Thursday morning I got up early for a 7am virtual bat mitzvah. Many years ago a young woman went through some of my classes and decided to convert. I connected her to a rabbi. She became a Jew. In a few years she met a man and fell in love. He wasn’t Jewish so we…
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(This article originally appeared in the J-weekly Mixed and Matched column.) Dear Dawn: My son Joey’s bar mitzvah was scheduled for June of this year and now it can’t happen as planned. Our synagogue is closed. Some of my son’s peers are having a Zoom bar mitzvah on their scheduled date and planning to have…
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(Family bat mitzvah) A letter to my Mixed and Matched Column in the J-Weekly Dear Dawn: How do I encourage a do-nothing tween to want a bat mitzvah? At 11, my daughter doesn’t want to do anything except watch YouTube all day. Complains about going to Sunday school but has fun once there. I suspect as…
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A mohel performs a circumcision during a bris (or brit milah) ceremony. (Cheskel Dovid/Wikimedia CC BY 3.0) Circumcision still a volatile topic I received the following letter sent to my Mixed and Matched column at the J-weekly. Dear Dawn: I came across your response to a Jewish mother who was upset that her daughter didn’t want to circumcise…
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I received a number of comments on my March 26 Mixed and Matched column about an 11-year-old who wants a bat mitzvah but would be starting from scratch because she has not been raised Jewish. I’d like to reply to all of you: “A bat mitzvah need not take place at age 13. You can have a…
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I am Jewish, and my husband was Catholic but no longer identifies with any religion. I care strongly about raising our children Jewish, and my husband supports me. Now, with three children, we find this decision to have an increasing impact on our time-strapped lives — what with weekly classes, each child’s class Shabbat, parent…
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