b’nai mitzvah

B’nai mitzvah tutoring

Sasha Kaye (photo from B’nai Mitz-Van)

Sasha Kaye recently launched B’nai Mitz-Van, a tutoring service that prepares b’nai mitzvah students for their Torah and Haftarah readings. She also offers basic voice training, performance anxiety management and d’var Torah writing support.

Kaye completed a double major in voice performance and psychology for her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia, and she has a master’s degree in performance science from the Royal College of Music in London, England. In her master’s thesis, Kaye examined the experiences of musicians with moderate-to-severe performance anxiety in simulated performance environments.

“I came back to Vancouver in January 2023,” Kaye told the Independent. “Most of my time so far has been spent unpacking and readjusting to life in Vancouver!”

Kaye grew up attending Congregation Har El, where she is a member. She has led services as a lay cantor. “I performed at various holiday and milestone community events, and participated in extracurricular, Jewish-led activism with peers from King David High School,” she said about her younger years.

Kaye has performed with the University Singers choral ensemble, UBC Opera, the Vancouver Orchestra Club and Postmodern Camerata, among other groups. She performs as a solo recitalist and has almost 10 years of teaching experience.

“I came up with the idea for B’nai Mitz-Van while I was still in London, and the idea was partially inspired by my master’s thesis,” she said of her latest venture. “In addition to struggling with an anxiety disorder, I had particularly vivid performance anxiety as a musician. The two collided pretty spectacularly for my own bat mitzvah. Despite being well-prepared for it, I was constantly ruminating on potential mishaps and catastrophizing the consequences. What if I got so anxious that I forgot the trope for my Torah reading? What if I forgot the words? What if my voice cracked? What if I dropped the Torah? I would let my family down. These cognitive distortions are evident to my adult self, but the distress was very real to 12-year-old Sasha. When I told people I was anxious, they told me I had nothing to be anxious about. While I’m sure they were trying to reassure me, this ultimately dismissed my feelings and made me feel much worse. I had zero tools to cope with or manage my anxiety.”

Kaye said she has little recollection of the bat mitzvah itself. “I was so anxious, I essentially blacked out,” she said. “Based on second-hand information, I did well enough on the day, but I was unable to enjoy the simchah – and that’s ultimately what the day should have been about. B’nai mitzvot should be joyous occasions for everyone, including the b’nai mitzvah themselves.

“As someone who knows how to chant Torah and Haftarah, and knowing what I know now about performance anxiety, my hope is that B’nai Mitz-Van can both teach young adults what they need to know for their special day, and also give them the tools to manage feelings of nervousness or anxiety that they may have.”

Kaye has experience teaching b’nai mitzvah-age kids from when she used to teach singing lessons, which she did for about three years, and she has five more years of experience teaching older students.

“Performance anxiety is extremely common,” said Kaye. “While it may or may not necessarily impact the quality of your performance, that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to deal with.

“The experience can manifest cognitively, meaning through the kinds of thoughts you have, like fixating on the possibility of making mistakes in performances and overestimating the consequences; physiologically, meaning through bodily sensations like racing heart, dry mouth, shaking or feeling restless; emotionally, like feelings of nervousness, dread or irritability; or behaviourally, like avoiding practising.

“How to manage performance anxiety is the million-dollar question!” she said. “There are a number of techniques and methods that have been researched, and different things may work for different people. Some things that can help pretty reliably, if they are practised, are feeling prepared in your material; breathing exercises, like box breathing; grounding exercises that focus your senses on the here and now; and examining your self-talk, that is, how you talk to yourself in your own mind.

“Retraining self-talk can take a long time and it can be very challenging,” she acknowledged, “but it helps to start by noticing how you talk to yourself. Would you speak that way to a friend who was going through the same thing? If not, chances are your self-talk needs some adjusting from the harsh and self-defeating to the encouraging and self-supporting.”

About working with b’nai mitzvah-aged kids, Kaye said they “are at a really fascinating stage in life. They’re starting to come into their own sense of self, and they’re able to start thinking critically about the world around them without the cynicism that can follow us as adults. There’s an enthusiasm and idealism for tikkun olam that’s really refreshing.”

And, given her years of experience as a tutor of academic writing, Kaye can help students organize their enthusiasm and their ideas into a clear and concise d’var Torah. “More importantly,” she said, “I help them find their own way of relating to their parsha, so they can find the lesson they want to share with the congregation.”

Kaye offers both in-person and online lessons. She can be reached at [email protected] or 236-515-9469.

