he wants to come pray there as if the Jews are the rightful owners. Maybe he will come and have his affair and change his opinion on how things should play out. Maybe people could be instrumental in changing his opinion rather than chasing him away and fortifying that opinion in his head.

I don't know what the right approach is - tell him to get lost because of what he has done, or try to let him be affected by an experience at the Kotel? What do you think?

So I went to this sfardi bar mitzva last night. I had a blast.

There was one point where they played mizrachi music for a while. My friend, the father of the bar mitzva boy, wanted me to dance sfardi style. unfortunately, I have no idea how. The little I knew from my yeshiva days has been long forgotten.

I said I would be happy to join in, but I need some instruction - I need someone else to show me a few moves and then I could jump around and make a fool of myself happily. So, I asked around, among all the sfardim, but everybody said they don't know how to dance sfardi style. A room full of sfardim, I was one of the only ashkenazim there, and not a single one would admit to knowing how to dance sfardi style.

It was kind of hard to believe, so i kept looking. I found one 13 year old boy who knew a few moves. He agreed to show me a few sfardi dance moves and we got the mizrachi groove on. I made a fool of myself, but we all had fun.

I was wondering how it was possible that in a room full of sfardim I could hardly find one who knew the moves, and the one I did find only knew one basic shake.

I came up with two theories:

1. They really did know some sfardi dance styles, but don't like to admit it as they would look too sfardi. Sure, they daven sfardi (most of them), but to actually publicly display sfardi culture? Many prefer to look as ashkenaz as possible. Many send their kids to ashkenazy schools, some even change their names to sound more ahskenazy, etc. To dance sfardi style, even though the event is clearly sfardi style, might be too much of a burden for them ruining their whole image.
2. Perhaps they really did not know sfardi dance. They have spent so long concentrating on integrating into ashkenazy society that they have not bee keeping up with their own heritage and culture. They knew all the ashkenazy dance moves, and that is why they did not know the sfardi ones.
3. They knew how to dance sfardi style but were too shy to display them. Also possible.

I don't know which is the correct reason, but it sure was strange to not be able to find anybody to dance sfardi style. No matter, I did it for them and had fun in the process.

I have written up my 2 divrei torah that I said by the bar mitzva. You can find them at Torah Thoughts - one on responsibility, and the second on Eliezer and the Artscroll biography... enjoy

Perhaps I will also get around to writing down the bar mitzvah boy's drasha (which I wrote)

If you were there, thank you for coming and being part of it.

We had a great, and meaningful, Bar Mitzvah weekend, starting from Wednesday and extending through Shabbos.

It was a lot of work, a really lot of work, and in the end it all worked out great. My wife gets most of the credit, as she is the one who arranged and prepared most of it. I kinda just made sure not to get in the way too much.

Wednesday night we had a seudas chaveirim for his class, and then invited a few friends and relatives for dessert. This was a seudas mitzva because it was the actual birthday.
Thursday morning, we went to Chevron to daven shacharis. The parsha being Chayei Sara, in which Avraham purchases the Me'aras HaMachpela in order to bury Sarah, makes this a very special period in Chevron. We could not go for shabbos, so we went on Thursday for davening. The Bar Mitzvah boy leined in the Me'ara, and we brought some burekas and juice which we shared with the soldiers after davening.

Shabbos we had the shabbos meals with our family and guests who came in for the Bar Mitzvah. Friday night we fed abot 35 people in our house. Shabbos morning was the big day, with the bar mitzvah boy leining the parsha. He did a fabulous job, and I, surprisingly, had not chased away too many people with my butchered rendition of leading the shacharis services.

After davening was a grand kiddush in which lots of people showed up from all over the neighborhood to say mazel tov. Near the end of the kiddush I ran out to say mazel tov by the bar mitzvah of a friend. After kiddush, we had lunch for our family and some additional cousins, totaling about 50 people. After having a few too many l'chaims with afew too many people, I think I was seeing everything in triplicate, so it looked like there were 150 or so people at lunch!

We were going economical, so my wife cooked everything and nothing was catered. That was a ton of work on my wife, but it came out beautiful and everything worked out much smoother than expected.

Now it will take a few days to get our house back in order, but the return to a daily, normal, routine looks like a possibility in the near future..

I will post my divrei torah from the bar mitzvah a bit later.

What do I have in common with US Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel? Aside from both of us being [originally] from Chicago, of course...

We are both making bar mitzvahs in Israel...

The newspaper reported that Rahm Emanuel will soon be coming to Israel - in about 2 months - for his sons bar mitzvah.

Mazel tov

Here is an interesting clip about the recent Belze Bar Mitzvah..