A Holocaust survivor celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on Monday, 64 years after he should have.
The Jewish community in Rome celebrated on Monday with 77-year-old Samuel Modiano on the occasion of his Bar-Mitzvah.
Modiano, a member of the community, was born in Rhodes. Sixty-four years ago, at the age of 13, he was a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp and was unable to celebrate his Bar-Mitzvah. Modiano lost 60 family members in the Holocaust.
On Monday, in the Great Synagogue of Rome and in the presence of hundreds of community members, he completed what he had missed as a result of the terrible events that he endured in his youth.
You know what line leaps out at me? This one:
Modiano lost 60 family members in the Holocaust.
When the anti-Israel schmucks liken what Israel’s policies in the terrortories[sic] with the policies of Nazi Germany, I remember facts like the above. And I remember that many, many more survivors can tell us similar things. Most of them lost dozens of family members.
Mazel tov to Samuel Modiano.
I have read stories about old men going through Bar Mitzvah again. Is there something in the Jewish Faith that calls for this, or is it just like married people renewing their vows because they want to?
No, there’s no requirement. Here’s a good source that answers all your questions.
Although I never had a Bat Mitzvah ceremoney, I still became a Bat Mitzvah at the age of twelve. Same for Samuel Modiano (except he became a Bar Mitzvah at age 13). The ceremony is just a ceremony. It represents our coming of age and become daughters/sons of the Commandments, and our obligations to follow the 613 commandments of Jewish law.
I’m having mine this year because I never had a ceremony when I was a child. I’ve wanted to have my adult bat mitzvah for a long time.
All of my students think it’s a great thing, although they’re thinking in part about the party afterward. I keep telling them there won’t be a kid’s party after my ceremony. But I’m planning on having an ice cream bar for the students at my religious school on the day after. I think I can convince whoever is the director of education to let classes out a half-hour early for that.
I saw a biography of Kirk Douglas and he had a bar Mitzvah when he was 83. The rationale he and his Rabbi stated was that an average life span was 70 years so when you are 83 it is akin to being 13 again.
I think the 70+13 approach is not uncommon. Our (Orthodox) shul had one for our gabbai when he turned 83. He had come from the SU in the 1960s and had not had the opportunity to observe his bar mitzvah at the proper age. The shul’s celebration had all the pomp, including calling him up for an aliyah [torah portion] with “chazzanus”, throwing candy bags, the works. In fact this led to one of my son Aaron ZL’s classic lines. When the bags were tossed, he remarked to me: “so what’s inside – Ex-Lax?”