July 31, 2007/ 16 Av 5767

Five months of intensive activity concluded on an especially high note. Forty children of new immigrants who reside at the Jewish Agency Tzahal 9 Absorption Center celebrated their bar/bat mitzvah party in the company of 150 volunteers from England.

About 150 new immigrants from Ethiopia together with 150 volunteers from England prayed at Jerusalem's Yeshurun Synagogue. In the course of the service Chief Rabbi Metzger blessed all the bar/bat mitzvah celebrants amongst the new immigrants as well as 11 bar-mitzvah boys from England who decided to celebrate their mitzvah together with the olim.

When Rabbi Metzger blessed the children there was hardly a dry eye amongst the congregants.

At the conclusion of the moving service the entire crowd went to the reception halls of Jerusalem's Great Synagogue. Federation of Zionist Youth (FZY) members who together with the staff of the absorption center had prepared a PowerPoint display and party for all the youngsters provided the real surprise.

The mc for the entire event was Septon Bergson of the UJIA, the British United Jewish Israel Appeal.

Hearty mazel tovs are in order for the bar/bat mitzvah boys and girls and special congratulations are due to the FZY movement, to UJIA and the Jewish Agency for financing the bar mitzvah celebration and to the staff of the absorption center who put in days and nights to ensure the success of the event.  To help finance bar/bat mitzvah celebrations, click here.