Continued from Page 1
“It’s been refreshing [and] enlight-
ening,” she said. “Since I’m older, I’m
retaining it more, and I’m appreciating
it at this age. Learning the Hebrew was
really tough, I’ll be honest, but it’s
been a great experience. Now I can
read the prayer book and the Torah,
which is awesome.”
While Rodeph Shalom has been offering adult Bar or Bat
Mitzvah classes for at least 15 or 20 years, executive clergy assistant
Candice Nemoff said this is the first B’not Mitzvah she’s aware of.

If there were a man in the group, it would follow the masculine
laws of Hebrew and be called a B’nai Mitzvah.

“Last year, we had one guy and then there were a few other
girls, but as long as there’s one guy it’s masculine because [of patri-
archy],” laughed Nemoff.

The women met monthly for an hour and a half with Rabbi Jill
Maderer to learn about the Torah and the blessings they
performed together during Saturday’s service.

While none of them planned any big parties afterward with a
DJ and seemingly endless rounds of Coke or Pepsi, there was a
luncheon for the new Bat Mitzvahs and their friends and family.

They received mezuzahs and Kiddush cups engraved with their
initials and the date as gifts, as well.

The opportunity to become a Bat Mitzvah even when one is
already bogged down with the bills and trappings of being an
adult is still just as meaningful.

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Celebrating Our 20th
Anniversary “It brings those people specifically
more into the Jewish community
because officially it makes you an adult
in the Jewish community,” Nemoff said.

They read three sentences each from
the Torah and led chants and blessings
during the service, which Shuster was
looking forward to doing.

“The feeling of learning how to read
Hebrew and the Torah and have the
opportunity just to read the Torah is
just amazing,” she said. “The first time I
practiced, it was really awesome. That feeling that you know from
… a long, long time ago, they wrote this and now you can read it
— it’s just the coolest thing.”
Her family helped her prepare for her big day. Her 14-year-old
daughter, Lindsay, who also became a Bat Mitzvah at Rodeph
Shalom, has helped her get ready for her time on the bimah, and
her parents bought her her first tallit.

“I’m looking forward to just getting up and reading the Torah
in front of everyone, putting on a tallit for the first time,” she said.

“I never thought to get one and because I’m reading from the
Torah, I thought that I should have one.”
Having a Bat Mitzvah was something Jenni Russell wanted to
do for herself.

Growing up in South Jersey, Russell grew up around a large
Jewish population — but until 2007, was not Jewish herself.

“It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do,” said Russell, 35.

After she converted and started going to Rodeph Shalom
around 2011 after moving to the Philadelphia area, she heard
about its Bar/Bat Mitzvah class and decided to join.

As a religion minor in college, she’d learned about Judaism and the
Torah. But getting to hear other takes from the women in her class
and studying with the rabbi allowed her to hear new perspectives.

“Our group is a very intergenerational group, and people came
with all different experiences in terms of academic study, religious
study,” she said. “For me, the most interesting part about it was
studying with them and learning from all these other people of
different backgrounds.

On Wednesday morning, the day after their final meeting
before the ceremony, Russell — as any pre-Bar or Bat Mitzvah
would surely relate to — was feeling a mix of excitement and
nerves. The idea of reading the Torah in front of a large group of
people and singing was a little scary, she said.

“While I’ve been studying and preparing a lot, I’m still very
nervous about it. So I’m looking forward to having had the expe-
rience and it being over and not being slightly terrified by trying
to read Hebrew in front of a room full of people,” she laughed. “I
am looking forward to being able to actually read text from the
Torah scroll itself.”
Public speaking doesn’t scare her, but she admitted “it’s a little
different when you have do it in a language you’re not necessarily
accustomed to.”
For her, being a part of the B’not Mitzvah had special meaning.

“Being someone who doesn’t grow up with the shared experi-
ences that everyone else has, you can sometimes feel a little bit left
out of the conversation,” she said. “You’re not able to relate or talk
about certain things, and so in one respect this was a way to have
that experience — granted, not the same as doing it as a teenager,
but still having gone through that process of studying and learn-
ing and doing this in front of a big group of people. All around it’s
just been such a fantastic and wonderful experience.” l
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Turning Contact: mstern@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM




Is Bracing for a Change
THE BEST IDEA?
There’s nothing quite like the combination of
puberty and peaking in Jewish adulthood:
You walk up to the pulpit, prep to
pronounce prayers from the Torah, then
suddenly pause to pull leftover bagel
from your braces.

Avoiding casualties like this one are
what prompts many preteens to get their
braces removed for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah,
then get them put back on after the big day.

In this reporter’s day, getting braces was in itself
a rite of passage: You could choose which rubber band
colors to get on the metal brackets to match holidays, or choose
clear bands in an attempt to make the metal invisible (though it
really just made your teeth look bulgier).

Looking back at my own Bat Mitzvah
photos, I made the wise decision of picking
turquoise rubber bands to match my teal
BCBG dress, which also matched the fake
blue flowers I held in a photo shoot that my
brother took in our backyard. There may
or may not have been blue eye shadow
involved. (I just really, really liked blue, OK?)
Nostalgia aside, braces have served a
purpose in one form or another dating all the
way back to ancient Egypt.

According to Colgate, archaeologists have uncovered
mummies with metal bands around their teeth, and catgut — a
type of cord made from fibers found in animal intestines — tied
to the bands to provide pressure and move the teeth.

See Bracing, Page 34
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM SIMCHAS
MARCH 23, 2017
33 Top: djiledesign; Rubberbands: flyparade/iStock/Thinkstock.com
RACHEL KURLAND | JE STAFF