Jewish boxing champion Yuri Foreman wants to defend his championship at Yankee Stadium, but his first opponent (before facing former welterweight titleholder Miguel Cotto) might have to be a Bar Mitzvah boy who wants to hold his celebration at the same place on the same day. 

Fight promoter Bob Arum told the Associated Press that "they've [Yankee Stadium] leased out some lounges for this Bar Mitzvah and part of the deal was for a half hour or so, they could use the big screen in center field to show pictures and all that sort of stuff".

It would be a shame if Yankee Stadium didn't work out, but thankfully, Arum has a backup plan, but it's some lame hockey rink place named Madison Square Garden. 

 

 

 

Seth Greenland, author of Shining City, is guest blogging this week as one of Jewcy's Lit Klatsch bloggers.  Greenland's novel is about an average, married-with-children, Los Angeles man who transforms into a Mercedes-owning high roller.

In the year of my daughter's bat mitzvah she attended at least thirty others besides her own. While the services tended to have a certain sameness to them - whose idea was it that the parents givespeeches? - the celebrations ranged from the modest and down home to the garish and absurd. Each week I would pick her up from another party and perform a debriefing. For pure excess, my favorite of her stories was the Winter Olympic-themed bat mitzvah of the girl whose father owned the patent to a Velcro-like substance that, I promise you, is somewhere in your home right now.This dad had rented a ballroom at the Four Seasons, flooded it, froze the water to make a rink, and gave everyone ice skates. It was a long way from Anatevka.

But the most piquant detail from my daughter's B'Nai Mitzvah Tour circa 2005 was observed at - where else - a country club. It occurred during the cocktail hour, somewhere between the canapés and the cocktail wieners, when the bar mitzvah boy made his entrance. The lights dimmed, a spotlight hit a pair of gilded doors on a balcony above a sweeping staircase.  The music kicked in: P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent. If the bubbes and zaydes present were aware of or concerned with the lyric content (No Cadillacs, no perms that you can't see,that I'm a  motherfuckin' P.I.M.P.)  they gave no evidence of it.  The doors burst open and there was this most recent addition to the rolls of Jewish manhood, all five feet three inches of him in his shiny shoes and bar mitzvah suit, flanked by a pair of motivational dancers - professional let's-get-this-party-started girls hired to move the more funk impaired guests toward the dance floor - in spandex and spiked heels. The three of them gyrated down the staircase to the primal thump of the hip-hop and into the roiling maw of the celebration. 

No further comment is necessary.

At the time my daughter related this, I had been cogitating on the assault the idea of the pimp had recently made on mainstream culture. Snoop Dogg was selling a cuddly version. MTV had a show called Pimp My Ride. There was a cartoon on television called L'il Pimp. The pimp, previously a gamy, night world kind of meme - even the word pimp was not something said in polite conversation -  had clearly moved from the margins toward the white hot center. Know this: if something is happening at a bar mitzvah, it has reached its cultural apogee.

Around the same time, while reading the Los Angeles Times one Saturday morning,I noticed an article about a local couple. Both of them had moved to the west coast to pursue the show business grail and, as is so often the case, it had not worked out for them. In the meantime, they had had two children who needed food, clothing and the other accoutrements of childhood, all while the economy was beginning to sputter. What to do? Being enterprising sorts, they started an escort service (!) out of their home (!!). That caught my eye. I pictured Mom picking up a kid at pre-school, while on her cell phone arranging an assignation between "Brianna" and "Stu from Tarzana" in the shadow of a wall festooned with finger paintings. According to the article, it was working out nicely for the couple until the inevitable happened and then it wasn't. They were arrested,tried, convicted and sentenced.

The economic news became worse. Jobs were moving to China and Mexico. How were Americans going to survive the downturn?If the parents down the sideline at the soccer field could be pimps, did that not make for a compelling answer? Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, steals a loaf of bread to feed his family. Marcus Ripps, the main character of Shining City would be his literary descendant. I only hope that no one tries to turn it into a musical while I am still alive.

Pimp my book? Not me.

See the video here.

Seth Greenland, author of Shining City, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week. Stay tuned.

This kid should've won the Bronfman Big Idea prize.

My son, now you are a man: The WiiWelcome to Mommyblogging Dearest, your guide to Jewish parenting online -- hipster and otherwise.

What thirteen-year-olds want: Eternal popularity, to be left alone, and the Nintendo Wii. What you should get them for their B’Nai Mitzvot, however, is anybody’s guess. This is that rare parenting issue that’s totally relevant to non-parents as well: People with teenage children definitely get invited to more Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, but anyone with Jewish relatives eventually winds up in Barnes and Noble the night before a big event, wondering if The Catcher in the Rye is a horribly pedantic thing to give a budding adolescent.

This is, of course, why gift certificates exist, but how much should you give? Over in the forums section of Modern Jewish Mom, posters seem torn between $36 and $200. The latter, of course, has the advantage of being twice 18, which is a lucky number in Jewish superstition. Then again, $200 has the advantage of being 2/3 of the price of a Wii.

