Uncategorized
‘I wanted to be more me’: Teens propel a trend toward gender-neutral mitzvah ceremonies
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — Like many Jewish teens, Ash Brave was nervous for their b’nai mitzvah. Memorizing the Torah portion, sending invitations, planning a party: It’s a lot for a 13-year-old to think about during what can already be an anxiety-filled age.
Despite the typical stress involved with preparing to enter the adult Jewish community, Brave cheerfully described their gender-neutral b’nai mitzvah last summer, recalling feeling “really supported [by] the whole synagogue.” For teens like Brave, an eighth grader from Boulder, Colorado who uses he and they pronouns interchangeably, gender-inclusive b’nai mitzvahs (often termed “b’mitzvahs”) offer an opportunity to come of age as their full selves.
Across the country, there is an expanding list of Jewish community centers, day schools, Hillels, organizations and more that include and celebrate LGBTQ+ identities. Many synagogues are following suit with the ceremonies they offer and the language they use. Some congregations are initiating these changes on their own; in other cases, the teens themselves are propelling the shifts.
Traditionally, most synagogues hold gendered b’nai mitzvah, with bar mitzvahs for boys and bat mitzvahs for girls (“b’nai” is the Hebrew plural form meanings “sons and daughters,” although it is technically masculine). Increasingly, many Jewish congregations are moving towards gender-inclusive b’nai mitzvah ceremonies. Synagogues like Har Hashem, a Reform synagogue in Boulder, have been offering these ceremonies for years at the request of their congregants. Because of these shifts, many gender nonconforming Jewish teens feel a deeper sense of belonging in their religious communities.
According to Rabbi Fred Greene of Har Hashem, the synagogue holds approximately 25 b’nai mitzvah ceremonies annually. In the last year, three of those were gender-neutral. Although the congregation has offered the option for almost five years, this is the first year they have had teens opting for the inclusive version. Greene said that the congregation also has teens who have transitioned after their b’nai mitzvah. He estimates that they have 5-7 teen congregants who identify as trans or genderqueer, meaning they do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
B’mitzvahs at Har Hashem mirror the traditional gendered ceremonies in everything but language. “We have folks that don’t feel like a ‘ben’ or a ‘bat,’” said Greene, using the Hebrew words meaning “son” and “daughter.” “So we come up with other Hebrew terms, [such as] ‘beit,’ which is from “the house of [parent name].” He said that a number of changes can be made to the Hebrew to increase inclusivity, ranging from the creation of new terms to using the infinitive version of words that would otherwise be gendered. “We’re not treating anybody any differently, other than being sensitive to their needs,” he said.
Ruby Marx, a 16-year-old who uses she/her pronouns, had a gender-neutral b’mitzvah with Temple Beth Zion in the Boston area in early 2020, pre-pandemic. “I always knew that I was gonna have to have [a b’nai mitzvah]. But when it came time to start thinking about it, I was like, ‘I really don’t feel comfortable having a bat mitzvah.’ But I wasn’t comfortable [having a bar mitzvah], either. So someone suggested that I do something in the middle. And that felt right for me.”
Marx, who describes herself as gender-fluid, was the first teen in her congregation to have a ceremony that didn’t fall within either the bar or bat categories. In the years following, several other teens in her community have had gender-neutral ceremonies, including one having an upcoming ceremony in mid-March.
“I don’t think anyone else had done something like that before,” said Marx. “I think a lot of other kids started to feel comfortable being like, ‘oh, maybe that’s something I would want to do,’ or incorporating different things that they’re passionate about [into their ceremonies].”
For her ceremony, she wore a prayer shawl featuring rainbow trimming and various rock n’ roll patches from her favorite bands. Marx said that the most rewarding part of her experience has been being a trailblazer for inclusion in her congregation. “It definitely feels good to know that I can help other kids feel comfortable being who they are, because I know that sometimes I’m not always comfortable being who I am. It’s nice to know that kids can look up to me,” she said.
