Initiation Ritual
“Bar Mitzvah”
Alex
| Dartmouth College
2018 |
General Information About Item:
- Genre: Customary Lore
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States
- Informant: Alex
- Date Collected: 11/1/18
Informant Data: Alex is a 21 year old student at Dartmouth College. He is from Ohio. During his spare time at Dartmouth, he is actively involved in clubs across campus.
Contextual Data:
Social Context: I collected this folklore from Alex, a 21 year old student at Dartmouth College. Alex is a close friend of mine. I asked him to tell me about his Jewish heritage, and the bar mitzvah is his only true traditional experience he has had in the Jewish Culture. At Alex’s bar mitzvah, he invited his classmates and family members. He really enjoyed the party, and he describes it as very fun.To Alex, it did not feel so much as a right of passage into becoming an adult, but rather an opportunity to have fun in the most educational way.
Cultural Context: The Jewish culture revolves around a tight knit community. Jews have suffered discrimination and persecution for thousands of years, so inherently, they take comfort in the companionship of members of their community. Therefore, Bar Mitzvahs are a common celebration in the jewish culture as a way to unite the people while rejoicing in a child’s coming of age ceremony. This ritual is arguably the quintessential ritual for the Jewish people, and this explains how it is so well preserved.
Item: A bar mitzvah is a coming of age ceremony for Jewish people who are thirteen years old if they are a boy and twelve years old if they are girls. For girls, this event is called a “bat mitzvah”. During this ceremony, the boy or girl reads from the torah and it takes roughly an hour. The reading is usually followed by an awesome party with lots of the child’s friends.
Audio File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18c3S7GK3oy8Adra0m_BrRNpd0r3xRRrW/view?usp=sharing
Transcript for Bar Mitzvah:
“A bar mitzvah is a coming of age ceremony for Jewish people who are thirteen years old if they are a boy and twelve years old if they are girls, which would be called a “bat mitzvah”, which is a ceremony where they read from the torah which is the old testament or the Jewish holy book in a synagogue and it takes about an hour and it’s usually followed by an awesome party with lots of their friends. That’s what I did.”
Informant’s Comments:
- I had a lot of fun at my Bar Mitzvah!
Collector’s Comments:
- Alex really enjoyed his Bar Mitzvah
- It’s unfortunate how the significance of the Bar Mitzvah seems to elude Alex
Collector’s Name and Information:
| Khia Hollyer 18 | ||
| Dartmouth College | ||
| Russian 13 | ||
| Fall 2018 |
Tags/Keywords: Jewish, Bar Mitzvah, Party, tradition