Accessibility seems improved

(image from flickr / Province of British Columbia)

Last November, the American advocacy organization Respect Ability announced some good news. New research it had conducted in 2021 suggested that disability awareness and inclusion was improving in Jewish communities across North America and Israel. According to its most recent survey, more synagogues, Jewish community centres, schools and private institutions are designing programs that consider the needs of people with disabilities. And more individuals are able to find Jewish organizations that support individuals with invisible disabilities like autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders.

Respect Ability’s goal for the survey was to determine the health of disability rights in diverse Jewish communities, particularly in countries where there were laws against employment and housing discrimination. Its last survey had been in 2018, and researchers wanted to know whether accessibility and acceptance had improved in the past three years.

There were just over 2,000 respondents in total, primarily from Canada, the United States and Israel. The overall message was that inclusion and accommodation was expanding. Accessibility for wheelchairs and improved opportunities for individuals with sight or hearing challenges were on the rise, as were outreach efforts for individuals with disabilities in general.

What is more, the number of faith organizations hiring rabbis and staff who had disabilities and, therefore, understood firsthand the challenges of a physical or cognitive disability, had increased by more than 73%. More than half (57%) of the survey-takers also said that the organizations had made public commitments to support diversity.

But the survey also identified a key obstacle: many community leaders wanted to help expand opportunities for inclusion, but “didn’t know how.” Roughly one-fifth of all respondents said that expanding opportunities in their faith communities was limited by leaders’ lack of knowledge or experience in making settings more accessible. This meant, in some cases, that members with invisible disabilities like autism or ADHD didn’t have access to resources or were turned away from programs and activities.

Most of the responses to the survey came from Respect Ability’s home base: U.S. states like California and New York, where laws and advocacy initiatives are different from those in Canada. Only about 7% of the responses came from Canada, where disability rights are protected by the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The survey also did not reveal how much, or if any, of the Canadian data came from the Vancouver area. So, are the survey’s findings reflective of diversity inclusion here?

The last three years have been challenging for many, but particularly for organizations that rely on in-person community participation. The 2020 shutdown of schools, synagogues and community centres due to COVID forced many organizations in the Vancouver area to suspend programs that offered disability-inclusive services. Still, the Jewish Independent found that a number of organizations were able to develop creative ways to maintain their inclusive classes and programs.

Trying to inspire inclusion

In 2018, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver launched its Inspiring Inclusion grant program to assist community organizations in designing or improving inclusive programs. The grant competition was created as part of its 2020 Strategic Priorities, and it offered up to $2,500 to organizations that developed a new program or idea that would expand disability inclusion.

Four one-year grants, which were awarded in 2020, went to Vancouver and Richmond applicants. Each offered a unique way for engagement, ranging from new educational strategies that catered to individual learning approaches to special equipment that helped expand creative participation in the classroom.

The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Family Yoga Fundamentals program was designed to appeal to a variety of abilities and offered options for in-person family participation. It later gave rise to a virtual format that attendees could link up with from home. According to the JCC’s adult programs coordinator, Lisa Cohen Quay, Family Yoga Fundamentals integrates adaptable exercises that are non-stigmatizing and fit a variety of abilities. Quay said the program has also been shown to help with pandemic stress and loneliness.

Richmond Jewish Day School turned to music as a way to inspire inclusion. According to principal Sabrina Bhojani, the grant provided funding for specially adapted Orff percussion instruments, or xylophones that could be used by students with special needs. “Music education is an integral component of both our B.C. and Hebrew curriculum at RJDS,” Bhojani said. “Weaving music into [the] curriculum is a meaningful way to help our students develop their Jewish identity and better understand their culture.”

Congregation Beth Tikvah used the funding to help develop Kavod. According to Rabbi Susan Tendler, the program aims to ensure that the synagogue’s services and activities are open to everyone, “regardless of personal physical, financial, or accessibility limitations.” Kavod’s development is ongoing.

Congregation Beth Israel received a grant to create new Hebrew school programming. Beth Israel’s director of youth engagement, Rabbi David Bluman, said the funding helped make the Hebrew reading program more inclusive to children with learning challenges. “We always strive to be [as inclusive] as we can,” he said, adding that many of Beth Israel’s youth programs are adaptable to students’ abilities, such as the use of “shadow” companions who function as a “big brother or big sister” for a child during activities and lessons. The shadow program can be used for age levels. “We want our teens to be as independent as possible,” Bluman said.

B’nai mitzvah programs

Both Beth Israel and Temple Sholom tailor their b’nai mitzvah programs to meet the specific abilities of the child. Temple Sholom School’s principal, Jen Jaffe, said about 10% of the student body have varying needs.