Gender inclusion in b’nai mitzvahs has been expanding for decades, beginning with the American introduction of the bat mitzvah in 1922 for the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, in New York City. Before that, only boys were allowed to engage in the important coming of age tradition. After Judith Kaplan’s ceremony, the custom slowly spread across the country in non-Orthodox synagogues. For decades, however, the ceremonies for girls differed from those offered to boys: In many synagogues, girls were not allowed to read from the Torah, and their services were held on Friday nights rather than Saturday mornings. Orthodox synagogues were slow in accepting the bat mitzvah, and still maintain strict gender roles in synagogue.
Ruby Marx playing the guitar during a benefit concert they held for their mitzvah project. (Courtesy Pamela Joy Photography).
As feminism progressed both outside and within Jewish communities, girls pushed to be allowed to read from the Torah and to be counted towards a minyan, the 10-person quorum required for public prayer. Full bat mitzvahs became an accepted norm. A similar pattern is now occurring for b’mitzvahs.
As a coming of age ritual, b’nai mitzvahs occupy a unique role in Jewish life. Their goal is to integrate young Jews into the broader community, signaling that they have the knowledge and maturity to take on adult ritual responsibilities. Because of this, many young trans Jews wish to have a ceremony that will fully reflect them as they become more involved in their community and beyond.
Brave, the Colorado teen, chose to have their ceremony gender-neutral to ensure it still fit them down the road. “I don’t really know what I’m going to identify as in the future, because identity is fluid. And while I may be comfortable right now with being closer to a male identity, [later] I might be less comfortable with that,” they said.
Marx, the gender fluid teen outside of Boston, said entering the community as her authentic self was an integral part of her choice. “I had grown up watching all my cousins, and then my sister, have [ceremonies]. Afterwards, they were a lot more independent in their Jewish identity. That was something that appealed to me, because I wanted to be connected to the Jewish community, but I wanted to do it in my own way,” said Marx.
B’mitzvahs aren’t the only gender-inclusive ceremony offered now. Many Reform congregations have also created ceremonies for gender transitions, Hebrew name changes, and coming out, often based on a curriculum offered by the Central Conference of American Rabbis. “These are holy moments of growth and transformation, and we want to be supportive in their journeys,” Rabbi Greene of Har Hashem said. Brave also had a ceremony with Har Hashem to change their Hebrew name, and the synagogue made them an updated yad — a pointer used in reading Torah — to match.
Teens who were not able to do their ceremony gender-neutral say having access to inclusive ceremonies would have increased the enjoyment and meaning of their b’nai mitzvahs. “I would have felt more like I was stepping into my own skin, instead of the skin [of someone] that I was pretending to be,” said Mica Newmark. The 17-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, had a gendered ceremony at Nevei Kodesh, a Renewal synagogue in Boulder, before coming into their identity more. Since their ceremony, Newmark has grown apart from religion. “I don’t really relate anymore,” they said.
Even teens who were more clear on their identity struggled with having gendered ceremonies. Jay, a 15-year-old from Boulder, came out immediately following their ceremony. (Jay, estranged from a parent who has a leadership role in their synagogue, asked that their last name be omitted.) They found the ceremony “pretty stressful” and their coming out experience difficult, explaining that they wanted everyone to understand the concept of existing outside of the gender binary, but didn’t feel that was possible at the time. “I had really long hair then, so I wanted to cut it, and just be more me,” Jay said. “But I was really stressed, because I knew I was going to get misgendered at the ceremony.”
Keshet publishes a guide to “design and support affirming b’mitzvah celebrations.” (Keshet)
In the following years, Jay helped to institute the use of pronoun pins at synagogue events, as well as generally making an effort to educate community members on transgender issues. “I think [gender-neutral ceremonies] allow queer Jewish people to embrace their religion and continue to flourish within Judaism without feeling gendered,” they said.
