Enrollment

Please download the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Enrollment Form.

Procedures for determining dates for Bar/Bat Mitzvah:

1. Prior to compiling the calendar, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Committee reviews with the clergy whether there may be any extenuating circumstances affecting a child’s date.

2. No Bar/Bat Mitzvah is assigned on Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.) A Bar/Bat Mitzvah may be scheduled on Passover upon request, but dietary restrictions must be observed. A Bar/Bat Mitzvah may be scheduled on a Rosh Chodesh or Festival upon request to the Rabbi.

3. No child is promised a single date.

4. In general, a child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah date is scheduled on the nearest available Shabbat to his/her birthday. Each family may request three (3) dates they find most desirable. Every effort will be made to assign one of those dates for your child's Bar/Bat Mitzvah, but priority will go to the child whose birthday falls closest to the requested date. If all three requested dates have been allocated to other children, the parents of the child will be contacted, in random order, and they will be able to select from the remaining dates.

5. Families with traditionally religious relatives may want to take into consideration that Jewish tradition calls for boys to celebrate their Bar Mitzvah upon reaching the age of 13 years and one day. Our Temple tries to keep the Bar/Bat Mitzvah date as close to your child’s birthday as possible. 

Note: Parents with children who will turn 13 at the beginning of the 7th grade school year may want to consider a Bar/Bat Mitzvah date a few months after the child’s birthday (if possible). Your 7th grader will therefore have the benefit of participating in the CJL curriculum for a longer period of time. The 7th grade curriculum emphasizes adult Jewish themes, which the school believes are not appropriate to cover in the 6th grade. The students will learn about the Holocaust and what we can do as Jews to make this world a better place to live in, among other topics. Also, your child will attend more Bar/Bat Mitzvah classes with his/her peers, as opposed to taking the class with students a year older.

6. Children from the same school district will not be given the same date, unless a specific request has been made to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Committee to keep the children together.

7. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah Committee makes every attempt to avoid scheduling dates that pose a known conflict to families, but cannot guarantee special privileges.