Connecticut Jewish Ledger

NEW HAVEN — Who attends more bar and bat mitzvahs in a year - rabbis and cantors, seventh graders, or Mark Oppenheimer?

If the year in question was 2002, the award probably goes to Oppenheimer, editor of the New Haven Advocate and author of the recently published “Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America.”

In one year, Oppenheimer visited synagogues in places like Tampa, Fla., Fayettesville, Ark., Anchorage, Ala., Lake Charles, La., Manhattan, N.Y., an egalitarian congregation in his own community of New Haven, and Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., all to do research for his book.

Oppenheimer conducted in-depth interviews with rabbis, tutors, an observant, deeply spiritual Egalitarian Conservative bat mitzvah girl, a Lubavitch Chasid bar mitzvah boy, 65 and 61 year old Jews by choice who celebrated adult bar and bat mitzvah, and many others.

“I decided I’d go on the road and see what’s out there in America,” reports Oppenheimer, “I was influenced by such travel writers and literary journalists as Ian Frazier and Jonathan Rabin, and I got excited to go on the road.”

Before writing “Thirteen and a Day,” Oppenheimer had written a book about Christianity “about religion in America in the late 60s and early 70s,” Oppenheimer said. “I wanted to use the experience of writing a book to learn something new.”

Both his agent and a friend then suggested that he write about bar and bat mitzvah.

Oppenheimer originally planned to spend every Shabbat for one year at the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale observing bar and bat mitzvahs and interviewing children and their families for the book. While the rabbi, Rick Jacobs, was supportive of the idea, the board of directors was not. Oppenheimer needed to change his plans. He then decided to travel across the country observing bar and bat mitzvahs in different places, and of different denominations.

Oppenheimer picked his destinations in various ways. He learned of an experienced tutor in Tampa, Fla. Judi Gannon — through a chance meeting with her daughter at the Slifka Center at Yale University. Oppenheimer traveled to Tampa to witness Gannon in action with her young students.

Oppenheimer had more personal reasons for his journey to Louisiana.

“I wanted to go to Lake Charles since my grandmother was from there,” he said.

In Anchorage, Alaska, Oppenheimer spent Shabbat with the Chabad shaliach, put on tefillin, attended the bar mitzvah service and celebration and notes that he “saw how much of an impact Lubavitch has.”

Oppenheimer observed and learned many interesting things in his travels. He witnessed some resilient twins who “came together to do a wonderful job-despite an acrimonious divorce.” And he observed a lot of fancy bar and bat mitzvahs.

While Oppenheimer, 31, a native of Springfield, Mass., did not himself have a bar mitzvah, he says he has always been interested in religion.

He received a PhD from Yale in religious history with a dissertation entitled “Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture.” At one time, he worked for the Harford Courant as a religion writer. He has also written for Harper’s, Lingua Franca and the New Yorker.

In the end, notes Oppenheimer, “Bar and bat mitzvah is a good ritual. Any public opportunity to perform and receive the love of a community is a good thing-but bar and bat mitzvahs are only representative of a family-and the bar or bat mitzvah can’t escape the family that produces them.”

Mark Oppenheimer will speak at the JCC of Greater New Haven as part of the 2005 Jewish Book Festival on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7:30pm For more information, call (203) 387-2522.