Baruch Sand and Levi Roisman celebrated their bar mitzvahs today. Baruch’s ceremony was held at the Western Wall. Levi marked his coming of age in Novosibirsk in the Soviet Union. The Roisman family has been trying to leave for Israel for the past five years but was repeatedly denied exit visas by the Soviet authorities.
Levi’s elderly grandmother was the only member of the family finally permitted to leave. She attended Baruch’s bar mitzvah today. It was the first “twin” bar mitzvah in which an Israeli youngster and one in the USSR performed the rites on the same day. There will be more, according to Ruth Bar-On, head of the information department of the Israel Public Council for Soviet Jewry. She said the idea is to strengthen ties between Israelis and Jews in the Soviet Union.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
