12/24/13
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
The Jewish Week New York
Sixty-three Israeli boys and girls celebrated their Jewish coming-of-age in a unique joint bar/bat mitzvah ceremony in northern Jerusalem one recent Monday morning.
Photo: IYIM/Video Eden
All of the children are deaf or hearing impaired.
The bnai mitzvah from around the country participated in a three-month preparatory program in sign language, under the auspices of the International Young Israel Movement and in partnership with the Jewish Agency and the National Deaf Association; the program is directed by native New Yorker Rabbi Chanoch Yeres.
