Mitzvah
Continued from Page 7
A father helps his hard-of-hearing son put on tefillin for the
first time at a Bar Mitzvah organized by the International
Young Israel Movement and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Judy Lash Balint
For children with physical as well as emotional challenges, it
takes a special effort to create a Bar or Bat Mitzvah program they
can relate to. At a recent ceremony in a Jerusalem synagogue, 63
deaf and hard of hearing children were called to the Torah in
front of parents who were visibly moved by the moment, which
was sponsored by the International Young Israel Movement (IY-
IM) and its Deaf Programming Division in cooperation with the
Jewish Agency. Boys with cochlear implants opened up the
brand-new prayer shawls provided by the IYIM with a flourish,
while groups of girls chattered in sign language and waited for
their turn to recite a special blessing for becoming a Bat Mitzvah.

Ben Zion Chen, the head of the Association for the Deaf in Israel,
told the kids, “I grew up with hearing parents and didn’t know
what Torah was. You are all very fortunate.”
“It’s important that you know your rights and how to deal
with your deafness as you grow up,” Chen added, while a
sign language interpreter translated his words to the atten-
tive students.

“He didn’t sleep all last night,” said Orna regarding her son
Shai, a profoundly deaf 13-year-old from Ramle. “He’s gone
through so many operations, and had so many difficulties in his
short life — it’s a joy to be here with him and see how happy he
is,” she exclaimed as Shai took his place under the prayer shawl
spread over his group, while Rabbi Chanoch Yeres, director of the
IYIM Deaf Programming Division, read the Torah portion. In
true Israeli B’nai Mitzvah style, the kids and their families, who
had come from all over Israel, were treated to a celebratory lunch
and a tour of the Old City to mark the day. l
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MARISSA STERN
JE STAFF
The Two Sides of Planning
a Bar/Bat Mitzvah
THE AVERAGE BAR OR BAT MITZVAH
takes months to plan and can cost anywhere
from $15,000 to $30,000 and, in many cases,
even higher.

That cost covers everything from the DJ
to the caterer to even the baskets filled with
goodies in the ladies’ bathroom (sorry, men).

And with the ubiquity of social media,
the pressure to make an unforgettable party
— at least by today’s digital standards — can
be intense.

Look up the hashtag #barmitzvah or
#batmitzvah on Instagram and prepare to
be astonished. Kids make separate accounts
for their big bash, and Pinterest boards —
a space where users “pin” ideas under a spe-
cific category from other websites —
abound with ideas to make the party pop
that you can do yourself.

With all of those planning options avail-
able online, just how does social media affect
the fairy godmothers of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah
party: the planners?
New York-based company mazelmo-
ments.com, whose website features ideas for
planning Jewish events including Bar/Bat
Mitzvahs, has 6,200 followers on Pinterest
and more than 40 boards with ideas ranging
See DIY, Page 10
Pamela Rosenthal created the centerpieces for the B’not Mitzvah of her twin girls, Remi and Julia.

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