A Real Mitzvah

murdered during the Holocaust.

Bar and Bat Mitzvah twinning is a unique tradition which involves pairing a child from one community with another from a different community who is unable to have their own due to various circumstances. Sharing this experience is a great way to make an already special day have even greater significance.

Your child can also be twinned with one who was killed during the Holocaust and never got the chance to celebrate their Bar Mitzvah. Yad Vashem provides the information for this special form of twinning. Through this service, the child being remembered will share something with the participant – a birthday, a name or place of origin, for further significance.

This process can strengthen a child's identification with and understanding of their Jewish heritage by forging bonds with individual children who were murdered during the Holocaust, and also allows the memory of these children to be honoured, giving your family opportunity to remember and learn about the life of a child who was

A customized Twinning Kit containing information about the "twin" and immediate family members, as well as a study guide and a special certificate acknowledging participation in the Twinning Program will be sent to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah child. The Twinning Kit also includes a memoir written by a Holocaust survivor, a personal letter from a Holocaust survivor, a bookmark, and a personal QR code to a virtual Bar/Bat Mitzvah tour of the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem, filmed especially for this project.

Jewish Child’s Day offers another twinning service which will match the Bar Mitzvah boy/ Bat Mitzvah girl with a child in Belarus or Israel who is unable to celebrate. This programme allows your child to choose their special partner for a minimum donation of £180. The advantage of this project is that they are in control of every aspect of the process, choosing how to raise the money and who to twin with, offering a taste of greater responsibility in the lead-up to this meaningful rite of passage. It also allows them to become closer to someone from a community outside of their own and may even create a lasting friendship that will endure for years to come.

Naomi Williams, whose daughter Daisy is currently taking part in the Yad Vashem programme, recounts what the experience has been like: “We have spent months planning a big party to celebrate our daughter Daisy’s Bat Mitzvah which we are so excited for. But a girl becoming Bat Mitzvah is so much more than a big party. I wanted Daisy to understand how lucky she is, to be Jewish and able to openly celebrate that.

“Both my grandparents were born in Berlin, when they were just 15 when they escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport and came to the UK. That meant leaving every member of their family and arriving alone in a foreign country (and never seeing their parents and some of their siblings again). The Yad Vashem twinning programme is an incredible way to honour our past and remember another girl who was not able to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah. They selected a girl with the same Hebrew name as Daisy and the pack comes with information about the young girl, a wonderful poem and memorial candles that we plan to light at the Friday Night Dinner of her Bat Mitzvah weekend. It’s a chance to continue the Jewish line and that is the true celebration.”

Twinning is a beautiful idea promoting the concept of inclusion encouraging young people to see themselves as members of a global community with a shared responsibility to make the world a better place. They can learn about different Jewish traditions, music, and customs, expanding their knowledge and appreciation of their own heritage, while aiding and honouring a less fortunate child.

Yadvashem.org

Jcd.uk.com