While dozens of movies and television shows have featured Jewish weddings over the years, bar and bat mitzvahs tend to be highlighted less often. Still, dig deep and you’ll find no shortage of examples.
What follows are trivia questions based on some of our favorite b’nai mitzvah celebrations on the big and small screens. Take this quiz and see how well you remember.
1. On the HBO show “Entourage,” who does Ari Gold invite to cut the challah at his daughter’s bat mitzvah?
2. In “A Serious Man” from the Coen Brothers, why does Danny have trouble reading the Torah at his bar mitzvah?
3. On “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” what rumor does Larry David try to dispel during his speech at Sammi’s bat mitzvah?
4. On David’s earlier show, “Seinfeld,” what happens to Elaine when she attend Mr. Lippman’s son’s bar mitzvah?
5. In “Keeping the Faith,” why does the boy›s father grimace as his son recites the Torah portion?
6. In Season Six on “Orange is the New Black,” why does Nicky have trouble reading her bat mitzvah speech?
7. On “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” who guest stars as Rabbi Shari and what does she sing?
8. In “Keeping up with the Steins,” who performs in the klezmer band at Benjamin’s bar mitzvah?
8. Neil Diamond
7. Broadway legend Patti LuPone leads the party as they dance the hora and sings a new song, “Remember that We Suffered.”
6. Her divorced parents, who can’t stand each other, have made so many revisions that the entire page is filled with parts scratched out and rewritten in pen.
5. Because his son is going through puberty, and his voice sounds painfully bad.
4. After Mr. Lippman tells Elaine that his son became a man today, she tries to give the boy a hug and congratulate him, but he instead goes for a kiss on the lips and then says, “I’m a man!”
3. That he has a gerbil in a bodily orfice.
2. Because he is high on marijuana.
1. Vincent Chase. Her grandfather is supposed to have the honor but when Ari sees Vinnie talking with a rival agent, Ari interrupts their conversation by asking Vinnie to cut the bread.
Answers:
Lyla Maymon and Jane Shvartzman went to interview officials last year at the Larkin Street Youth, a local organization fighting homelessness among young people, to see if their programs were worthy of a philanthropic grant.
Maymon and Shvartzman asked all the right questions, like what percentage of the group’s budget was used for overhead and how it planned to spend the money. They had looked up its financials on GuideStar, a database of nonprofit files.
So, perhaps not surprisingly, the two 13-year-olds were irked when the official giggled and rolled her eyes at them.
“She didn’t think of us as a serious thing,” Maymon said of the staffer. “She was giggling at some of the questions even though it was pretty serious.”
It might have been because Maymon and Shvartzman were in seventh grade at the time, and they were offering several hundred dollars from their bat mitzvah money.
The two teens are students at the Brandeis School of San Francisco. At this community Jewish day school in an upscale residential neighborhood, the seventh graders become a mini-charity of sorts: Rather than depositing their bar and bat mitzvah checks into the bank, the kids and their parents agree to take the money they would have spent on each other’s gifts and collectively donate it.
Each year, the bar/bat mitzvah class takes its pool of money — generally around $30,000 — and allocates it to some 20 nonprofits in the Bay Area, with causes ranging from medical research to Jewish LGBT advocacy. The kids vote on the top
five groups. Those charities receive $5,000 each, with the rest divided among the remainder of the organizations.
While remarkable, these young do-gooders are far from alone: Teen philanthropy is a growing trend in the Jewish community. According to the Jewish Funders’ Network, U.S. Jewish
teens gave more than $1 million in total during the 2015-16 school year.
“That’s a reflection that teens are continuing to develop their identities,” Briana Holtzman, the director of the Jewish Teen Funders’ Network, an umbrella for programs like the Brandeis School’s, told JTA in March. “They can give to the Jewish community and they can serve those outside of the Jewish community. There’s a real focus on the conversation, on challenging our teens to grapple with who they are.”
