Barmitzvah

JFS student celebrates his barmitzvah with an art exhibit

Zoe Winograd — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:00:41 +0000

Some barmitzvah boys ask for Beyoncé. But JFS pupil Ethan Djanogly is marking his barmitzvah next month with an art show — at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Ethan is a passionate photographer and his parents have helped him stage his first exhibition, with 25 of his pictures going on show at RIBA in central London. His barmitzvah reception will be held at RIBA, too.

My 13th Perspective shows pictures from Israel, America, France and the UK. Ethan began taking photographs four years ago when his father gave him a camera for his birthday. “It is his passion, it is all he does when he is not at school,” said his mother, Cathya.

Ethan said: “It will be nerve-wracking to say my parsha, but I’m really excited about the exhibition. I like to reveal the hidden beauty of ordinary places and I like [the fact] that with photography you can’t prepare what that will be.”

The family plans to donate the pictures to a charity after the exhibition.

Netanyahu attends Taglit-Birthright’s ‘barmitzvah’

Zoe Winograd — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:57:39 +0000

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the ‘barmitzvah party’ of Taglit-Birthright on Monday night in Jerusalem.

Three thousand young Jews taking part in this year’s Birthright programme filled Jerusalem’s International Convention Centre to celebrate the end of their ten-day trip, which coincided with the programme’s 13th year.

“You come from different countries and speak different languages, but you have one thing in common, Israel is your birthright,” Mr Netanyahu told the audience.

"Anybody who comes here sees the true Israel. Israel is the place where Jewish history comes alive. Here you tread in the footsteps of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel and Leah. You stand exactly where King David stood not very far from here. And you also can see how we turned the hopes and dreams of thousands of years into a reality.”

The excited audience chanted throughout the night and was entertained by DJs and musical performances.

The Taglit-Birthright programme has brought over 300,000 diaspora Jews between the ages of 18-26 to Israel since its inception.

Gift horse with rotten mouths

David Robson — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 10:18:51 +0000

The other day, I came across one of my barmitzvah presents — a beautiful, old, not so say ancient, evening scarf. Cream silk it is, with black-and-white silk fringes and my initials embroidered on it. It came from Sulka (of New York, London and Paris), a gentlemen’s outfitters who had catered for the Duke Of Windsor, Winston Churchill, Henry Ford and Clark Gable. We are talking luxury from the days when luxury was exclusive, not some cheapjack international label hawked in every airport and shopping mall with knock-offs going cheap everywhere from China to Chelmsford.

I can’t remember who gave it to me but clearly it was someone who had high hopes that I would mature into the sort of chap who was rarely out of a dinner jacket after 6.30pm. Sad to say, I haven’t lived up to it. Not only have I not spent evenings at opera galas or palaces or embassies, I haven’t even been a regular at the sort of simchas where a chap without a silk evening scarf would feel underdressed.

These days kids get barmitzvah presents that guarantee “instant gratification”, which is a nasty way of saying something a boy will actually use and enjoy from the moment he lays hands on it. Mine was the time of “today I am a fountain pen” – a parody barmitzvah speech that was a tragically true account of the fountain of fountain pens barmitzvah provoked. Swans, Watermans, Parker 51s. They looked better in your blazer pocket than a cheap Platignum or Osmiroid but nobody presented them to you thinking they would give you a good time. They would come in handy when you became a solicitor.

My uncle gave me a bicycle — a black Raleigh Roadster with sit-up-and-beg handlebars and a chain completely encased in heavy metal. It was no fun and it took a crane to lift it. I was told it would be useful “when I went to university” — possibly the most depressing thing anyone ever said to me. But being a dutiful type I kept it and did take it to university where happily it was stolen on the first day.

Apart from that, there was The Book Of Jewish Thoughts presented by the shul committee “on the occasion of…” There must have been tens of thousands of these given out and without a doubt are among the least-read books in history. I never opened mine but I’m quite sure that, as page-turners, they make A Brief History of Time look like 50 Shades of Grey. Then there was the set of machzorim from my parents that I had to inscribe myself: “To David from Mummy and Daddy”. The Star Hebrew Book Company, New York edition. To use them, you have to know your way around because when the chap on the bimah says: “we’re on page 473 in this machzor and 592 in that one” it’s not among them.

