UZHGOROD, Ukraine — For Uzhgorod, Ukraine's Yisrael Krilati, it's been quite a week. Last Wednesday, the 13-year-old boy chose to undergo a ritual circumcision, where he received his Jewish name. Yesterday, he celebrated his bar mitzvah by putting on tefillin and being counted in a minyan ñ the quorum of 10 Jewish men needed for public prayer services ñ for the first time in his life.
Ukrainian Boy Follows Circumcision With His Bar Mitzvah
UZHGOROD, Ukraine — For Uzhgorod, Ukraine’s Yisrael Krilati, it’s been quite a week. Last Wednesday, the 13-year-old boy chose to undergo a ritual circumcision, where he received his Jewish name. Yesterday, he celebrated his bar mitzvah by putting on tefillin and being counted in a minyan ñ the quorum of 10 Jewish men needed for public prayer services ñ for the first time in his life.
At the celebratory meal last night, mother Alona Krilati was fighting back tears of happiness.
“I never dreamed that here in Uzhgorod, he would have a bar mitzvah like this,” said the woman. “I really feel like a yiddishe mamma now.”
Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Menachem Taichman, who presided over the bar mitzvah and will be standing next to Krilati when he’s called to the Torah on Thursday, emphasized that it was the young man who chose all of this for himself. He even pledged to put on his new tefillin “every day and everywhere.”
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thats amazing!! so inpiring…