Joel Hendon

How About A 94 Room Hotel For A Four Day Bat Mitzvah


Posted: Thursday, January 12, 2012

by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html

For those of non-Jewish background or knowledge of their activities, a bat mitzvah is a celebration of a young Jewish girl’s coming of age which is normally considered to be when she is 12 years and one day old. Although some are known to hold the celebration some other days between 12 and thirteen years of age. It is a day designated as the point where the girl becomes a woman of her own and is allowed to make her own decisions. There are several points of controversy over it however.

Mordecai Kaplan pioneered the bat mitzvah ceremony, as part of the regular synagogue service, in the United States during the 1920s. Since then, it has become very popular and is now observed in various ways by most communities. In American non-Orthodox congregations, a 12-year-old girl celebrates her "coming of age" on a Friday night or Sabbath morning: she conducts the service, chants the appropriate reading from the prophetic books (Haftarah), and in some cases also reads from the Torah and delivers an address on the theme of her attaining Jewish adulthood. In Orthodox synagogues, the bat mitzvah girl's participation in the services is more limited, although she may address the congregation; at a women's Minyan, however, she will be called to the reading of the Torah and even chant one of the portions together with the haftarah. A difference of opinion has arisen in American Orthodox circles as to whether the bat mitzvah ceremony should take place when the girl is 12 or 13. (http://www.answers.com/topic/bat-mitzvah)

Hotel general manager Tony DiLucia confirmed that the entire hotel has been rented for the four day period of Thursday through noon on Monday and will not be open to the public. This will include 94 guest rooms of the Hotel Jerome in Aspen Colorado along with it’s restaurant, and drinking spots the J-Bar and library. DiLucia would not give the name of the family who has rented the place but outside sources identified them as the family of Jeffrey Verschleiser and their guests.

Verschleiser is an executive with Goldman Sachs and ran mortgage-backed securities operations for Bear Stearns before the firm’s Wall Street collapse.

DiLucia reported that the entire staff of the hotel will continue their jobs and be at the pleasure of the renters and their guests. He also added that the renters had hired an events planning firm who are arranging the entire private celebration.

It must be nice.
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