Whose Bar/Bat Mitzvah Is This, Anyway?: A Guide for Parents Through a Family Rite of Passage

You're in the process of planning your child's bar or bat mitzvah and unanticipated issues keep threatening the joy of this "joyous occasion."

Maybe you're divorced and you and your ex are fighting over how much this is all going to cost, never mind how you're going to handle the public awkwardness.

Or maybe your spouse isn't Jewish and the whole question of religious meaning is coming up all over again.

Or maybe you're worrying about your relatives' disapproval. They're from the city, and your plans for an informal party in the backyard will never meet their expectations.

You are in the thick of a complex and pressured moment in your life, sandwiched between the needs of your emerging teenager and your aging parents, dealing with your own issues about being old enough to be the parent of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah (you were always the kid at these affairs, weren't you?), while trying to orchestrate your child's formal coming-of-age in the Jewish community. What would be crazy is if you weren't feeling stressed...

For well over a decade, family therapist Judith Davis, Ed.D., has been studying the meaning of the bar/bat mitzvah in the lives of contemporary American Jewish families. In this wise and witty book, the first to focus on the psychological and development issues of the bar/bat mitzvah year, Dr. Davis shows you exactly what you can do to create magic and meaning for the whole family.

Judith Davis, Ed.D., is a licensed family therapist at the University of Massachusetts. She has written extensively on bar/bat mitzvah as a family rite of passage, and she leads workshops for parents on this topic. Dr. Davis has a two grown sons and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her husband.