Paws for thought

Indulge in a little religious dogma and treat your pet to a bark mitzvah
By Kelly Hartog

  In Los Angeles, A-list celebs think nothing of coughing up a few thou’ to deck out their designer pooches in everything from clothes and collars to sunglasses and slippers. There are doggie day camps, dog walkers who charge more than your average babysitter, and dog therapists, for those poor Chihuahuas who are not being carried around in the latest Gucci doggie-purse. Very LA.

   Yet the latest trend sweeping the nation stems from a not-so-humble Jewish rite of passage. You can now throw your dog (or cat, parrot, or rabbit) a bark mitzvah. Yep, a bark mitzvah. This coming of age ceremony for your pooch can cost anything from a few dollars to a few thousand. But best of all, in true Progressive, Reform style, you don’t even have to be Jewish.

   Gini Pederson lives in San Diego. She’s not Jewish. Yet she decided to throw a bark mitzvah party for her two-year-old dachshund, Rosie.

   “In human years she was almost 13 so it seemed like a good time to do it,” says Pederson. The idea, she says, came about because her girlfriend, who is Jewish, recently held a bark mitzvah ceremony for her dog.

   “We just decided to get a bunch of girlfriends together and throw a party—a dog-friendly party.” It was catered with a ‘dog-friendly’ cake and pepperoni pizza. Yet she is the first to admit that the whole event was very tongue in cheek and certainly had no religious overtones.

   However, there are others for whom the event is more than just a party.

   Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Temple Beth Shir Shalom, a 350-family Progressive Reform synagogue in Santa Monica, held the shul’s first community bark mitzvah at Purim in the synagogue’s parking lot some 20 years ago, and has been holding them every couple of years since.

   A Temple Beth Shir Shalom bark mitzvah consists of a welcoming blessing for both the humans and the canines, in which the homo sapiens thank God for “beautiful acts of creation”—their pets.

   “We have kippot with chin straps to put on if the owners want and the dogs are amenable,” says Comess-Daniels.

   A shehehyanu blessing is also recited, and the words from Fiddler on the Roof have been adapted, with the rabbi singing “May God protect and defend you, may He always shield you from fleas.” And in an adaptation of the barchu blessing, the owners all kneel, alongside their dogs. A bark mitzvah certificate is then issued to each four-legged participant along with a bark mitzvah photograph for a token fee.

   “We do this event mostly as a lark,” says Comess-Daniels. “But,” he adds, “the reality is that there is this beautiful underlying seriousness to it that everyone brings, recognizing what an important part of our families our animals are. “It’s something that doesn’t quite fall into the traditional realm of Judaism,” he concedes, “but it’s a way to bring the community together.”

   Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz, the assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth El, a Conservative synagogue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, with 1,000 families, concurs. But his shul’s recent bark-mitzvah ceremony was designed as a fund-raising event.

   “We were initially approached by the president of one of the local Hadassah chapters and asked if we would hold a bark mitzvah to raise money to buy an ambulance,” says Arnowitz. Arnowitz had just purchased a Labradoodle and thought it was an excellent idea.

   “Hadassah made all the arrangements, and it really was an excellent tzedakah project,” Arnowitz enthuses. The event was held at a local park, and around 25 dogs and their owners turned up.

   “People are always looking for ways to add God or Jewish rituals in their life or to seek God through Jewish relationships,” says Arnowitz, “and people have very strong relationships with their pets.”

   For the ceremony, Arnowitz wrote a modified misheberach prayer on behalf of all the pet owners in “helping to find strength and guidance in raising their dogs to maturity and that they should all be healthy.” However, Arnowitz adds that in no way did the ceremony attempt to convince the owners that their dogs were in fact Jewish or that they were having “real” bar mitzvahs. “It’s not a question of your dog being Jewish,” he says, “but you being Jewish. There were no requirements on the dogs; they didn’t have to be 13. It was just a celebration in the name of Judaism—with a group of dog lovers getting together.

   “Anyway,” he adds, there’s nothing that says you can’t add ritual to your life. The Bible has references to sheep-shearing festivals, so why not a bark mitzvah?”

   Arnowitz also argues that while pets are becoming more and more members of the family these days, with some being seen as surrogate children, all the bark mitzvah prayers at Beth El are said on behalf of the family, “not on behalf of the dog.”

   But for Bruce Lowy of Skokie, Illinois, Kasha, a 15-year-old Jack Russell terrier is the family’s only child. Lowy is pretty certain that, “We started the bark mitzvah trend,” when a coming of age ceremony was held for Kasha on his 13th birthday, on October 4, 2002. Lowy then proudly displayed the photographs on the Internet.

   “We don’t have children,” explains Lowy, “and all of our friends always invite us to their children’s birthdays and bar mitzvas. So we decided to have a party in honor of Kasha’s birthday.”

   What started out as a simple party turned into a fully catered event, complete with a live band. “We wanted to get Three Dog Night to perform,” quips Lowy, “but they weren’t available.”

   As a result of Kasha’s Web page, Lowy says he has received some 40 e-mails from as far away as Russia, Poland, France, England and Australia, with the majority being positive, supportive letters. Today Kasha is 15 and still going strong, basking in his celebrity, with his own URL, and clearly a fully fledged member of the Lowy household.

   It’s a trend that Howard Binder, owner of Doggie Do and Pussycats Too in New York, says is growing. Doggie Do is a grooming salon, pet day-care center and designer pet boutique, and Binder says with more and more people marrying later or choosing not to have children, they become devoted to their pets. Others, he adds, suffer from “empty-nest syndrome,” once their children grow up and leave home, so they take in a pet to pamper.

   Bark mitzvahs at Doggie Do started 10 years ago when Binder opened the store. “It’s not necessarily a religious thing,” Binder explains. “It’s really just an excuse for a party.” A Doggie Do bark mitzvah can set owners back anywhere from $200 to
$5,000, yet Binder doesn’t appear fazed.

   “There’s definitely an increase in things we buy and sell for our pets, like fashion accessories. People used to be looked upon as crazy for buying their dog a $300 coat,” says Binder.

   Apparently today, that’s seen as acceptable. Which naturally means, if you’re going to throw the ultimate bark mitzvah bash, you’re going to need some serious catering.

   Chez Puppy, an on-line gourmet dog treats, pet jewelry and accessories service, was started a year and a half ago in San Diego by Gayle Garren, her mother Marsha Bayless, and Gayle’s two childhood friends, sisters Leigh and Caye Serling.

   One of the company’s biggest sellers is its bark mitzvah package which includes “a traditionally shaped Star of David treat in scrumptious Viva la Paw-Nut Butter flavor.” You also receive a personalized bark mitzvah Paw-tificiate to commemorate the blessed event.

   Garren’s own dog, Hercules, a dachshund-Jack Russell mix, recently celebrated his own bark mitzvah, which was really just “a big fun party” admits Garren. “Some people have had a rabbi or a non-denominational leader officiate, but we didn’t. We just said a few prayers in English and Hebrew, blessing the dog, and thanking God for bringing him into our lives,” says Garren.

   And if you’ve got the food, you just might need a seating arrangement for your muttley crew.

   Adam Wolf markets “Places Everyone” a magnetic seating planner designed for any and all types of parties. Just last month, his company Glina/Wolf Enterprises in New Jersey, jumped on the bark mitzvah bandwagon and began producing a bark mitzvah version of their planner, complete with a bark mitzvah certificate with the dog’s name.

   “We discovered that the bark mitzvah is the latest reason to throw a party so we came up with the idea,” says Wolf. And apparently pet boutiques are calling up to order the pooch party planner.

  Who says there’s no cash in canines?

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