June 18, 2009--Safari Bar Mitzvah

My father had a story or joke for almost every occasion. Some quite ethnic which straddled that fine line between truth and stereotype.

One of his favorites, which he would tell after we would make a trip to the Gold Coast of Long Island to visit his rich brother, who lived in gilded splendor along the North Shore which was famous for its nouveau riche mansions, and thus inspired my dad, was called The Safari Bar Mitzvah.

He would draw it out endlessly, savoring the details, which I will spare you. Though they helped us deal with the frustration we would always encounter, schlepping through the traffic that crept along the Long Island Expressway, known to locals as the world’s longest parking lot.

It went something like this—

There was a lot of competition among the men who had businesses in the Garment District. Especially when it came time to make bar mitzvahs for their sons. Later they would contest with each other over which of their boys got into Harvard and who was “stuck” going to Cornell; but when one of their sons turned 13, it was all about how lavish a bar mitzvah their old man could throw.

Among those who had businesses on West 35th Street, Ginsberg was first. He invited everyone to the grounds of his house in Great Neck for a circus bar mitzvah. In addition to the rabbi and the seven-course dinner, to entertain the guests there were clowns and jugglers, a seven-foot man and a tattooed lady.

Not to be outdone, when it was time for his Herman to be bar mitzvahed, Schwartz ordered up a rodeo-themed event on the lawn of his house right on Long Island Sound. There were hayrides, cowboys with lassos riding around on horses, and a chuck wagon at which guests lined up for hors d’oeuvres which they ate on tin plates. Though for the sit-down dinner they had eight courses and ate on Wedgwood.

Then when it was Goldberg’s turn, the father of the last boy to turn 13, he thought and thought about what he should do. No, not a bar mitzvah on the luxury liner the Queen Elizabeth. Silverman had done that last year. And not a bar mitzvah in Israel. He had gone to one there also last year. After a week of thinking about his bar mitzvah, tearing out his few remaining hairs, he finally had a brainstorm—a bar mitzvah in Africa, a safari bar mitzvah! No one had ever done one of those!

So he invited 150 of his closest relatives and friends, chartered a plane to Kenya, arranged everything—including guides and porters to carry everyone’s luggage deep into the heart of the country. They would have to trek 100 miles but it would be worth it once they got to the safari camp. He had arranged for game drives, and dinners featuring roasted impala (he had checked—impala was kosher), native drummers, and authentic dancers. It would be memorable. And no one would ever again do anything more impressive or expensive.

The first day on the trail went well. But midday on the second day, which was sweltering, the bar mitzvah party which was strung out one behind the other for half a mile came to a sudden halt.

Goldberg, who was at the back of the line of trekkers, asked the person in front of him to ask the person in front of her to pass the question person-by-person to the guide at the head of the line, “What’s going on? Why have we stopped?”

The question was passed forward; and then person-by-person, after half an hour of waiting in the dripping rainforest, the answer came back to Goldberg. The reason they were stopped, he was told, was because there was another bar mitzvah ahead of them.

We loved this slightly salacious story and laughed every time my father told it. It made up for the boring trip to his brother’s house.

But now, in the certain spirit that life always imitates art, let me tell you about another bar mitzvah that occurred recently. A real one, but it could have been the subject of one of my father’s jokes—the bar mitzvah held for 60 guests, fully catered, with a band, and the popular orthodox Jewish singer Yaakov Shwekey. The bar mitzvah held by an inmate in one of New York City’s jails.

One Tuvia Stern, convicted of stealing $1.7 million in two financial scams, and sentenced to two and a half to seven years in prison, while incarcerated, realized that his son was going to turn 13 while he was still in the slammer. There was no way he would have gotten a pass to leave the Manhattan Detention Complex to host a safari bar mitzvah of his own (there was a real risk that he would flee—when first accused of his scams he fled the country and spent the next 19 years on the lamb in Brazil) so he did the next best thing: through his political connection in the powerful orthodox Jewish community in New York City he got approval to make it happen right there in the gymnasium of the jail.

Most amazing was not that he had no trouble finding a rabbi to officiate or was able to hire Yaakov Shwekey to perform, but they let him have his however-many course dinner served on real china and for the guests to use metal, rather than standard prison-issue plastic forks and spoons and knives. All understandably forbidden to ordinary inmates in prisons. The last things guards want is for inmates to get their hands on these potential weapons. But clearly Tuvia Stern is no ordinary prisoner.

No, I am not making this up. If you doubt me, check the linked New York Times article for verification of all the facts. And while rummaging around in the Times, look to see what kinds of parties Bernie Madoff might be throwing. I think he’s in the same jail as Mr. Stern.