Unexpected
Continued from Page 21
LACK OF GIVEAWAYS A BUMMER
Jesse Bernstein, Staff Writer
Legendary. Intriguing.

Connected. From catering services to event
planning, let the Warwick handle
every aspect of your special day.

Celebrate where legends have
stayed and history’s been made.

Contact Lauren Belsh at
L a u r e n . B e l s h @Wa r w i c k R i t t e n h o u s e . c o m
215.735.6000 220 South 17th Street
P h i l a d e l p h i a , PA 1 9 1 0 3
WA RW I C K R I T T E N H O U S E .C O M
At Saligman Middle School in the late aughts, to show up on
Monday without wearing the give-away attire of the preceding
weekend’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah was to proclaim that you hadn’t
risked it all in a game of Coke and Pepsi; you hadn’t slid the Cha-
Cha slide; you hadn’t snickered at the forced rhyme for candle
number 7. You hadn’t lived.

I don’t remember a lot of party specifi cs, but I do remember
my sweatpants emblazoned with, “I Had Eilat of Fun at Maya’s Bat
Mitzvah” (Israel-themed party) and “Orange You Glad You Came
to Jon’s Bar Mitzvah?”
So when my parents told me that, in lieu of a giveaway, we’d be
making donations in the names of each party guest, I was aghast
— my dreams of give-away immortality, lost in time like so many
tears in the rain — but I had no choice but to assent.

Somehow, I survived.

When I think back to the ridiculousness of it all now, how much
we were being taught to socially signify to one another at those
parties (she had a band, he had a DJ; he had Betty the Caterer, she
had snacks), I’m thankful to my parents for preserving little of that
night but the photos and the memories.

Not because it wasn’t terrifi cally fun — it was — but because
the thought of someone walking around in a sweatshirt that says
something like, I don’t know, “Th ings Got Messy at Jesse’s Bar
Mitzvah” is a horrifying prospect.

CELEBRATING SANS SYNAGOGUE
Selah Maya Zighelboim, Staff Writer
Aft er lessons with my Bat Mitzvah tutor, we would sometimes
go out to her backyard so she could feed the deer — much to the
chagrin of her neighbors.

Th at tutor was a cantor who worked in the Austin, Texas,
Jewish community and she, like everything else that was a part of
my Bat Mitzvah, was chosen by me and my family. We picked the
date (the day before my 13th birthday). We chose to have a mincha
maariv service instead of the more common shacharit service. We
even made our own siddur, and I chose what tune I wanted for
each song.

My family had moved to Austin a little more than a year before
my Bat Mitzvah, so we didn’t belong to a synagogue. I didn’t have
a set way to go about the process or even a place to read from the
Torah, but it wasn’t a detriment.

Rather, it was an opportunity to make the entire celebration
more personal.

In the end, my Bat Mitzvah was held in an upstairs library at Texas
Hillel. I led most of the service myself, with support from my tutor/
cantor and the Texas Hillel rabbi at the time. Th e service was immedi-
ately followed by a party downstairs in a multipurpose room.

As I danced in that multipurpose room with my out-of-town
friends to the tunes of Austin’s legendary DJ Simcha, I remember
feeling like it was the best night of my life.

And when my brother’s Bar Mitzvah came around two years
later, my family chose once again to have the celebration sans
synagogue. ❤
22 MARCH 21, 2019
SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



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Congregation Tiferet Bet Israel ............ 10
Dave & Buster’s .........................................23
Declaration of Invitations ......................... 5
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Gladwyne Pharmacy ..................................4
Goldstein’s Men’s and Boys’ Apparel .... 11
Hebrew Helpers .........................................23
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Henning’s Market ......................................23
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MARCH 21, 2019
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