At the Brandeis School, which has run this program for about 30 years, the goal is to teach the kids the value of charity and make giving part of their lives from an early age. Jody Bloom, the Judaic studies teacher who runs the program, said it’s an especially valuable lesson for 13-year-olds, who can be consumed by obsessions over appearances, school or their latest crushes.
Learning about the work of aid organizations, she said, makes them realize those problems aren’t so bad.
“It really helps the kids put things in perspective,” Bloom said. “They don’t see the need that’s out there when they’re in the school. When they go out in the world and see what’s needed, they feel so grateful for what they have.”
The charity program, called Tzedek —
Hebrew for “justice” — takes up the bulk of the seventh-graders’ Judaic studies classes, which meet three times a week for about an hour. In the first semester, the students hear a weekly lecture from a local aid organization about its work. This school year, the speakers ranged from Jewish Vocational Services, which helps the unemployed, to the Homeless Prenatal Project, which aids parents of poor children.
Several current seventh-graders said they especially appreciated a lecture from Gene Goldstein-Plesser, an official at Keshet, the Jewish LGBT advocacy organization. The talk included a cartoon unicorn whose body was used to explain the ideas of gender and sexuality. The heart, for example, corresponded to physical and emotional attraction, while a thought bubble with a rainbow was meant to symbolize how one thinks of their own gender identity.
“We’re in San Francisco, so we know a lot of gay and lesbian people,” Noa Marks said.
The program kicks into high gear in the spring. The students pair off according to areas of interest — fighting racism, for example, or promoting animal welfare — and then choose one nonprofit they want
to research. The organization doesn’t need to be Jewish but must be local because Bloom wants the kids to visit the group and get to know its work. They go to the nonprofit and interview a senior employee before presenting the organization’s work to the rest of the class.
Although the students come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, the K-8 school exudes affluence. The campus consists of connected buildings for its 400 children, with open-air walkways and courtyards featuring bright basketball courts and playgrounds. Kids sprawl in the hallways typing on MacBooks and sitting on couches with coffee tables. A bowl of fresh apples for the taking sits on a table in a first-floor hallway. Tuition this year is about $31,000 — slightly more for eighth-graders — with about 30 percent of families receiving financial aid.
The kids say the philanthropy program helps them see beyond their own material comforts.
“I went to a public school [previously], and this wasn’t a thought,” said Avital Daly, regarding charity work. “It was like, keep yourself safe and do what you need to do. Helping other people wasn’t as important as helping yourself. It’s a good feeling to help people.”
The students also do a range of charitable activities, from volunteering at a home for the elderly to reading to underprivileged second-graders. In class, they look at Jewish texts on giving — like Maimonides’ seven levels of charity, which instructs Jews on how best to help the poor, with teaching someone a trade the highest ideal. And they discuss the dilemmas inherent in philanthropy, like whether it’s better to give locally or globally, and whether Jews have a special responsibility to give to Jewish causes.
As they approach their second semes-
ter, this year’s seventh-graders appear divided on that issue.
“Non-Jewish help centers and Jewish help centers both do the same stuff,” Amelia Lifsitz said. “If you’re a Jew, you might feel more comfortable at a Jewish organization.”
“Organizations that don’t label themselves with a religion or race are more likely to have everyone get help from them,” Natalie Heller countered. “If there was a Jewish organization, someone who’s Christian would feel like, ‘Oh, I’m not welcome here.’ But Christian people need that help and Muslim people need that help.”
About a quarter of the groups that receive money end up being Jewish, according to Bloom. But, she points out, supporting Jewish (or non-Jewish) causes isn’t the point. She wants kids to understand that part of coming of age as a Jew means taking responsibility for the people around you.
“What does it mean to be a member of the Jewish community?” she asked. “The obligation of everyone [is] to do justice. It’s not just giving money, it’s giving your time. It really impacts them in a way they haven’t felt before and they realize how much they can give.”
Jewish Federation of St. Louis has a program for local teens to learn about Jewish values and lifelong Jewish philanthropy. The program encourages them to create their own philanthropic funds and make yearly donations of a percentage to a Jewish charity.