Keshet, a national Jewish LGBTQ+ organization, published a guide for b’mitzvah ceremonies. “Celebrating the Age of Mitzvah: A Guide for all Genders” includes information from what to call the ceremony to what the dress code should be, all aimed at helping communities create inclusive and meaningful traditions.
The need for the resources came from synagogues and young congregants, said Jackie Maris, the Chicago education and training manager for the organization. “It’s not just Jewish boys and girls becoming Jewish men and women, it’s Jewish kids of all gender identities becoming Jewish adults,” said Maris. “Having a tool that helps guide everyone through that process, with gender-expansive language and rituals that include folks beyond the binary, is very needed.”
Keshet recently updated the resources. “Adjusting practices to make them more inclusive is what has always been done in Jewish tradition,” said Maris. “Even ancient practices and rituals have evolved over time, and because they are human constructed, we continue to humanly evolve them.”
However, a number of communities still mainly offer gendered ceremonies. Orthodox synagogues and others that are non-egalitarian have not made widespread shifts towards gender-neutral ceremonies.
Despite the strict gender separation in Orthodoxy, there is also a growing push for inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in these spaces. Organizations like Eshel, a nonprofit based in the United States and Canada, work to provide LGBTQ+ Orthodox jews and their families with resources for living and thriving in Orthodox Jewish spaces. Other organizations are targeted specifically at teens, such as Jewish Queer Youth, which engages queer youth from Orthodox, Hasidic and traditionalist Sephardi/Mizrahi communities.
“LGBTQ youth who live in a community that is accepting of LGBTQ people reported significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do not,” reports The Trevor Project. For both Brave and Marx, their communities, families and friends were largely supportive of their decision to have non-gendered ceremonies. “It definitely felt like the community showed me a lot of love to be able to do that,” Marx said. “I was really able to be myself.”
By expanding inclusion, Jewish institutions are expanding their reach and impact, as well as creating more engaging communities. “I don’t think that God creates in vain. And so, while there’s a lot of people that are still learning, including myself, about issues relating to gender and identity, our role as a sacred space and a Jewish community is to have an open tent where folks can enter in any doorway they want, because there are no doors,” said Rabbi Greene of Har Hashem.
Brave said that their ceremony made them feel fully included in their synagogue. “It felt good to officially be a part of a community that I can’t really get taken away from,” they said.
—
The post ‘I wanted to be more me’: Teens propel a trend toward gender-neutral mitzvah ceremonies appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jewish Chef Eitan Bernath Sets New Guinness World Record for Making Largest Matzah Ball Soup
Eitan Bernath set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup on Feb. 27, 2026. Photo: Eric Vitale
Jewish chef and cookbook author Eitan Bernath recently set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup.
The matzah ball soup weighed in at 1,356.9 pounds and was verified by Guinness World Records in Brooklyn, New York, on Feb. 27. The soup contained 847 hand-rolled matzah balls, and it took 10 chefs about 11 hours to prepare the soup, according to the Guinness World Records. All the soup was donated to City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization, which will serve it to thousands of hungry New Yorkers in food pantries and soup kitchens.
“There’s no food that brings back more memories of being surrounded by family than matzo ball soup,” Bernath, 23, told The Algemeiner in a statement. “So, when I set out to make the world’s largest version of a dish, choosing matzo ball soup was a no-brainer. Every bowl is a bowl of comfort. Being able to create a giant version was both an incredible challenge and a thrill. It meant even more to me that after setting the record, we were able to donate all the soup to New Yorkers in need — sharing the comfort of matzo ball soup even further.”
Bernath — who is also a social media content creator and the principal culinary contributor for “The Drew Barrymore Show” — said the matzah ball soup was comprised of 120 chickens, 300 carrots, and 250 bunches of herbs. The soup also included parsnip, turnip, celery root, onions, parsley, dill, paprika, and salt. Bernath used ChatGPT to scale up his grandmother’s matzo ball soup recipe to a 200-gallon version, and to help him also find the right vessels needed to make such a large portion. To hold more than 160 gallons of hot liquid, he ended up using a water trough, typically used for horses, which was lined with a food-grade liner.