The beauty of an iPad is that it does away with the need for a fountain pen, or books of Jewish Thoughts come to that. And what about a machzor on an iPad? Or why not give the kinderle a Kindle? There’s a bit of a debate going on among the devout about what would make a Kindle kosher for Shabbos. And if Kindles are today’s fountain pens, at least there’s eBay.

A Womans Work: My simchah is in crisis - get me a celebrity

Keren David — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:23:02 +0100

This is it. New Year is upon me. I can deny it no longer. My son is barmitzvah this year and — assuming I get my act together — it is happening in January.

Some women morph from Bride-zilla to Barm-mum-zilla the day they give birth. They book the date, venue and band as soon as their princelet starts primary school. They then obsessively change the details every six months or so for the next eight years, according to fashion and whim. The key is to be completely different from everyone else, while also being the same. It’s a fine art, and one that I cannot be bothered to master.

Of course, barmitzvah planning is not just for the mother. In some households the dad takes an equally active role. Evenings are spent table-planning, or creating a website charting every stage of the boy’s life so far. My husband is not like this. His role, thus far, is to assure me that I getting much too anxious about the whole thing and assert that when he was growing up in 1970s Prestwich, barmitzvahs were planned and prepared for in six weeks. I am sure this cannot be true, but then Manchester is a different story, as I often point out to him, especially when reading Howard Jacobson.

I have bursts of remembering that a barmitzvah is happening, vaguely murmuring: “I must do something about it”, checking the bank balance, shuddering, and then forgetting about it again. Occasionally I do something — book the shul, organise barmitzvah lessons, find a caterer — and then sink back into happy
barm-livion again, secure in the knowledge that we’ve got months.

Only the nagging of my relatives (“What’s happening about supper on the Friday night?”), and the kind but firm guidance of the caterer (“You really must decide where the party is going to be… and when…”) forced me to get on and book somewhere this week. That is, I decided where the party’s going to be. I haven’t got round to actually telling them yet.

I’m busy of course — I’m contracted to write a book by the end of December, so I fully expect to collapse with nervous exhaustion just as my son makes it down from the bimah. And it’s hard to commit to spending money on a lavish — or even a modest — simchah in an economic climate as chilly as a nuclear winter.

But my simchah-planning aversion goes deeper than that. Perhaps it brings back dark memories of the run-up to our wedding, when squabbles flared up about everything from invitations (my mother-in-law staged a guerrilla attack and invited twice as many people as she had been allocated) to doughnuts — a foodstuff which I, princess-like, banned on the basis that they somehow fell short of my aesthetic vision for the proceedings.

Perhaps I’m haunted by my own batmitzvah. As was the fashion in 1976, I wore a Victorian-style white frilly blouse and a pale blue maxi skirt. As I stood up to proceed to the bimah, I felt something touch the back of my head. My mother had chosen that moment to ambush me with a white velvet bow, mounted on a comb. More than three decades later I still take evasive action if she approaches the back of my head at formal events.

The other day the kids were watching a programme called Celebrity Wedding Planner. Channel Five, in case you hadn’t guessed. A couple had called in Russell Grant and Denise Welch to design their special day.
“Who on earth would call in a celebrity to plan their wedding?” I exclaimed, horrified, and then in the next breath: “Do you think they’d do barmitzvahs as well?”

It’s remarkably difficult though, to pick a Jewish celebrity that you’d trust with your simchah. Stacey Solomon? She’d be fun and lovely, but she might be contractually obliged to serve canapes from Iceland. Sacha Baron Cohen? He’d offend everyone except the 13-year-old boys. What idiot plans a barmitzvah around them? Alan Sugar would get value for money, but he’d probably send in a group of incompetent apprentices to do the actual work. If Maureen Lipman’s free and willing though, I’m happy to write the pitch.

The problem is that I just don’t like planning ahead. I am spontaneous and free. I write books without plot plans, I go shopping without lists, I want to be able to have a barmitzvah party that involves putting a message out of Facebook saying: “If anyone’s in the area, just pop by for a fish ball”.
Barmitzvahs never used to be so complicated. My grandfather’s barmitzvah took place at in Warsaw at the turn of the 20th century. They went along to shul on a weekday, he was called up, my great-grandfather brought a schmaltz herring and a bottle of schnapps to share with the minyan. I bet his mum didn’t even have to buy a new hat. Bliss.

So, if you think you might be invited (no, I haven’t made a list yet), take this as your save the date. I’m thinking of going retro. Schmaltz herring may well be the new sushi table, and I’m sure there are great cocktails to be made with schnapps.

