Letdown Leads to a Cheerful Bar Mitzvah at Six Flags

By COLlive reporter

Yeshiva Achei Tmimim in Crown Heights completed a six-part campaign for the students, combining spiritual and physical avodah with incentives and rewards.

Those who participated received the big reward of a grand trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey on Monday.

Bochur-shliach Meir Horowitz said that their trip began with a letdown when they encountered a car flaunting Palestinian flags, which the occupants pointedly waved at them when they saw they were a group of Jewish boys.

“After facing antisemitism in the parking lot, something amazing happened,” he told COLlive.com.

The Yeshiva boys were taking a group picture in the center of the amusement park when a high school-aged boy with some of his friends came over to them, Horowitz says.

“He asked who we were, we told him we were a yeshiva, a Jewish school,” he said.

The bochurim then asked one of the kids if he is Jewish.

“He replied that he is Catholic while holding up a large golden cross he was wearing proudly around his neck,” Horowitz related.

He surprised the boys by adding, “But, my mother is Jewish.”

“After confirming he was actually Jewish, we were obviously in shock,” Horowitz said. They quickly ran and got some tefillin.

“We excitedly told him that if his mother’s Jewish, he’s Jewish, he’s one of us, and he’s going to have a Bar Mitzvah right here in Six Flags!” the boys said.

“What proceeded was beautiful, beyond words. You could simply see his neshama igniting, awakening, on his face. We wrapped tefillin on him, sang, danced, it was beautiful,” Horowitz told COLlive.com.

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