By JOSEPH BERGER
Published: August 5, 2007 from the New York Times
JEWISH mothers fret about that spotlight moment when their child is called to the Torah for the first time, but few have the sorts of worries that Jackie Saril had before her daughter, Jami, was bat mitzvahed.
Jami is autistic, which means she lacks a whole quiver of intellectual and social skills and might create some awkward moments by whining or jumping up and down on the bimah, the stage where the Torah is read.
“I was worried about her having a meltdown, refusing to get on stage, to stay on the stage, to get off the stage,” Ms. Saril said. “Jami wore leggings because she doesn’t understand how to cross your legs when you sit with a dress. She wore flat shoes so she could climb the bimah without tripping.”
Ms. Saril wanted her daughter to follow the blessings with a hand-shaped pointer, like other children do, but the pointer had a chain and Ms. Saril anticipated that Jami would fiddle with it instead of reciting her blessings. So she and Erik Contzius, the cantor at Temple Israel of New Rochelle, taped the chain to the pointer. She made sure to have Jami listen to a CD during parts of the service when she was not on stage. Music would calm her.
While the synagogue normally schedules bar and bat mitzvahs outside the sluggish summer, Ms. Saril intentionally scheduled Jami’s on July 21, two days after her 13th birthday, because she knew the audience would not be teeming with unfamiliar faces that might rattle her.
“It was all about Jami having this wonderful milestone in life with the people who helped get her there,” Ms. Saril said.
Such milestones probably would not have been observed in any religion just a few generations ago. Children with autism and Down syndrome were often institutionalized, hidden from the daily ebb and flow. “It was a shanda and nobody spoke about it,” said Ms. Saril, using the Yiddish word for shame. Now such children are raised at home and communities are bringing them into the fold. At this reporter’s synagogue, a teenager with Down syndrome is one of the Hebrew Torah readers.
“These families wanted to be part of Jewish life, but they were either uncomfortable or Jewish life had shut them out,” said Deena Spindler, director of community programs for Matan, the special-needs agency housed at the Jewish Community Center of Mid-Westchester. “Many families say, ‘We come to synagogue and everyone looks at our child,’ but Judaism teaches every person is important, and that demands embracing everybody.”
Ms. Saril, a product of an Orthodox yeshiva in Brooklyn, though Temple Israel is Reform, wanted her daughter to connect with Jewish traditions, even if she didn’t quite understand what God meant — a hard concept for anybody. Matan taught Jami biblical stories and Jewish values and had her make Passover plates like other Hebrew school children.
“I never wanted her to be the kid looking out the window while everyone else is playing,” Ms. Saril said.
Mr. Contzius, who has a son with a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome, first proposed having a bat mitzvah for Jami. He taught her the blessings, and he and Ms. Saril worked out a minute-by-minute schedule (autistic children thrive on schedules). It read in part: “1. Cantor C calls me to the Beema. 2. I go up to the Beema. 3. I sit quietly and keep my feet still while the curtain opens. 4. I carry the Torah carefully to the podium.”
On a radiant day, Temple Israel’s stained-glass sanctuary was lined with the people who had helped Jami reach this moment: her mother and stepfather; her 4-year-old sister, Dani; her stepbrother, Matt, 24; two sets of grandparents; four nannies, and therapists and educators from New Rochelle and from her current school, Devereux Millwood Learning Center in Millwood. Somewhat sadly, there were no friends Jami’s age.
“Jami doesn’t have friends,” Ms. Saril said.
Jami spent the first half-hour listening to music from “Hannah Montana.” When the ark was opened, she scampered up the stage without tripping and, with the cantor standing protectively alongside, carried the Torah to the podium. Announced by her Hebrew name as Chana Bracha bat Yocheved Devora, she read the same blessing every Jew reads, if perhaps not as clearly as some. Her mother chanted the Torah passage. Jami pronounced the second blessing and then recited her speech, reading headline-size words with a scanning device that allows her to focus one line at a time. The speech was just 10 sentences long, but every one was resonant.
“Today is my bat mitzvah,” it began. “Becoming a bat mitzvah means that I have to be a good person every day.” It closed with a pledge that stirred more than a few tears: “I promise to be the best Jami I can be.”
After she finished, she skipped once around the stage and let out a soft whoop of pleasure. No one minded.
PS 373R Robert Randall School 