“All b’nai mitzvah-aged children are given the opportunity to have a b’nai mitzvah, and the clergy works with each family to make sure expectations and goals are feasible and met. Each child is given the chance to shine regardless of any disabilities,” Jaffe said. The school also trains madrachim, or helper students, to support students with invisible disabilities.

Beth Israel is also known for its inclusive b’nai mitzvah program, which is led by ba’allat tefilla Debby Fenson. She said the program is designed to ensure that a child, irrespective of ability, can participate in the service: “I think that the expectation is that every child should be called up to [the bimah]. It’s not about how well they read the Torah, it’s about welcoming them into the community.”

Fenson said the community has celebrated more than one b’nai mitzvah in which a child’s medical challenges needed to be considered. In one case, the child, who was nonverbal, was aided by his mother in saying the Shema. “There was clear understanding on his part,” Fenson said. “His mother helped him in forming the words and saying along with him. He was welcomed into the community.”

Leadership by inclusion

Respect Ability’s survey of North American and Israeli Jewish communities highlighted two factors that are often important to creating inclusiveness: the top-down commitment to diversity and a leader’s personal experience. All of the above synagogues, schools and community services – as well as others – benefit from clear initiatives that attract families with accessibility needs and see inclusion as an expanding mission. In some cases, they also benefit from leadership that is open about their own health challenges as well.

Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld said he is aware that his willingness to talk openly about his own challenges can help create a supportive environment for others. Infeld was born with a congenital heart defect.

“Unfortunately, I have firsthand experience with health issues that I am happy to share with people about, certainly because I want to be transparent about who I am as a human being…. I would hope, had I been born with a whole heart and not a hole in it, that I would still have a whole heart,” he said, noting that when we’re forced to reflect on our own abilities and limitations, it can inspire empathy for others faced with similar challenges.

One area that was not addressed in the survey was accessible housing, which helps expand disability inclusion. Tikva Housing Society’s very first housing project in 2008 contained accessible units. The organization’s third inclusive property, Dogwood Gardens, opens this year in the West End. This will be the subject of a future story in the Jewish Independent.

Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer whose articles and op-eds have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

B’nai mitzvah connections

Teens from Temple Sholom’s sister congregation, Tzur Hadassah, in Israel. Rabbi Stacey Blank is on the far right. (photo from Rabbi Dan Moskovitz)

Derech L’Torah is a b’nai mitzvah orientation program currently offered by Temple Sholom, which pairs a group of Vancouver b’nai mitzvah with their Israeli counterparts. The Israeli families come from Tzur Hadassah, Temple Sholom’s sister community just outside of Jerusalem in the pre-1967 territory of the Judean hills. The ongoing dialogue has illuminated both similarities and differences between Israelis and Canadians preparing for the rite of passage.

“In Israel, boys are more often motivated to have bar mitzvahs by social pressure, whereas girls often desire to make a statement,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom. “They may be motivated by egalitarian, feminist ideals in a culture where the religious sphere is still more dominated by patriarchy.”

Canadian b’nai mitzvah may assume that Israelis will have a substantial leg up on bar or bat mitzvah preparation, but that is not necessarily the case. Canadians may actually have more synagogue experience than their Israeli compatriots, and Israelis find liturgical Hebrew something like Canadians find Shakespearean English.

“Whether Israeli or Canadian, both are going through the gateway of this liminal moment,” said the rabbi, “and both are being immersed in Jewish time and Jewish ritual.”

Among the parents, there are more similarities than differences, said Moskovitz.

In Israel, a bar mitzvah is not “required” for Jewish identity, whereas, in Canada, those who don’t have a bar mitzvah rarely cultivate a strong Jewish identity as they grow up.

“Both sets of parents want their children to be successful, without them feeling too pressured, and, for both, some of them are guiding their children through something they themselves may have walked away from.”

One of the main benefits of the program, said Moskovitz, is the way that it joins together parents of b’nai mitzvah into a cohort to connect with and support each other.

The program starts in the spring of Grade 6 and goes to the fall of Grade 7. Among the Temple Sholom contingent, the students tend to be about one-third from Vancouver Talmud Torah and Richmond Jewish Day School, and most of the rest have a supplementary school background.

The partnership between Temple Sholom and Tzur Hadassah aims to create a vibrant connection between Reform Jews in Canada and Israel and goes beyond the Derech L’Torah program. Visitors to Israel from Temple Sholom have attended Shabbat dinners and synagogue services at Tzur Hadassah, and Temple Sholom supported a community garden project there. Rabbi Stacey Blank of Tzur Hadassah has taught an adult education at Temple Sholom via Skype, and Moskovitz and Blank have published articles in each other’s temple bulletins.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.