B’Nai Mitzvot always wind up being a disturbing mix of consumerism and tradition, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that elsewhere in the same forum is a heartfelt plea from a mom whose child has announced that she’s not interested in studying for her Bat Mitzvah and she doesn’t care about Judaism. It’s an old question, but also an eternal one. Shouldn’t the ritual mean something to the kid?

I went to my first Orthodox bar mitzvah last weekend. It was my first Orthodox anything, come to think of it. While I didn’t pay much attention in temple (since the women and men sit separately and I didn’t have Fiance--a more religious Jew than I--beside me to explain what was going on), I paid great attention to the food.

I seldom keep Kosher, so I didn't have high hopes for the Kosher meal ahead. But as it turns out, Kosher food isn’t so bad! Everything served was actually pretty good. Especially the desserts, which I’ll get to in a later post.

Friday night was Shabbat (or Shabbos) dinner, and we started with pea soup. When it arrived, I gingerly dipped into the slimy green substance and braced myself for the worst. I was confused and pleasantly surprised when it tasted delicious. Quite possibly the best pea soup I’ve ever had, smooth and spiked with chives and mint. Fiance and I looked at each other to confirm: “There’s definitely cream in this.” Since Kosher laws restrict serving meat and milk in the same meal, we anticipated a main course of fish.

You can imagine my surprise when, after a yummy, thoughtfully arranged iceberg lettuce salad garnished with pecans and cranberries, this stuffed chicken breast came out as the main course:

Kosher stuffed Chicken

Fiance and I raised our eyebrows at each other and I immediately sought out the chef to ask what was in the pea soup. Non-dairy creamer, he told me. Genius! This trick will certainly come in handy when my Kosher conscience nags around the holidays or a more pious mood strikes Fiance around dinnertime. Non-dairy creamer just may change my life.

Even better? This recipe couldn't be easier.

I know there are a lot of Jewcers who had standard bar and bat mitzvahs, standing on the bima with the rabbi, saying a few blessings, making a speech about becoming an adult, and then sweating through a snowball on the dance floor while the adults drank too much and ate eggplant parmagiana.

But if you weren’t part of the club getting Israel bonds and jewelry boxes/fountain pens in middle school, don’t think your chance is gone. My Bubbe had a bat mitzvah in her seventies (and everyone in my family sobbed through the entire ceremony. We’re softies). Many reform Temples now run programs for senior citizens who didn’t have a ceremony when they were younger, and have come to Judaism later in life. And you don’t have to be a senior citizen. If you’re 24 you don’t have to write it off. Know, first, that though we usually say that someone HAD a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, that is grammatically incorrect. You BECOME a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, which is to say, you become a son or daughter of the commandments. You’re just accepting the commandments upon yourself. Technically, even if you don’t have a ceremony of any kind, you still become one. But wanting to mark the occasion is totally reasonable, and you should feel free to ask your rabbi to help you prepare.
Bat Mitzvah in Your Forties: No reason not to
Think it’ll be too hard to learn a Torah portion? Don’t sweat it. You can usually get by with just an aliyah, a short blessing you can easily get transliterated into Hebrew.

Still feeling intimidated? Check out this article from the Chicago Tribune about a woman having her Bat Mitzvah 35 years late.

Bat mitzvah a journey of persistence, courage

Sue Saltsberg mimics her tutor's hand movements, gathering in the warmth and light of the Shabbat candles, the onset of Sabbath and its promise of rest.

But rest has never come easily to Saltsberg, an Arlington Heights woman with developmental delays. It seems she has been trying to prove herself since the day she was born, when doctors predicted the premature infant probably would die within 30 days.
Now, at 47, she is preparing for the bat mitzvah ceremony that eluded her when she was 13.

Saltsberg's dream begins and ends at a Hoffman Estates temple, Beth Tikvah Congregation, which means "House of Hope" in Hebrew. It was Saltsberg's first temple as a child and the one she returned to in pursuit of her goal.

Each week, for 15 months, she and tutor Russell Vincent have practiced prayers and rituals for the Jewish rite of passage to adulthood she will celebrate Friday night.

You can do it, too!

Mazel Tov Sam Modiano77-year-old Holocaust survivor Samuel Modiano celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on Monday at a synagague in Rome, where he now lives.

At 13, Modiano was a prisoner at Auschwitz and even after he emigrated to the Congo, he wasn't able to receive a proper Bar Mitzvah due to civil unrest and lack of a cohesive Jewish community.

Redemption was to be had, however, as hundreds of members of Modiano's temple in Rome joined him in a very emotional ceremony.

Said the Chief Rabbi of Rome:

This is a wonderful example of the Jewish tradition beating in the heart of every Jewish person. The most touching moment was when Samuel exposed his arm to wrap the tefilin around it and uncovered the number tattoo.