Bar Mitz­vah Dis­co is not a book, it’s a phe­nom­e­non. I offer evi­dence in the form of a young lady who tried to pick me up on Friend­ster after see­ing me on page 178, aged 9 years and in full rock star regalia. You could also look to the sud­den star­dom thrust upon my sweet Grand­pa Ralph. Thanks to Bar Mitz­vah Disco’s vivid chron­i­cle of his life­time of Chal­lah dom­i­na­tion (see the mul­ti­ple motzis on p. 98), Florida’s senior cit­i­zen­ry now has a new Paul Bunyan. 

So what is Bar Mitz­vah Dis­co? The idea was to relent­less­ly col­lect as many bar mitz­vah pho­tos as pos­si­ble, and then to share the best of the best with the world. At first a web site, and now a hand­some­ly craft­ed cof­feetable book, Bar Mitz­vah Dis­co works because of its exhaus­tive exe­cu­tion. They cov­er every­thing, ​“The Joy (Stick) of Man­hood,” ​“Jen­nifer Grey’s Nose,” and my favorite chap­ter ​“The Loneli­est Black Kid.” 

When you’re done flip­ping through the pages of Bar Mitz­vah Dis­co, you smile. You smile because you’ve been laugh­ing, and you smile because you know you’re not alone. Now more than ever, you are remind­ed that there are mil­lions of Jews out there just as fab­u­lous­ly spazzy as you. There is no shame in bar mitz­vahs, anymore.