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Friday March 4, 2005

B’nai mitzvah boosters

One-on-one tutors ease path to coming-of-age ceremony

by rachel sarah
correspondent

Not long after Alaiya Aguilar of Albany started mentoring b’nai mitzvah students, she got a call from a local mother who was anxious to find a tutor for her 12-year-old daughter.

“She had dyslexia, and her family didn’t think she’d be able to have a bat mitzvah. They had taken her out of her Conservative shul,” explains Aguilar, who calls her tutoring program Ruach, Hebrew for “spirit.” “When I called her mom back, she said, ‘You’re the first teacher who actually returned my call!’”

Aguilar took on the new client, and did what she does for all her students: She paired the girl with a preteen who had similar interests. The 12-year-old partner did not have dyslexia, but he, too, shared a love of film.

“Both of them made films as their interpretations of their Torah portions,” says Aguilar. “I felt so proud of her — and proud of me — on that day. This wasn’t any old bat mitzvah. “

It was, however, one of many b’nai mitzvah that regularly take place beyond congregational borders, and sometimes play out quite differently from the usual lifecycle event. And there are many Jewish “independent ritual facilitators” in the Bay Area able to assist in the process, according to Rachel Brodie, a Jewish educator affiliated with the Bureau of Jewish Education in San Francisco.

Brodie and Julie Batz, a business consultant who also works as a shaliach tzibbur (service leader) have received grants to study exactly who is facilitating Jewish events independently, and why. It is all part of their work as co-directors of a new organization dedicated to researching and supporting the phenomenon of independent Jewish lifecycle events in the Bay Area. Their work is aided by the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund

“There are more than 100 people who do this, and no one is paying attention!” Brodie says. “I think it’s incredibly problematic because I don’t know if everyone’s needs are being best-served. It’s like the Wild Wild West.”

Batz, of Berkeley, says there are two common reasons parents seek private tutors like herself. “One, some synagogues are overwhelmed by the demand of how many kids they’re bringing through this initiation, so these synagogues are outsourcing to tutors. And two, some families are not affiliated so they hire tutors to help kids outside of the synagogue.”

Last year, Batz and Brodie conducted interviews “and found that some people are tutors, and some actually facilitate events,” Brodie says. “We’re finding that there are very haphazard connections here: For example, a family calling a funeral home when they are preparing a baby-naming, or actually using Google, or putting things on Craigslist. It’s very random how people connect with these facilitators.”

“Random” is not exactly how Meryl and Michael Elinson of Greenbrae found a tutor for their daughter, Anya. Some might call it “fate.”

Anya, who had gone to Hebrew school at Tiburon’s Congregation Kol Shofar from kindergarten through fifth grade, took a break from classes during middle school because of the demands of her regular schoolwork.

But when her mother called the Conservative synagogue two years later about scheduling Anya’s bat mitzvah, she was told that students had to attend Hebrew school for two consecutive years in order to have a ceremony there. Reform Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael “said the same thing,” according to Elinson.

Just when Elinson was feeling stuck, her daughter had a play date with a 12-year-old friend, Rebecca. She turned out to be the daughter of Rita Glassman, now a cantor at San Francisco’s Congregation Sherith Israel, who was taking a year off to pursue her education and lead independent Jewish events. “I called her right away!”

Glassman came to the Elinsons’ house for a full year of tutoring. “I liked having a private tutor,” recalls Anya. “It was more one-on-one.”

In June 2003, Glassman borrowed a Torah and the “relatively unorthodox” afternoon service took place at the Marin Jewish Community Center, says Elinson.

“Anya did the full service and didn’t have to share it with anyone like at synagogue. It was all about her.”

For the Sontag family of Berkeley, it was, in a way, a mother-and-son b’nai mitzvah when their older son, Sam, was called to the Torah.

“I had never been bat mitzvahed, and my husband [Jerry] had never been bar mitzvahed,” says Lorelei Sontag. The Sontags also have a 7-year-old, Elazar.

At Sam’s bar mitzvah, held last Thanksgiving weekend at Berkeley Hillel, “I read from the Torah myself: It was my first experience, too. It was a really nice way of sharing it,” she said.

Sontag had found tutor Batz through “a friend of a friend.” Batz began tutoring Sam, two years before his bar mitzvah. “At first he was studying biblical Hebrew without learning any prayers; he was just learning.” Sontag says.

“Classes weren’t his best learning situation. ... He’s a home-schooler, and we don’t belong to any synagogue. We couldn’t find a place that really felt like our place. We didn’t want to join a place just to go through the motions.”

There are many reasons why families seek assistance with such lifecycle events, Brodie emphasizes. While some — like the Elinsons and Sontags — are unaffiliated and actively pursue tutors for independent ceremonies, others simply aren’t getting all their needs met in a congregational school.

“It’s like the college-prep courses: You should get everything you need in school, but because you don’t, you need to go to Princeton [Review],” says Brodie. “Some religious schools often don’t meet intensively enough to get kids where they need to be. … And some rabbis are so busy meeting the needs of their congregants, they outsource to tutors.”

On their Web site, www.theritualist.org, Brodie and Batz explain that independent ritual facilitators include congregational and non-congregational rabbis and cantors, student rabbis and cantors, spiritualists and storytellers, Jewish educators, service leaders, and other educated laypeople.

But they caution: “Independent ritual facilitators are not meant to be rent-a-rabbis. We are committed to supporting ritual facilitators who develop deep connections with their clients before, during, and after facilitating their rituals.”

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