Quarantined 12-year-old has bat mitzvah over live stream during coronavirus outbreak: 'It was really something remarkable'
Students from multiple New York City private schools have been quarantined to their homes for a week, after a member of the nearby New Rochelle community was diagnosed with the coronavirus. And while they’re all adjusting to everyday life with online schooling and being sequestered to their homes, some teens from Salantar Akiba Riverdale (SAR) Academy — a private Jewish day school in the Bronx — are having to alter plans around a once-in-a-lifetime event: their bar and bat mitzvahs.
Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, the principal of SAR Academy, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the school took immediate and effective measures on March 3 to ensure that all 1,500 students in both the middle school and SAR High School remained safe from the outbreak by closing the schools. Now, he and his staff are taking additional measures to maintain some normalcy for the students who remain out of the classroom and distanced from group settings until March 17 — namely, those who had their Jewish coming-of-age rituals set to take place during this time.
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“We had, over the course of this weekend, one bar mitzvah and three bat mitzvahs for kids who were really disappointed that they aren’t going to be able to celebrate,” Krauss says. “We were just thinking about what we could do for them, specifically, and my wife suggested we try to do a virtual bar mitzvah.”
The bar mitzvah of a 13-year-old student named Joseph Hershkowitz was the first that took place, and admittedly took some work to throw together. But by using Zoom, the same videoconferencing platform that the school has been utilizing for online teaching, Krauss said they were able to make the Thursday morning service work.
“He turned lemons into lemonade,” Krauss said of the student, who read a portion of the Torah to about 250 people who attended virtually. “We got this boy a Torah scroll into his home. And everyone really came together very quickly, and we sent them some food for the family, whoever was able to be [at their home].”
Since then, Krauss has helped put together three bat mitzvahs — a similar ritual for girls when they turn 12 — including one on Monday evening for Jordana Shmidman.
“We had a bat mitzvah planned for last night that we had to cancel because of corona where all of the students have been placed under quarantine,” Jordana’s father, Yehuda Shmidman, explains to Yahoo Lifestyle. “SAR Academy really saved the day.”
The event, which they found out on Saturday evening would indeed be taking place, was held in the family’s living room, where Yehuda and his wife Rebecca Shmidman set up a “mini makeshift studio” for their daughter. Complete with ring lights, a monitor and a microphone against a backdrop of decorative pieces originally meant for the party following the bat mitzvah, the scene was perfectly set.
“Jordana got to read the Megillah, which is the prayer that is read on the holiday Purim, which is last night and today, and she conducted that service live in front of close to 200 people who dialed in,” Yehuda says. “Each person dialed in probably had several on the screen, so there were at least 300, maybe 400 people watching, viewing live, participating. Between being there on video, live chatting, just being a part of the celebration on the screen for Jordana, it was really something remarkable.”
Yehuda went on to explain the importance of celebrating the “critical milestone” in Jordana’s life, which Jordana says she was sad to be missing. “I was really upset but then I realized that it’s much better because everyone’s healthier and it’d be fun.” Jordana’s mom adds, “It’s so important that we keep on living our lives.”
“Jordana’s friends made her an amazing video for her bat mitzvah, which is really incredible,” Rebecca continues. “Thank god most people are healthy, and we can be happy together and celebrate life’s milestones.”
The family shares hope that the impact of the coronavirus on their community will surely pass. In the meantime, they’re open to adapt based on what’s available to them. Luckily, Jordana and the rest of her friends are pros when it comes to using social media to their advantage.
“This is just something that was unthinkable even a few years ago. Not just corona, but this solution, so life goes on and as Rebecca said, we keep moving,” Yehuda says. “This generation totally knows how to leverage social media to make it all work.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
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