It was like a scene from a Hollywood party. Women in cocktail dresses and men in suits juggled Grey Goose cocktails and high-end sushi. Giddy preteens rushed through the hotel lobby’s classy crowd, hitting one distraction and the next: Sparkly temporary tattoos. Personalized flip-flops and iPhone cases. A green-screen photo booth where they could mug with their friends.
There were audible gasps as the ballroom doors pulled open. Magenta light spilled forth and an energetic MC backed by dancers clad in gold lamé bodysuits lured people to the dance floor. “This is really something,” one guest said as he entered the room, tastefully decorated in purple, black and gold, with chandelier-style centrepieces and luminescent floral displays.
There was no mistaking the star of the evening — her name was written across the stage in Hollywood-style lights: Hannah.
Hannah Freeman, a tall-for-her-age 12-year-old, became a bat mitzvah last Saturday, the party at Toronto’s Westin Prince Hotel a celebration of her official coming of age in the eyes of her synagogue.
Philip Cheung for National PostChildren dance with professional dancers at Hannah Freeman's bat mitzvah.
“Some may feel it’s over the top, but for me, it’s what Hannah’s about,” her mother Sharlene Wilder, a popular party planner in Toronto, said ahead of the event she’d been planning for a year. The goal was to give the party a flow, jam it with just the right amount of food, fun and unique-to-Hannah flourishes to guarantee a good, meaningful time.
The pressure’s on when you throw bar and bat mitzvah parties for a living. Thanks to her relationships in the business, Ms. Wilder and her husband, corporate lawyer Sheldon Freeman, could treat their youngest daughter to an extra special event: The aspiring singer filmed a Rebecca Black-style music video just for the occasion. Two professional backup dancers for Beyoncé were flown in from Atlanta to perform — a surprise from MC and DJ company, the Magen Boys. Liquor flowed and treats cropped up in all directions as kids partook in a boys-only twerking competition to the strains of Miley Cyrus.
With Hannah’s name in lights, one can’t help but think of the bar entrance of Dallas pre-teen Sam Horowitz, a precocious 13-year-old whose Vegas-inspired choreographed routine went viral this summer.
His performance became a lightning rod in the Jewish community, drawing admonishments for encouraging such lavish parties to mark this milestone in a young person’s life. Under the Washington Post headline ‘Have We Forgot What Bar Mitzvahs Are All About?’ Los Angeles rabbi David Wolpe called the video “egregious, licentious and thoroughly awful,” a position he softened after many came to Sam’s defence — people who loved the way he marked his moment.
Bar and bat mitzvahs have indeed become more elaborate in recent decades and in certain circles, party planners, rabbis and guests say. It’s a shift that coincides with the escalating value Western society places on children and the Jewish day school system’s move to schedule bar and bat mitzvahs two years in advance, so to avoid conflicts. Since these 12- and 13-year-olds have a year packed with bar and bat mitzvah parties, everyone wants to be different — and that often means more impressive.
Many cost tens of thousands of dollars. The really elaborate ones graze a quarter million or more: One Toronto boy had pop band Maroon 5 flown in to perform at his bar mitzvah. Another flew to Las Vegas with his friends and a film crew to make a seven-minute spoof of blockbuster movie The Hangover in which they had over-imbibed on grandma’s matzo balls. Legendary boxer Mike Tyson had a cameo. Justin Bieber sang at a Toronto bat mitzvah before he made it really big.
“We did one where a girl drove in on a motorcycle that let out blueberry scented emissions,” said Candace Zwicker, the on-site planner at Hannah’s party. Ali Berg, whose company Double Chocolate Fountain & Fun Foods provided soft serve ice cream in fresh-made waffle cones, said they worked one last year at which the bat mitzvah girl descended from the ceiling for her entrance and performed a gynmastics routine. Another girl entered her party on horseback.
Philip Cheung for National PostGuests dance on the stage during Hannah Freeman's bat mitzvah.
But as the standard ratchets higher, so too do the tensions. Rabbis voice concern about fetes that may overshadow the true meaning of the day. There’s a trope that the synagogue door seems to slam shut once Hebrew classes are through and the party’s over.
“The classic line is sometimes there’s too much bar and not enough mitzvah,” said Rabbi Shachar Orenstein of The Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, Canada’s oldest Jewish institution, in Montreal. ’Bar’ means son and ‘Bat’ means daughter in Aramaic. ‘Mitzvah’ means commandment, referring to the commandments of the Torah for which a bar or bat must answer around the time they hit 13, “the age of commandment.”
“One of my concerns is people who can’t necessarily afford these elaborate parties feel they need to keep up with the Joneses or the Steins,” Rabbi Orenstein said.
For parents, however, the day their child comes of age in the Jewish tradition holds intense meaning — who cares if it’s more elaborate than their own wedding?
“You look back and think ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that and went all out — what compelled me to do that?” says Rachelle Bronfman, a mother of three in Toronto.
“But at the moment, when your kid is about to be [bar or] bat mitzvah’d you really go over the top. It becomes a big deal.”