Participants typically enter the Teen Tzedek St. Louis Youth Philanthropy Program during the year of their bar/ bat mitzvah, but can also enter the year before or a few years after.
The Kranzberg Family Foundation provides a grant to match student contributions. An initial contribution of $500 ($300 from the Kranzberg Foundation and $200 from the congregation and/or student) per student allows teens to create their own philanthropic fund. The monies are invested and managed by Federation with the intent of providing the student with an annual 5 percent to be donated to any Jewish non-profit organization
in the world.
Although the monies are pooled for investment, each teen will maintain a separate Teen Tzedek account.
The funds will be called the Teen’s Name Teen Tzedek Philanthropic Fund.
Anyone may contribute to the fund on behalf of the teen — parents, grandparents, etc.
Toward the end of each year, participants are notified that it is time to choose a charity which to allocate funds. This gives participants the opportunity to think of a Jewish nonprofit, anywhere in the world, that is meaningful to them.
For more information, visit www.jfedstl.org/community-impact/teen-tzedek or call Beth Koritz at 314-442-3776 or email at BKoritz@JFedSTL.org.
BY RANDI MAZZELLA KVELLER VIA JTA
As part of my son’s preparation for his bar mitzvah, he needed to pick a mitzvah project. After much thought, we decided together that he would participate in the Twin with a Survivor Program. The Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest New Jersey runs the program, which matches adolescents with survivors of the Holocaust. Each young adult meets with an individual survivor who shares his or her personal account of what happened during the Holocaust.
My husband and I joined our son for his four meetings with the survivor, a 94-yearold woman. My son knew only a little bit about the Holocaust before he met her. It had been discussed in his social studies class and at Hebrew school. She suggested that he watch “Schindler’s List” to get a better understanding of the Holocaust. The three of us watched it together; I am embarrassed to say that neither my husband nor I had seen it before. Combined with hearing directly from a survivor about her experience, the movie was even more powerful.
The survivor told us about her early life and then about being forced to move to the
Jewish ghetto. From there she was moved to not one but five concentration camps. She lost her mother, father, and beloved brother during the Holocaust. She gave up hope and she lost her will to live. In fact, she told us she was on line to be killed and was ready to die when the U.S. Army liber-
ated the camp she was in.
Her story of perseverance and determination continued as she was nursed back to health and then had to go on with her life having lost her whole family. She went to school, became a nurse, immigrated to the United States, and married another Holocaust survivor.
Many of the stories she chose to share were difficult to take, but she felt it was very important that our son hear exactly what happened. It was very upsetting for us as adults, and I worried about how hearing these stories of death and torture would affect my son. But he seemed to not fully grasp the horrific details she was sharing, which was probably for the best.
What my son did understand was that this woman had withstood a great deal of pain. She had lost her family and he could really empathize with that. By listening to
her story, he now has a better understanding of what the Jewish people went through during the Holocaust, and it is something he will never forget.
By meeting with the survivor along with our son, my husband and I were able to all learn together. It was his project, but the three of us were all a part of it. My husband, who grew up Catholic and converted to Judaism several years ago, was extremely moved by the experience. Not growing up Jewish, he didn’t hear stories in his home about the Holocaust. It made him appreciate the history and the strength of the people he has become a part of.
Once the four meetings were completed, my son was asked to write a report on what he had learned. He had to send the report to the Holocaust council and also give a copy to the woman he had met. She read the report and was impressed with how well he was able to tell the story. He will also talk about her during his bar mitzvah speech, and we are pleased that she will be attending the service.
It was definitely a tough and emotional mitzvah project. It might not be a good program for all children, so I would encourage parents to really think about their child’s personality and whether they could emotionally handle hearing these stories. But if they can participate, it is a very important project. The survivors of the Holocaust are getting older. There is a limited time for young people to be able to hear about the survivors’ stories directly from them and recount these stories so that no one ever forgets.
Randi Mazzella is a freelance journalist/ blogger and mother of three. Kveller is a thriving community of women and parents who convene online to share, celebrate and commiserate their experiences of raising kids through a Jewish lens. Visit Kveller. com.
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