Recently, I celebrated a professional milestone. I photographed my 300th b’nai mitzvah celebration.
How I reached that number is still a bit of a mystery, especially ironic since I never had a bar mitzvah celebration of my own. Perhaps it’s a divine message?
When I told a friend I had reached this milestone, he laughed and called it a curse, but then quickly corrected himself, calling it a mitzvah. I agree with the latter.
I didn’t set out to be a b’nai mitzvah photographer (I don’t know if anyone ever does). It just sort of happened.
And now that is what most people in Milwaukee know me for — not that I am complaining.
One would think one might become somewhat jaded after photographing 300 bar and bat mitzvah celebrations. But that’s not the case.
At a recent bar mitzvah, I was reminded of why I still enjoy this work. Just before the hora dance, a friend in the crowd shared with me the family’s story.
The father, who works for G.E., had recently retired after 21 years of service in the U.S. Army. My friend said that multiple deployments over the past two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan while on break from his job at G.E. had been hard on his wife and two sons back home in Wisconsin.
That is what made watching the family joyously dance the hora especially poignant. You could see it in their faces, as well as in the faces of the guests who lifted each family member up in a chair, just as they had lifted the family’s spirits during the father’s tours of duty in war zones.
I did my best to capture that joy, which wasn’t difficult — everyone was genuinely smiling and happy.
I’ve also photographed more than 100 weddings, dozens of private parties and professional banquets, numerous senior yearbook pictures and professional business portraits, countless family portraits — even a bris. But for me, nothing is quite as moving as a bar or bat mitzvah celebration.
There’s something special about capturing a 13-year-old bat mitzvah girl as she is being fully acknowledged by her friends, family and congregation as a full-fledged member of the Jewish community. Often this is the first time she has had such communal recognition.
As a child, my brothers and I were each given the option to have bar mitzvah celebrations but we chose not to. I have never belonged to a synagogue. Nor have I attended a Jewish summer camp, although many of the children I attended summer camp with were Jewish.
However, I have traveled to Israel three times and have chosen to work in Jewish communal settings most of my professional life — this while many of my friends who had b’nai mitzvah celebrations went on to have marginal, at best, relationships with their Jewish communities.
One of my first jobs was as a reporter at a Jewish newspaper in southern Florida. Later, I became a marketing director for many years at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center of Milwaukee and then served as a public relations consultant for Jewish Family Services of Milwaukee.
My affiliation with the JCC set me on the path to becoming a b’nai mitzvah photographer. Photographing JCC summer camps, early childhood programs and sports and cultural events allowed me to hone my craft.
One day, a photographer walked by carrying a huge framed photo. I asked for his card and eventually hired him to take photos at the JCC.
He soon recognized that I was a pretty good photographer and offered to train me. After a six-month apprenticeship, I was a professional photographer.
Ironically, I would go on to photograph many b’nai mitzvah celebrations of the same children whom I had captured earlier at JCC classes, programs and camps.
Sadly, being a b’nai mitzvah photographer means capturing many members of the community who have experienced personal and professional hardships, such as divorce, illness, death and unemployment.
But I have also seen families rise to noble heights as they met head on their particular circumstances. In some cases, they showed remarkable inner reserve and strength that I don’t think I could match.
And in just about every case, I watched proudly as the Jewish community gathered to support these families in their time of need.
One of the happy outcomes of being a b’nai mitzvah photographer is to have shared the experience with Milwaukee’s remarkable rabbis. We are truly blessed to have such tzaddikim among us, many of whom treat me as a member of their congregation.
Indeed, whenever I photograph a bar or bat mitzvah celebration, it feels more like a homecoming than a job.
I’m not sure how long I will continue to work as a b’nai mitzvah photographer. I hope for as long as I’m upright and have clear vision.
But I know that I will never lose sight of the fact of how special these moments are — not just for the families, but for me as well.
In addition to being a photographer, Kipp Friedman is author of the recently published memoir “Barracuda in the Attic.”
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