Tens of youths from European communities will be celebrating their bar mitzvah in Eretz Yisrael. The program is for youths with a parent in prison and/or from broken or problematic homes, organized by the Elef organization headed by Rabbi Levy Konlesky.

The actual bar mitzvah of the youths will take place at the Kosel, in the presence of the Chief Rabbis Shlita, at which times they will be presented with tefillin as well. Also present will be the Rav of the Kosel, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz Shlita, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, and Minister of Immigration Absorption Yuli Edelstein.

Rav Konlesky explains the bar mitzvah boys are from families that receive regular assistance for their daily existence, explaining in some of the homes, parents are simply not there, or mentally incapable of seeing to a proper bar mitzvah and/or they lack the funds to undertake such an event.

Because of the difficult situations in their homes, the rav explains the organization feels the need to make their bar mitzvah something very memorable and significant, permitting them to get an aliyah to the Torah a the Kosel and spend a week in Eretz Yisrael.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)