Happy, sad, mad, glad

Remember, The Jewish Voice is your voice and it is important that you contribute to that Jewish communal voice.

Nina Rooks Cast, Hope Valley

Around 1978, after my 8th grade, my family went to Israel with four other families. Rabbi Wayne Franklin, then from Orange, Conn., now from Temple Emanu-El in Providence, was one of the others. When their wives found out that my sister – just turned 12 that summer – was not planning on having a bat mitzvah, they wouldn’t hear of it.

They gave her three weeks to study the Haftorah and Torah portions and basically bullied her into having her ceremony. I was two years older and pleaded with my sister not to tell the women that I hadn’t had a bat mitzvah either!

Two years later, when I was spending my 10th grade year in Israel, I joined the kibbutz kids in a b’nei mitzvah celebration. We spent about six months performing 13 deeds to prove our coming of age (three required by the kibbutz, five by the school and five of our own choosing), culminating in a skit put on by our group of eight.

While on the kibbutz, I learned to shoot every weapon in our armory (we were nine miles from the Lebanese border), drive a tractor, fix the irrigation system and graft apple trees.

Jeffrey Savit, CEO, Jewish Alliance

Although I “became a man” forty years ago, I will never forget the following about my bar mitzvah:  I awoke the day before with a horrible cold and, indeed, had laryngitis. Never before had I been silenced – and what a time for it to happen!  Thankfully, my pediatrician prescribed something that, remarkably, returned my voice.

I also hold the distinction (although I am sure this is not recorded in the book of Guinness World Records) that I was the first person in the history of the city of New Bedford to have had a late afternoon/havdalah bar mitzvah service.

If only I had saved the numerous Cross pen and pencil sets from Tilden-Thurber that I had received as gifts …

Jane E. Sharfstein, Providence

You know, after forty some years, all I remember is how nervous I was beforehand and all the compliments I received afterwards on my performance and [on] my beautiful light blue dress.

My 13th birthday was in June and there were no dates available until September if I wanted to have a bat mitzvah. I told my parents, “There is no way I’m going to study my Haftorah over the summer!” I was just as happy to join 15 other girls in the Confirmation Class of 1969. We each had a piece to read in front of the congregation.

At the end of the ceremony, the Men’s Club gave each Confirmand a white leather-bound bible. The president announced our names one by one. He mispronounced my name  – “Arlene Eber” – in front of the entire congregation. Jonathan, my 16-year-old brother, in the third row of the main sanctuary, was hysterically.

I walked up to receive my bible, shook the man’s hand and said to him, “Try ALINE Eber.” He leaned into the microphone and apologized to the congregation. “Ladies and gentlemen, Ilene Eber.” I was fuming and beet red. My brother had tears from laughing so hard.

Then the president of the men’s club actually called me “Olive Eber” when he thought he was correcting my name the third time he tried!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the unique name. You couldn’t name me Lisa, Debbi or Susan?

Robert Nelson, Newburyport, Mass.

My mother dropped the stuffed cabbage on the garage floor after we came home after my bar mitzvah. I never let her forget it. I was devastated.

Lewis H. Wintman, Providence

I found “My Private Memory Book” from 1960, detailing the weather (clear and cold), the presiding clergy at Temple Emanuel-El (Rabbi Bohnen and Cantor Hohenemser) and a list of friends and family who attended. I remember how nervous I was before my bar mitzvah, how relieved I was when I finished my Haftorah, the look of joy on my parents’ faces and, of course, the cocktail franks at the reception!

Robert Davis, Marlborough, Mass.

My mother Eleanor Davis will celebrate her 94th birthday in December. I was thinking when I visited my family’s graves before the recent holidays that her mother Cecelia Meierovitz lived to 82 years of age. My grandparents Samuel and Cecelia Meierovitz of Newport, R.I., had three sons, Wolfe, Meier and David, who died when he was three years old, and five daughters, Bertha, Mollie, Sara, Eleanor and Tema.

As I grew to be 13, my uncle Wolfe and my aunts played great roles in my life. I had only met my Uncle Meier once, when I was very young. I was told by my mother that he was wonderful and helped support the family financially as a young man, fought in WW II and returned with what was then called “shell shock,” now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

His life after he returned was marred with questionable business choices, a divorce and a second marriage.

Uncle Meier came to Newport to visit his mother and to introduce his new baby son, my cousin Gary, to the family. His return was very upsetting to my eldest aunt, to whom he owed money, and he was asked to leave. From that point on, nobody in the family ever saw him again.

As my bar mitzvah came nearer, my beloved grandmother asked my Uncle Wolfe to contact his brother and invite him to come home for the simcha. Uncle Meier put my 10-year-old cousin Gary on a flight from Los Angeles – by himself.  Our wonderful relationship with my new cousin began that day. However, when he was returned to his mother (a second divorce), he found that his father had vanished.

The family hired private detectives to find Meier, but he was not to be found – until this year, more than 50 years later. Through an Internet search, I found his burial site in a Los Angeles veterans’ cemetery. Clearly, I have learned through my family’s tragedy the importance of forgiveness and a special sensitivity to the profound impact that PTSD has on our veterans.

Joseph Denhoff and Amy Abramson-Denhoff, South Kingstown

Amy: About ten years ago, the mom of our son Chase’s friend, asked if it was okay to get him a BB gun as a present. I told her it was fine. I was in the synagogue that Saturday morning greeting the arriving guests.

My “best” childhood friend was concerned because a young boy had just walked into the synagogue with a partially wrapped gift. The long thin box and the exposed words “BB Gun” caused her alarm that this might not be appropriate. She quickly took the keys to my car and put the present in the trunk.

Joseph: At the time, Chase played first base for his local Little League baseball team. We gave him a first baseman’s glove as one of his bar mitzvah gifts. The Rabbi knew about this gift and exclaimed, “Chase received a first baseman’s mitt for his bar mitt-zvah.”

The crowd laughed.

Jeffrey Swartz, Mission Viejo, Calif.

As was true for all Temple Emanu-El bar mitzvah candidates in the 1960s, the late Mrs. Jenny Klein played an important role in our preparation. She was especially in sync with my family as I had an older brother and younger sister who were also placed under her tutelage. What’s more, at the full-court-press urging of my mother, Mrs. Klein encouraged me, with a bit – okay, a lot – of arm twisting, to learn how to conduct the entire service, including  Musaf and a Torah reading in addition to my Haftorah. I was not happy but Jenny Klein was not a teacher with whom to argue.

Fast forward about 20 years: I was sitting in my parents’ home on the East Side [of Providence] with my wife and six-month-old son, visiting family and friends. The doorbell rang and in walked Jenny Klein bearing a gift for my first-born son – a yarmulke she had knitted just for the occasion.

So now it can be said with certainty that there are some events that are destined to never be forgotten and a bar mitzvah day that seemed so arduous at the time softens with the memory of a great teacher as we look at our children and remember what once was.

L’dor va dor!