Bar-Mitzvah Poem by gershon hepner

When it is time for boys to shelve
their puberty for a bar-mitzvah,
they ask their sisters who are twelve
to teach them what they have big tits for.

They both have mitzvah bars, but bat
is only for the girls who’re Jewish,
who once their chests become less flat
must be untamed and somewhat shrewish.

And so they party, boy and girl,
Jew now followed by the gentile,
with pubescence all awhirl,
careless of the source parental.

Elizabeth Bernstein writes in the WSJ on January 14,2004 that you don’t have to be Jewish to have a bar-mitzvah party (“You Don't Have to Be Jewish: To Want a Bar Mitzvah Party More Kids on Cusp of 13 Get Faux Post-Rite Parties; Picking Hawaiian Theme”) :
:
After going to a dozen bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs last year, Laura Jean Stargardt told her parents she wanted one of her own. She said she found the singing inspiring and offered to learn Hebrew. She also said she wanted a big party. Her parents thought the request was unusual since the family is Methodist. But they co-hosted a lavish party for her and two of her friends last month that looked like a bat mitzvah, without the religion. They booked a country club in Dallas and a disk jockey, invited 125 friends, and hired a professional dancer that Laura had seen at her friends' bar mitzvah parties. 'I wanted to be Jewish so I could have a bat mitzvah, ' says Laura. 'Having the party fulfilled that.' A number of kids about to turn 13 who aren't Jewish are bugging their parents for parties that resemble those held following bar mitzvah ceremonies. In some affluent communities, parents line up the same entertainment and book the same party places. If they don't dance the traditional Jewish hora, they at least manage a tarantella or an Irish jig. 'Parents will call us and say, 'My son's been to over 20 bar and bat mitzvahs, and I just want to do something nice for him, ' ' says Paul Noto, whose Carle Place, N.Y., party entertainment company recently staged one such 13th birthday party that cost $75,000 and included a tent with chandeliers, DJs and dancers.

1/15/04