Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed my blog post about Dena and her animal shelter project because there’s more to come! In honor of Rosh Hashanah’s message of renewal and friendship (not to mention the yearly proclamation “next year in Jerusalem!”), this month I’m blogging about Abby Lewin, whose amazing mitzvah project is centered around Israel and friendship!

Abby wanted to connect with Israel for her bat mitzvah project. She decided to make beaded jump ropes with her Hebrew School classmates and send them to a group of 6th grade girls in Sderot, a city in southern Israel that is a target of Palestinian rocket attacks. Abby explained to me that she wanted to become friends with this group of girls through her project, while keeping in mind what becoming a bat mitzvah really means. With help from her mother, jump rope teacher, and classmates, Abby successfully made new friends (both in her hometown and in Israel), and discovered what it truly means to become a bat mitzvah.

Here is an excerpt from my interview with Abby:

“I decided on this project because I wanted to have some connection to girls my age living in Israel, and I took jump rope classes at the time. The woman that taught the jump rope classes provided me with all the supplies. I delivered the jump ropes personally (a trip to Israel was my bat mitzvah present from my grandparents) to a family fund. The project was meaningful to me because it was something my classmates and I enjoyed doing, so it was nice to imagine girls in Israel our age doing the same thing. I also was trying to find something meaningful because, while preparing for my bat mitzvah, so many girls think about their dresses or party themes or party favors. They get caught up in all the superficial things about the parties, and lose sight of what a bat mitzvah means to them. To me, a bat mitzvah is a time to become responsible, to join the community and all of Israel. My project was the best way to show that.”

Thanks, Abby.

If you have a mitzvah project you'd like to share, e-mail me here, and I may feature your project in my Babaganewz blog and in my book!