Don’t tell anyone though, because I don’t want them to steal my idea.

Barmitzvah boy video is a YouTube hit

Sandy Rashty — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:38:55 +0100

A barmitzvah video has gone viral after a clip emerged on YouTube this summer.

The three-minute video, which has received nearly 3 million views, features a Brazilian barmitzvah boy lip synching to the tune of British boy band One Direction’s hit, “What Makes You Beautiful.”

Nissim Ourfali, from Sau Paulo, is seen in an array of outfits, holding microphones and replacing the popular chorus line with: “Eu sou o Nissim Ourfali!” (“I am Nissim Ourfali!”).

The back-drop of images includes family members at various international sites including New York and Brazil’s Praia de Baleia – “whale beach” - which is featured with an image of Mr Ourfali standing on a killer whale.

One Direction received the most shareworthy video award for their original version of “What Makes You Beautiful” at the MTV Awards last Thursday.

Nissim Ourfali's beautiful Brazilian barmitzvah video

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:41:31 +0100

Who says celebrating a barmitzvah can't move with the times? Brazilian teen Nissim Ourfali lip-syncs with the best of them on this video celebrating his coming of age, to the tune of What makes you beautiful by One Direction.

Drake — the rap star who performs at barmitzvahs

Paul Lester — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:30:10 +0100

Aubrey Drake Graham, better known as Drake, is one of the world's most successful performers, and without doubt the most popular Jewish rapper/singer - his father, Dennis Graham, is an African-American musician from Memphis, but his mother, Sandi, is a Jewish Canadian.

He has achieved enormous success in the world of hip hop by being incredibly un-hip hop - instead of the usual tough-guy bravado he is unerringly sensitive and prone to self-doubt and, even as the 25-year-old enjoys the multi-millionaire, jet-set lifestyle, he takes great pains to make that lifestyle seem the cause for some soul-searching.

He has created a new paradigm for rap - the tormented solipsist, forever showing his emotions and scrutinising his actions. And in so doing he has divided opinion between those who believe the former teen TV star from an affluent suburb of Toronto is the antithesis of the authentic, street-wise hip hop hood, and those - not just screaming kids but serious music fans who love his melodies, which he raps and sings - who have been won over by him.

"There were people who incorporated melody before me," says Drake, talking backstage at the 02 in south-east London, where 18,000 people have converged to see him play the biggest concert of his career, "but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing."

He considers the question of his persona and agrees that: "Yes, there are aspects of it that are new in the rap world. But it's not a gimmick. I just sort of exist and people embrace it. I'm one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day. It doesn't take me six hours to get ready and I don't have to wake up in the morning and remember to act like this or talk like this. I just have to be me. That's one of the favourite parts of my life - I've done this purely by being myself."

But how much of his songs are we to believe? For example, on the opening track of his 2011 album Take Care, titled Over My Dead Body, he reveals that he performed at a barmitzvah to help pay for a friend's lawyer at a court case. Did this really happen?

"Well, I have a lot of brothers, people I consider family. That line in the song isn't false - I went and did what I had to do after one of my friends got into some legal trouble and it was very expensive and he was having trouble dealing with it."

Drake is famously proud of his Jewish roots. In April this year, amid tremendous publicity, he even had a "re-barmitzvah", footage of which was viewed by a million people on YouTube - "the most watched barmitzvah film clip in human history", as one website put it. But the idea that Drake - who has sold millions of records and was recently voted second-hottest rapper in the world by MTV, ahead of Jay-Z, and Kanye West - turned up at some random barmitzvah seems a little far-fetched.

"I did!" he says, laughing. "I actually went and did a barmitzvah for a family in New York. It was very nice, and they were an incredible family to deal with. I tried to edit out as much swearing as I could, and I loved it, man - the kids loved it, the parents loved it."

Presumably the guests were surprised to see him there? "They were pretty surprised. I came out from behind the DJ booth and started rocking… It was cool. It brought back memories - I've been to a lot of barmitzvahs in my life. I've never been to one like that, though. They shut down the whole street for this kid. They paid me a lot of money to come - they were very generous."

Does he make a habit of this kind of thing? My son turns 13 next March…

"I'd love to!" he says, and you could almost believe him. "If I'm in town, I'll do it - it'll be on the house."

