Bar mitzvah of Mike Capuano

This picture was taken on the day of my son Mike Capuano’s bar mitzvah in 1975, in our home in Athens.

My son received all the lessons necessary for his bar mitzvah. It was held on a Saturday and the rabbi didn’t give his consent to decorate the synagogue with flowers because, as he explained, the magnificence of the day is such that it cannot be beautified more with flowers.

So we introduced a novelty and offered a gardenia flower to every lady in the synagogue, at the place reserved for women only.

I will not forget him taking the Sefer Torah. But, how many flower petals did we throw to him! You see I had gone to the end of Patissia, bought very many flowers and we had pulled out the petals.

The petals thrown were like snow. I have his speech recorded on a cassette, it was very good.

Afterward, in the evening, what a rain, my G-d what a rain, a true flood! Due to the rain only half of the people we had invited came to the evening cocktail.