Bible Lands Bat Mitzvah

March 6th 2011

It’s your daughter’s bat mitzvah, so you and the whole family show up in your fanciest attire- take that camera man!- to the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem’s “Museum Row”. The girl of honor leads you around the exhibit; knowingly pointing out information about the Egyptian artifacts that came from Joseph (and the Technicolor Dreamcoat)’s time period, relating these findings to her Parshat haShavua (Torah portion). She raises interesting points about the culture that surrounded Joseph, and the evidence of it, including a tremendous amount of treasures taken from Pharaohs’ tombs and ancient Egyptian dwellings. At the end of the fascinating tour, high heels clacking along the way, your daughter receives thunderous applause from her deeply moved family members, for all of the hard work she put into truly making history come alive on her big day.

Wait, what?
How did that happen?

In a clever opportunity devised by the Bible Lands Museum, bar and bat mitzvah young adults can be in contact with an Museum Education Department Staff to research and prepare for presenting a section of the exhibit related to their Torah portion to astonished family and friends. Kosher catering and a beautiful venue provided.
The Bible Lands Museum is indeed a prestigious place to celebrate such a gala event; It is the only museum in the world dedicated to the history of the Bible and the Ancient Near East, an incredible resource for anything and everything you would want to know about the worlds of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Canaanites and Israelites.

For those of you with smaller children at home, there’s something for them here as well. The Bible Lands Museum specially caters to families, providing fun educational programs during larger break periods, including Passover and summer vacation. There are special “day camps”; drop off your child as he has the most creatively stimulated time of his life.

The list of opportunities at this Museum goes on and on- Saturday night sing-along to female Israeli singers, lectures by Hebrew University professors on the interior decorating and dwelling of ancient homes, a culinary researcher discussing Jerusalem Cuisine, and interactive games and ancient civilization educational comic books for children.

When touring in Israel, tour through the beginnings of history, seeing with your own eyes evidence of Ancient Eastern civilization. As the founder of the Bible Lands Museum, Dr. Elie Borowski, put it, “The future of mankind has its roots in the past. Only through understanding our history we can build a better future.”