Philip Cheung for National PostHannah Freeman lights candles with her family at her bat mitzvah.
Both of Ms. Bronfman’s eldest, daughters now aged 18 and 16, took bat mitzvah lessons that give the foundation for becoming upstanding young people.
Both girls had parties at the Park Hyatt — the same place Ms. Bronfman got married. There was elaborate decor, multiple food stations where guests could load up on Chinese food and sushi. Guests got mini DVD players and other parting gifts — definitely not the small pillows they might’ve received 20 years ago.
She’s been to parties where it’s clear the event is about much more than showing the children a good time — it’s about parents impressing their friends. Some, if they have the budget for it, dive right into the ostentatious, she said.
“When they do things that are really extravagant, they know they are,” she said. “They’re doing stuff that no one can touch.”
At the Westin coat check Saturday, Marcia waited for her evening to busy up again. The 20-year hotel veteran said weddings at the hotel “don’t hold a candle” to the bar and bat mitzvahs. Despite the trappings at Hannah’s this past Saturday night, that party was tastefully average next to one thrown last year with a Snow White theme. “Everything was white,” she said. There were ice sculptures, too.
Philip Cheung for National PostSharlene Wilder, mother of Hannah, cries during her daughter's bat mitzvah.
When students are 11, Jewish day schools will send out notes to parents asking them to pick a day for their child’s bar and bat mitzvahs two years in advance. While it’s offered as a service to prevent double and triple booking, knowing your son or daughter will attend multiple bar and bats adds pressure to be unique and exciting.
“DJs will vouch for this — [at some bar/bat mitzvahs] all the kids will be sitting on the couch with their phones,” said Tova Rich, a Toronto mother of two girls, both of whom chose to have Sweet Sixteen parties instead of bar and bat mitzvahs, partly because they’ve been to so many.
She’s attended parties that featured dancers from the hit show So You Think You Can Dance Canada, and others at which MCs handed out Raptors and Bruno Mars tickets in crowd-warmup dance contests.
“Realistically, people are spending $10,000 to $100,000 on a bar or bat mitzvah,” said Jian Magen of the Magen Boys, one of the major entertainment acts for coming of age parties in the Toronto area. “In my world, it’s a lot of money, but [then again] Toronto is not New York.”
Magen Boys Entertainment does more than 400 bar and bat mitzvahs in the Toronto area annually, including Hannah’s last weekend. Earlier this year, they brought Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas to perform at a basketball themed party held on Toronto’s lakeshore, Mr. Magen said. The aforementioned Hangover-themed Vegas-style party was also a Magen Boys production — Toronto rap rock band Down With Webster performed.
Philip Cheung for National PostHannah Freeman takes a break during her bat mitzvah.
Vancouver or Calgary is certainly not Toronto. You’d be harder pressed to find elaborate bar and bat mitzvahs in cities west of Toronto, said Jordan Zwicker, who DJs and plans bar and bat mitzvahs in those markets.
“Maybe two to three times a year we’ll get a family that will go above and beyond what’s expected,” he said. But that’s rare.
He attributes this approach to a west coast mentality. “You don’t need to go to the other end of the world to impress family and friends,” he said.
The lion’s share of Ricky Bessner’s clients are most concerned with the synagogue aspect of the bar or bat mitzvah, she said. The Toronto veteran party planner said she always tries to focus on the interests and personality of the child and showcases them at the party — something Ms. Wilder does too.
“I have a lot of non-Jewish [clients] say ‘What do you mean you’re spending $10,000 on a [bar or bat] mitzvah?” Ms. Bessner said. “Well if you go into the Italian culture, they spend this much on weddings.”
Annie Oziel managed to save money on the baseball invitations for her son’s bar mitzvah she had hand-delivered to guests’ doors because her husband’s a printer. But even so, the Toronto family went all out on their eldest son’s bash, which carried a baseball theme throughout. She split the celebrations into three events — one breakfast for members of their synagogue, a post-ceremony lunch for adults and a night party for Sam, who turned 13 in February.
“It’s all about making your kid happy,” she said. “Not that mine was extravagant, but every party was done with [a lot of care]. Every guest should feel important.”
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Last month, Rabbi Bradley Solmsen, the North American director of youth engagement for the Union for Reform Judaism, told The New York Times about his organization’s plan to rethink the “Las Vegas style excess” of the modern-day bar and bat mitzvah and make the milestone less of a graduation and more of an entry point to an active Jewish life.
“No matter what, it’s an achievement, and that achievement should be celebrated. But I think it should be celebrated in a way that’s representative of what’s going on,” he said, adding that he believes lavish parties are starting to fall by the wayside.
For the Freeman family, Saturday was all about celebrating Hannah with close family and friends. Hannah’s ties to her Beth Torah synagogue — where she had her bat mitzvah ceremony earlier in the day — are strong, her mother says. She’ll continue in her faith.
And if the feedback she’s hearing from some of her 225 guests Saturday night is any indication, the party was an absolute hit.
“I’ve had people phone me and say it was just so tasteful and classy,” she said. “Yes there were lots of things going on, but from their perspective it was just fun.”
National Post
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