A bar mitzvah in Beijing

A bar mitzvah in Beijing

I just got back from a bar mitzvah in Beijing. The bar mitzvah was held in a house/synagogue. The rabbi and many of the people there were Lubavatcha Jews, and there were pictures of Mennachaim Shneerson all over the walls. The Israeli ambassador to China was there, too. I went to see some friends of my dad’s kids get bar mitzvahed.

We danced and sang songs loudly, chanted and dovened, and I even held the torah as we circled the bema a read from the prayer book. It was one of the strangest Chinese experiences I’ve had so far. At one point, since it is Simchat Torah today (that’s why there were so many people there on a Wednesday), the rabbi called up all the men and asked us our names and fathers’ names. I said Tony, and of course he said, what’s your Jewish name, and I said “Shlomo!” next he asked me what my fathers Jewish name was, because he had to chant it out with my name, but I didn’t know. So he just substituted Abraham, which is, I guess, the default Jewish name.

They sang and threw candy all over the place and we had a great bar mitzvah. Mazel tov!!!!