Kesher Talk

Don't you have to be Jewish to have a bar/bat mitzvah? Apparently not, according to The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 14, 2004) (also reprinted here, if you're too cheap to subscribe):

After going to a dozen bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs last year, Laura Jean Stargardt told her parents she wanted one of her own. She said she found the singing inspiring and offered to learn Hebrew. She also said she wanted a big party.

Her parents thought the request was unusual since the family is Methodist. But they co-hosted a lavish party for her and two of her friends last month that looked like a bat mitzvah, without the religion. They booked a country club in Dallas and a disk jockey, invited 125 friends, and hired a professional dancer that Laura had seen at her friends' bar mitzvah parties.

"I wanted to be Jewish so I could have a bat mitzvah," says Laura. "Having the party fulfilled that."

A number of kids about to turn 13 who aren't Jewish are bugging their parents for parties that resemble those held following bar mitzvah ceremonies. In some affluent communities, parents line up the same entertainment and book the same party places. If they don't dance the traditional Jewish hora, they at least manage a tarantella or an Irish jig. ...

... The parties can be upsetting to Jews who say they mock an important spiritual rite of passage. Others call the trend a welcome example of Jewish traditions becoming part of popular culture. "It shows how much the Jewish people and Jewish customs have become mainstream," says Rabbi Mark S. Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

posted by William @ 1/22/2004 09:01:00 AM