Maccabi Tel Aviv's traditional "Bar Mitzvah Tour" for its young footballers took place on Tuesday in Jerusalem
As has been the tradition the past five years, this year too the Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club treated their 13 year old football prodigies from Children's Team B North and South, all born at the turn of the century, to a special "Bar Mitzvah Tour". The tour included stops at a number of important points of interest in the capital and surroundings, starting with the historic site of Latrun where a tour guide joined the group to provide them with an historical perspective on all of the momentous sites they were about to visit. Those included a tour of the Wailing Wall and a visit to the place where the nation's most important decisions are made, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset.
The children and their parents were particularly moved by their extensive tour of the Wailing Wall complex. The first stop was the tunnels where the children were able to view some of the ancient structures of great historic significance to the Jewish people. Afterwards they visited the "Generations Tunnel" where they learned about the history of the Jewish people throughout the generations. After the Wailing Wall tour, the children experienced the most significant part of the tour, the bar mitzvah ceremony itself. After a meeting with the chief rabbi of the Wailing Wall and having donned the traditional Jewish prayer units called "tefillin", the children all received a certificate in honour of them having reached, in Jewish tradition, the age of adulthood.
They then proceeded to the last stop on their tour, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, where only 24 hours earlier Israel's 33rd government was sworn into office. The children received a guided tour of the Knesset and had the opportunity to meet and talk to parliament members Yoel Razbozov, Ophir Akonis, Tsachi Hanegbi and Ophir Pines. Finally they were able to attend an actual debate on the Knesset floor.
At the end of tour, Youth Division Football Director Nir Levin summed up his reaction: "As every year, this year too the "Bar Mitzvah Tour" is an important cornerstone of the Youth Division, whose responsibility is not just football but also education and values. Everyone who participated in this tour, both the children and their parents, were deeply moved by the experience we all had today. Let me just add that the great value of that experience was in large part due to the excellent organisation of the tour itself."
Itsik ben Melech, director of Maccabi Tel Aviv's Football Academy in Mikve Yisrael and organiser of the tour for the fifth successive year, had this to say about the significance of the event for the children of theYouth Division: "In recent years it has become a welcome tradition here at the Youth Division of Maccabi Tel Aviv that as the children make their way through the ranks to the senior team, they all participate in the 'Bar Mitzvah Tour'. What we are trying to do is enrich their lives in areas other than just football, and this important tour combines the religious, social, educational and cultural components of that effort. We've been told by every child and every parent who has participated in the tour how much they've enjoyed it and I'm sure it's something they'll remember for the rest of their lives".
For Maccabi's Children's Team B, the end of the "Bar Mitzvah Tour" is by no means the end of their bar mitzvah festivities. At the end of April they will be celebrating their traditional bar mitzvah ceremonies at Kfar Maccabia Sports Club in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv.
Photographs – Kobi Eliyahu