On Instagram, Bernath shared behind-the-scenes photos that show the making of the massive matzah ball soup. In the caption, he explained that creating the record-breaking dish “was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.”
“As a proud Jew, creating a record-setting giant version of such an important Jewish dish meant the world to me,” he added. “I couldn’t be prouder of my team and I for pulling this off. I will never look at a bowl of matzo ball soup the same again!!”
Uncategorized
The real reason for the US war with Iran may have nothing to do with Israel
The lack of a clear, coherent reason for this war is bad for the Jews.
Overstatement? Consider that Tucker Carlson is now blaming Chabad — yes, Chabad — for the conflict. Yesterday the watchdog organization The Nexus Project released a series of posts on X clarifying how to have a “robust debate about the U.S.-Israel war with Iran” without veering into antisemitism — because certain parties seem to have come to the consensus that, to put it bluntly, the Jews did it.
Americans need a good reason to shed blood thousands of miles away, and the problem is that while President Donald Trump has taken the United States to war, neither he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nor anyone else in his administration has offered a convincing explanation as to why.
So pundits like Carlson are filling the void with poison. As I wrote last summer during the first U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran, if the war goes badly, fingers will point at Israel and its supporters. It’s clear, now, that the blame game is also going to generate a huge amount of antisemitism.
A default explanation
Why strike now? Is it because of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, the one that Trump previously boasted the U.S. “obliterated” last summer? Is it because the Iranian regime has taken American hostages, killed American service personnel and sponsored terror abroad?
All those things are true, but they’ve been true for decades. So why now?
Sen. Tom Cotton, defending the choice to go to war, said on Fox News that “Iran has been an imminent threat to the United States for 47 years.”
That stretch of the word “imminent” only underscored the, um, imminent need for a better reason.
The lack of one has left Israel and its American Jewish supporters as the default scapegoat. Rubio told reporters earlier this week that the U.S. attacked Iran because Israel had decided to do so, and the U.S. had to join in because Iran would then hit back at U.S. targets.
He and the president later tried to clarify that the U.S. was going to attack anyway, and Israel’s intentions only influenced the timing.
Few on the left or right, or around the world, are buying it.
“No war for Israel!” former Marine and Green Party Senate candidate Brian McGuinness shouted during a congressional committee hearing March 4, before Capitol police and Sen. Tim Sheehy dragged him out. (McGinnis claimed his arm was broken in the process.)
“It’s hard to say this, but the United States didn’t make the decision here. Benjamin Netanyahu did,” said Carlson, days before he pivoted to blaming Chabad. The left-leaning investigative outlet The Lever titled its piece on America’s Operation Epic Fury, “Operation AIPAC Fury.”
The China syndrome
The Israeli commentator Haviv Rettig Gur stepped into this mess with a thoughtful and convincing explanation: That the attack is part of a great power game, as the U.S. makes a bid to stop Iran from being a Middle East outpost of Chinese power.
“America is in this fight because of China,” Gur wrote in an essay in The Free Press earlier this week.
After decades of effective American-led economic sanctions, Gur explained, Iran has become economically dependent on China through oil exports, which fund roughly a quarter of Tehran’s budget and sustain its military and internal security. China, which receives 90% of Iran’s crude oil, has used it to build a petroleum reserve that hedges against a potential U.S. naval blockade.
Furthermore, China has armed Iran with advanced anti-ship missiles, hardened its cyber infrastructure, conducted joint naval exercises, and given it the wherewithal to control global trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
Gur isn’t alone in asserting that what matters to the U.S. isn’t Israel’s immediate needs, but rather the China-U.S. chessboard.
