At a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for Lone Soldiers at the Western Wall, Maria Ratzitz – a Border Police soldier who made aliya in 2020 and recently completed her conversion – got a big surprise when her mother, who was flown in especially for the event, met her at the Western Wall Plaza.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Big Brother organization, which supports and accompanies young people trying to integrate into Israeli society, celebrated a belated Bar/Bat Mitzvah event for Lone Soldiers at the Western Wall.
The ceremony began with the soldiers marching to the Western Wall in a musical and joyous procession. They were greeted by the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, and by the director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, Mr. Mordechai (Suli) Eliav.
Afterwards, there were separate Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies with the boys putting on tefillin and going up to the Torah and the girls holding a moving ceremony that included a personal prayer at the Wall.
After the moving ceremony, everyone participated in an archaeological excavation in the Western Wall Tunnels and toured the new Chain of Generations Center and the new Great Bridge route in the Western Wall Tunnels.