Such a nice Jewish boy. And yet his music is complex. His songs show a young man suffering crises of conscience, often making bad choices, wracked with guilt and regret.

He highlights his song Marvin's Room, in which he describes his numerous sexual conquests, but not in the bragging way expected from hip hop artists. "That's me asking: 'Do I need to get a grip on my life?'," he says. "I have friends who are in committed relationships and spend all their time focused on one woman and I'm behaving like that! You start questioning your own morals. I'm 25 and single. I'm not supposed to care about deeper things right now, I'm supposed to be wild. But there are nights when you sit back and wonder, 'Damn, is this right?'"

He admits he worries about aspects of his personal life, including a very Jewish concern about how often he calls his mother.

"That's one of the things that plagues my mind. My relationship with my family. Am I talking to my mother enough? That kind of thing. Asking myself: 'Are you changing? Are you a different person?' Those are my issues now. If I wasn't famous I don't think those would be my issues at all. They would be: how am I going to support myself? I wouldn't be able to get any girl that I wanted. I wouldn't be travelling the world and I wouldn't be showered with all this affection."

Does he ever worry that he is in danger of suffering from Paradise Syndrome, where having everything you want induces misery and despair?

"No, no, no," he says. "It's not to the point where, like: 'Oh, now I have everything I want and I hate my life'. No, I'm happy."

The dilemma, of course, is that Drake has made his name, and his fortune, by expressing the sweet sadness of moral confusion. How to continue if he stays happy?

"I'm always looking for something else," he says, by way of reassurance, as he prepares to entertain 18,000 Londoners. "I'm always looking for what's beyond this point. Not to sound depressing or anything, but I don't just tell myself: 'Oh, everything's all good, man'. Life is good. But I'm not naive. Nothing is all good."

Obama asks barmitzvah boys for campaign help

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:07:24 +0100

The intended donors are five years away from being able to cast a vote, but Barack Obama's campaign team is hoping to enlist the support of barmitzvah boys across the United States.

On the president's official re-election website, supporters are asked whether they have "a special milestone or event coming up?".

"Instead of another gift card you'll forget to use, ask your friends and family for something that will go a little further: a donation to Obama for America," the website suggests. "Register your next celebration-whether it's a birthday, bar or bat mitzvah, wedding, or anniversary-with the Obama campaign".

The Obama Event Registry has, predictably, sparked criticism among right wing bloggers.

As one commented: "Thirteen. I imagine that 'Tooth Fairies for Obama' is right around the corner."

David Arquette celebrates his barmitzvah at Jerusalem's Western Wall

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:45:34 +0100

Hollywood actor David Arquette has celebrated his barmitzvah at the Kotel.

The Scream star, who was once married to Friends actress Courtney Cox, is Jewish but was brought up on a commune and as a 13-year-old did not have the chance to celebrate his religious coming of age.

His maternal grandparents came to the US after escaping Nazi-occupied Poland, but his father was a convert to Islam and his upbringing included a mixture of faiths.

"I wanted a barmitzvah but didn't have one as a kid...I still may get one - maybe for my 40th birthday," he told the Jewish Journal two years ago.

Mr Arquette was in Israel this week filming scenes for his television series "Trippin" when he attended another barmitzvah ceremony.

The experience prompted him to agree to hold his own, and earlier today he read from the Torah and put on tefillin for the first time. The ceremony was conducted by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch.

"I had my Barmitzvah today at the wall," the actor wrote on Twitter. "Finally I'm a man."

Mr Arquette has rarely commented on his Jewish background, but during his wedding in 1999 he smashed a glass in accordance with Jewish tradition.

His stay in Israel has also included visits to Masada and Tel Aviv. "This is [one] of the great cities in the world," he said of the latter.

Muhammed Ali celebrates grandson's barmitzvah

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:37:53 +0100

Former boxing champion Muhammed Ali has wished his grandson mazel tov on becoming a man.

Mr Ali's daughter Khaliah is married to a Jewish lawyer, and their son Jacob was barmitzvah earlier this year in Philadelphia.

Although the boxer brought his children up as Muslim, he is said to be supportive of his daughter's decision to marry someone Jewish and give Jacob a Jewish life.

"No one put any pressure on Jacob to believe one way or another," said Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer. "He chose this on his own because he felt a kinship with Judaism and Jewish culture."

The boxer, whose original name was Cassius Clay, joined the Nation of Islam in 1964 and changed his name. He has been married four times and has nine children.