to try to discourage the ridiculously excessive bar and bat mitvzah parties that have become the norm in many large cities, this story in the April 26 People Magazine (not online) should be it:
She’s got the deejay blasting Beyonce and a computerized light show. She has nearly 100 friends crammed into Manhattan’s ritzy Bryant Park Grill. She’s got the gift table groaning with Tiffany bags and guests greeting her dad at the door with “Mazel tov!” Everything is perfectly poised for 13-year-old Kimya to have a world- class bat mitzvah, except for one tiny detail:The article goes on to quote Gentile parents bullied by their children into throwing lavish 13th birthday parties for them so the kids can be part of the “in” crowd. Talk about a Chillul Hashem! (desecration of God’s name!) When the most widely-known Jewish rite gets to be known less for its spiritual significance and more for the social status the accompanying party provides, so much so that 13 year old social climbers insist on emulating it, someone needs to do something.Kimya isn’t Jewish.
Welcome to the strange new world of faux mitzvahs, where non- Jewish teens like Kimya Zahedi–whose parents are Iranian-born Muslims–and Taylor Lasley, African-American and Presbyterian, get to party like it’s 5764 (that’s 2004 on the Hebrew calendar). A centuries-old Jewish tradition, bar mitzvahs (for boys) and bat mitzvahs (for girls) mark the passage from childhood to adulthood with rituals like candlelighting and slicing braided bread called challah, as well as with elaborate and often expensive celebrations. Now more and more non-Jewish kids areinsisting on their own bar or bat mitzvah-style parties–without the religious rites and months of studious preparation–when they turn 13. “You see how you can have so much fun with so many people,” says Kimya, who attends one or two bar or bat mitzvahs every weekend in and around her wealthy neighborhood in Alpine, N.J.
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