Tag #150594 - Interview #78144 (Moisey Goihberg)

When I turned 13 my grandmothers demanded that I had bar mitzvah, the celebration of the coming of age of Jewish boys. Circumcision is traditionally done in infancy. My father invited a man who knew Hebrew and Jewish traditions to teach me the prayer that I was supposed to recite. So, I had my bar mitzvah in secret at the age of 13, because at that time the authorities did not allow religious rituals. A rabbi presided at the ritual and many of our relatives and friends attended. My mother made a lekkah, a type of traditional egg caketraditin. She cut it into small slices, put a few into a letter, and sent them to my grandmother Zlata in America.