This is the Forward’s coverage of b’nai mitzvah (also called bat mitzvahs for girls and bar mitzvahs for boys), Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies typically done at age 13.
B’nai Mitzvah
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Fast Forward 99-Year-Old Australian Marks Bar Mitzvah
A 99-year-old man living in Australia celebrated his bar mitzvah. Isaac Volinsky joined a group of about 40 Jews from the former Soviet Union at a Chabad house near Sydney’s Bondi Beach for the first time last week. When Rabbi Eli Schlanger discovered that Volinsky had never been to the weekly “120 Club” for elderly…
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Life The Least Pleasurable Sin
This is the first in a Sisterhood series on women, apologizing and Yom Kippur. Forget your bat mitzvah, learning to drive and losing your virginity: College graduation is the one moment that truly signifies your entrance into the “real world.” Now you’re actually a grown-up, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. At least,…
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The Schmooze A Brazilian Bar Mitzvah Video Goes Viral
Forget about the religious ceremony: A bar or bat mitzvah is an opportunity for the family to show off its riches, with lavish parties in fancy hotels and enough food to feed a small town. Right? Well, at least that’s how I remember it, growing up in Rio in the 1990’s. Every weekend there would…
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The Schmooze Video: Vintage 1992 Bar Mitzvah Dance
Imagine bar mitzvah season in the year 1992: a time of frilly dresses, balloon arches and Paul Rudd emceeing in Doc Martens and a yellow tuxedo. Now cut to Shaun Sperling’s bar mitzvah. With Madonna’s face embroidered onto the back of his white button down, Sperling strutted out onto his bar-mitzvah’s wood paneled dance floor…
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Opinion Hamptons Bar Mitzvah Brouhaha
A fireworks display at a Long Island bar mitvah damaged a Bentley — and is threatening to singe a congressman’s career. Rocket debris from the rooftop fireworks demonstration apparently dented the high-end luxury car. But not before Tim Bishop, a Democratic congressman on Long Island, allegedly solicited a donation from the bar mitzvah boy’s father…
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The Schmooze David Arquette Celebrates Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem
Mazel tov to actor David Arquette! Today, just 28 years late, he celebrated his bar mitzvah. Arquette is in Israel at the moment, filming for his Travel Channel show Mile High, also known as Trippin’. As part of his tour he went to the Western Wall this morning and attended a bar mitzvah ceremony that…
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The Schmooze Max Greenfield Relives ‘SNL’-Themed Bar Mitzvah
Max Greenfield’s bar mitzvah was clearly a major milestone — as The Shmooze hopes it would be for any young Jewish man. The 31-year-old “New Girl” actor has been telling just about anyone who will listen to him about his “Saturday Night Live”-themed coming-of-age celebration. On Wednesday night, Greenfield referenced his bar mitzvah again during…
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Life A Better Bat Mitzvah
Days before Pesach we celebrated Girlchik’s bat mitzvah. Becoming bar or bat mitzvah is always cause for celebration, but hers was particularly sweet, since she had suffered a brain bleed around the time of her birth and her prognosis then was uncertain. Moments after telling me that my week-old daughter had suffered a major stroke,…
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