Customer Reviews

Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This wonderful book charts a double journey. It is a journalist's voyage through Jewish America, with Oppenheimer serving as a kind of traveling anthropologist who is examining an important religious ritual in its various manifestations. But it is also an autobiography, a coming-to-grips with roots, with the possibilities for religious belief, and a quasi-Oedipal rebellion against the author's frankly secular, modern, atheistic, non-observant, left-wing Jewish parents, who came of age in the 60s. Young Oppenheimer, a product of the 90s, came to look at the Jewish religion first in an academic way, and then was gradually drawn in to the mysteries and the doctrines of his people. By looking at the practice of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah in expected places (New York City) as well as unexpected ones (Alaska, Arkansas), Oppenheimer presents a full and generous (as well as a funny and informative) account of why people worship and believe as they do. The book makes sense for anyone involved in a similar personal quest, or for anyone interested in fine writing.

This is a first-rate survey of an established custom. The book goes through many varieties of bar and bat mitzvat, demonstrating that they are not all alike. It focuses on values and choices, so that a person planning a bar or bat mitzvah can reflect on the values that he or she wishes to convey to the bar or bat mitzvah and to the congregation at large. While it is highly readable -- and not at all boring -- it has a significant depth that educates and challenges preconceived notions. It should be read by all parents who contemplate a bar or bat mitzvah for their child. I have otdered additiional copies for other family members for this reason.

Even though it's nominally about bar mitzvah celebrations, this book really uses them as a taking-off point to look at the state of Judaism in America today, from Temple Emanu-El to the Lubavitchers, with numerous stops in between. I had actually expected (with a mixture of anticipation and dread) that the book would be mostly about the over-the-top parties of the type we see in the recent movie Keeping Up With The Steins. Oppenheimer does discuss these affairs, but most of the book is about the personal Jewish experience in a variety of places around the country: I found the most interesting part to be the study of a tiny congregation in St. Charles, Louisiana. Highly readable, highly recommended.

Although it drags in places, especially the over-coverage of obscenely expensive keep-up-with-the-Cohens parties, it's mostly well written, interesting and thought provoking. One under-reported aspect, in my experience, is the role played by b'nai mitzvah in bringing together and maintaining the bonds of far-flung families. With 'living together' as common as marriage, and with low key ceremonies and elopements the frequent follow-through to 'living together', family get-togethers could be decades apart without the b'nai mitzvah events.

As a Jew who did not celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, I learned a vast amount from this visit to 10 Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrants, their families, friends and neighbors. There are truly wonderful human interest stories of Jews, non-Jews, erstwhile Jews, and Jewish converts from New York to Alaska, from youths to late middle-agers preparing for the big day. This volume reminded me of another recently published totally absorbing memoir (Shanda, the Making and Breaking of a Self-loathing Jew) by Neal Karlen; both authors tell of belatedly embracing their Jewish roots and finding inestimable rewards in Jewish culture and in devotion to religious observance. Extremely heart-warming and inspiring for those who have wandered away and are considering re-examining what Judaism has to offer.

I found some of the information provided in the book to be somewhat interesting, but most of it was boring.