I've been busy recently and haven't had time to write my blog. However I was round at my sister's recently and happened to see, lying open, my nephew Joel's diary. Here's what he wrote about his barmitzvah.
My b’mitzvuh was brill. I can’t tell you how many amazing presents I received, but it wasn’t just about the gifts, the parties were fantastic too.
Everything started off on Friday night. We didn’t actually go to shul because the restaurant was booked for 7pm. Mum insisted we went to the Bling Ju restaurant in Chinatown because the ribs are to die for. It was a quiet “do” for just 180 of our close friends and family and some people my dad knew from work like Robbie Williams and Joan Rivers.
I was so excited about the Shabbat morning because I finally got to wear the Hugo Boss suit I’d been keeping carefully for weeks. We had to go to shul, obviously, and that was OK. We’ve been members for as long as I can remember and I’ve been there at least six times so I feel really at home there. I did Maf and Haf and fortunately it was short which was good because we didn’t want to keep everyone waiting. As soon as the service was over we dashed out to a stretch limo that whisked us off to the Ritz for lunch. We thought it was best not to invite people to the shul service in case they didn’t manage to get to the lunch on time. It’s just as well because the Rabbi had a dig at my mum in his sermon just because she’d had a row with him when he’d insisted that we couldn’t do the service on the Friday morning instead. She’d wanted to do the b’mitzvuh then to save having to re-arrange the builders who were coming to do a quote for the extension on the Saturday.
My family entered the banqueting room in a procession accompanied by an amazing gospel group who sang some religious songs. It was great to have Madonna on my table - my parents thought that because it was my b’mitzvuh it would be good to have at least one Jewish person with me.
The food was fab although Gordon Ramsey was a bit rude to my auntie when she looked shocked after he told her that the mushroom vol-au-vents were prawn and not mushroom. Still, it was understandable that he might be a bit stressed. After all, he was cooking a 7-course meal for 450 people, and then there were the other 220 that came later just for tea.
In the speeches my dad's friend Simon Cowell said some really nice things about my parents and me (although he wasn't very impressed with my own speech). Russell Brand spoke also and he was hilarious although my grandpa wasn’t too amused by the story about his day nurse.
After lunch we jumped into more limos to drive us to Hyde Park, which we had taken over for a fun fair. Some of my friends asked me if it was OK to ride on the amusements on Shabbat and I told them it was fine because they weren’t actually paying. I’m really lucky that my Jewish education has enabled me to answer questions like this. When it was dark we had a firework display like the one they do at new years’ on the Thames, but it went on for longer.
On the Sunday morning I started to go through all my wonderful presents such as a new Ferrari that I can’t wait to drive when I’m seventeen. I also received a bunch of Jewish prayer books and stuff. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to use them but you never know. My parents also got me a forest in Israel in memory of my other grandpa. They said when I’m older I can chop down the trees and build a holiday home.
However, I know that presents are not the important thing when it comes to a B’mitzvuh. In shul the rabbi said it was to do with becoming an adult and responsibility or something like that. I can’t remember exactly what he said because I was fiddling with my new Rolex at the time.
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