Bernie Marks Gets Bar Mitzvahed At 78
WELL, at last his voice won’t break during the service:
A little nervous and plenty excited, Bernie Marks practiced Torah chanting Tuesday for his upcoming bar mitzvah ceremony, the symbolic Jewish passage into manhood.
Marks stood at the bimah, or stage, at Sacramento’s Congregation B’Nai Israel, chanting the Torah in a deep, beautifully haunting voice quite different than the 13-year-olds also preparing for their passage.
Marks is 78 – a Holocaust survivor. When he was 13 – before the family was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp – they lived in a Jewish ghetto in Poland under the rule of Nazi soldiers, who forbid Jewish religious practices.
Bet he can’t wait to open his gifts, and that nice new burgundy briefcase and the identity bracelet…
Oh, the pain…
Posted: 12th, September 2008 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
