Hello family, friends, and community,

I'm writing to ask for your support to help me launch the first-ever Bar Mitzvah Program in San Quentin Prison.

For two and a half years, I've co-led monthly Shabbat services at San Quentin, where 25-30 residents gather to pray, learn, and find spiritual connection. Last year, after one of the services, a group of them told me they wanted to celebrate their bar mitzvahs and asked if I would start a program for them to go through this ritual.

I told them I would, and I have been designing the program for the past few months with the aim to launch it in the Spring of 2025. I'm excited to make this program a reality. What would be truly amazing is if we could report back to the men in San Quentin that there are 300, 400, even 500 people here in the Bay Area and even around the country who are supporting them on their path of spiritual growth and learning and who want them to succeed in celebrating their bar mitzvahs. We want them to know they are not alone in this journey, even if they are living apart from the rest of us.

In addition to teaching these men how to read Hebrew and chant Torah, we are equally interested in reinterpreting with them what a bar mitzvah ceremony can mean in this moment of their lives. Given that they are beyond the cusp of age 13 and living in prison, there is great potential to use this Jewish rites-of-passage ritual as a pathway to personal growth, spiritual connection, and identity building. The program will also weave in opportunities for community care and connection through a pen pal network, community-written blessings, and in-person ceremonial witnessing.

Your support will fund:

- Educational materials

- Prayer books, tallits, and other Jewish materials

- Hebrew language learning resources

- Program coordination

- Community engagement initiatives

- Guest educators

- The bar mitzvah ceremony (catered meal, gifts for each participant)

Your contribution will support these men to grow their Jewish identities, find personal meaning and connection in the tradition's wisdom and rituals, and develop community outside of the prison, which we are certain will create deep transformation in their lives.

Thanks so much to all of you.

A special thanks to Anne Germanacos and The Firehouse Fund for their support from the very beginning.

No goods or services are being exchanged for these gifts.