China, wrote Zineb Riboua, a scholar of Chinese-Middle East politics, “bet a decade of foreign policy on Khamenei’s ability to withstand American pressure, and the bet did not pay off.”
Gur, Riboua and others making this argument might be wrong. And their reasoning still raises questions of “why now?” that are hard to answer. But it’s striking that it sounds so much more coherent than anything that’s been offered by our government.
Why we fight
Right now, about 60% of Americans oppose the war. As it drags on, and casualties and costs mount, those polling numbers will get worse — especially without a clear rationale to explain why the suffering is necessary.
One casualty of every modern Mideast war is the standing of American Jews.
After the first Gulf War in 1991, the ADL recorded 1,879 antisemitic incidents — an 11% spike over the prior year. It was the highest number since tracking began, driven largely by “politically related antisemitism” in the war’s opening months.
After the second, far more unpopular Gulf War broke out in 2003, incidents climbed again — reaching 1,821 in 2004, the highest in nearly a decade. Never mind that 70-77% of American Jews opposed the Iraq War, a higher rate than any other major religious group.
Why? Because the right and left converged on the same target: Israel-supporting neoconservatives who supposedly dragged the U.S. into a war for Zionist interests. Researchers called the conspiracy a “Trojan horse” — age-old tropes about Jewish power and dual loyalty wheeled in as foreign policy critique.
And here we are again.
In the scheme of things, now, there are bigger worries. American service personnel, innocent Iranians and their Arab neighbors are in harm’s way, Israelis are once more locked down in shelters, facing the barrages of madmen.
But these sacrifices make it more, not less urgent for the administration to land on a coherent reason for this war, and a clear set of aims.
Just as the U.S. entered into World War II, the director Frank Capa made a series of propaganda films called “Why We Fight”. By then, the title was rhetorical. In early 1941, 68 % of Americans supported the campaign against Japan and Hitler. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, support was nearly unanimous.
Now, appropriately for our polarized age, we are fighting over why we are fighting. And so much is riding on the answer.
The post The real reason for the US war with Iran may have nothing to do with Israel appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Noam Bettan Releases Song ‘Michelle’ He’ll Perform as Israel’s Rep for 2026 Eurovision Song Contest
Noam Bettan in the music video for “Michelle.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Noam Bettan revealed on Thursday the song he is set to perform when he represents Israel at the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, in May.
“Michelle” is a trilingual song written by Bettan, Nadav Aharoni, Tzlil Klifi, and Yuval Raphael, who represented Israel in last year’s Eurovision and finished in second place. The song features lyrics in Hebrew, English, and French, and premiered during a special broadcast on the Kan public broadcaster.
“‘Michelle’ tells the story of choosing to break free from a toxic emotional cycle. It’s a story about emotional growth and maturity, at the moment when the protagonist realizes they must let go and choose a new path for themselves,” Eurovision stated in its official description of the song.
“Michelle” is largely in Hebrew and French with only one verse in English. “Walking down Florentin/Ocean eyes/Memories/I, I’m losing my mind,” Bettan sings in English. “An angel but it is hell/Trapped in your carousel/Round and round/Under your spell.”
Bettan, who turned 28 on Thursday, was born in Israel and raised in the city of Ra’anana. His parents are French and lived in the French city of Grenoble before immigrating to Israel with their two older sons.
Bettan is fluent in French, Hebrew, and English. He won the Israeli television show and singing competition “HaKokhav HaBa” (“The Rising Star”) in January, which automatically secured him the position of representing Israel at this year’s Eurovision. Bettan will perform “Michelle” during the second half of the first Eurovision semi-final on May 12.
“I’m very proud of the song,” Bettan said in a released statement. “It’s a great privilege to bring such a creation to the Eurovision stage. The song is full of energy and emotion that touches on a wide range of feelings. I feel that ‘Michelle’ will bring us moments of shared joy and pride, and I hope this song can bring a little of that light with it.”
Watch the music video for “Michelle” below.