Stage Fright. Family dynamics. Social pressure. Mazel tov! Moving Traditions, a non-profit organization that works to help kids thrive as “ethically, culturally and Jewishly connected people,” brings you @13, a six-episode podcast for parents and teens as as they approach becoming a bar/bat mitzvah.
Producer Michele Siegel (Slate, The New York Times, WNYC) includes rabbis, authors, comedians, psycholigists, parents, and teens to discuss the time-honored roots and current realities of this Jewish rite of passage. Guests include Peggy Orenstein, Mark Oppenheimer, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rachel Simmons, and Andrew Smiler. Sara Ivry, also host of the award-winning Vox Tablet podcast, hosts the podcast.
Episodes such as, “Being Incredibly Nervous” and “I Want to Fit In” get right to the heart of many of the modern concerns kids have. While the episodes “Sunrise, Sunset” and “At Thirteen” answer some of the vexing concerns of parents. All the episodes are appropriate for kids and their families and function best when they are listened together so you can stop the podcast to discuss the content, or listen completely and discuss afterward. Use it as a tool box as you approach the planning and execution of your bar/bat mitvah celebration.
Moving Traditions also has a B’nai Mitzvah Training Institute that offers training programs at each of their six staffed offices across the county., New York being one of them.
The informative six-part series @ 13 can be found at movin
