Culture  Music
Paula Abdul to mark bat mitzvah in Israel
Itamar Eichner
Published: 28.10.13, 14:43
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15 Talkbacks for this article
1. Good for her!
Amichai ,   Huntsville, US   (10.28.13)
She's an airhead half the time, but I still love her to death. Maybe one day I'll have my bar mitzva too!
2. with all these people pilgrimaging to peres, it suddenly ...
oferdesade ,   israel   (10.28.13)
... occurs to me that ghandi, the dalai lama, mother teresa may have been s***s too?
3. khazak ou barouch
rahamim ,   usa   (10.28.13)
2Paula kol hakavod we love U more
4. Welcome sister!
Yoch ,   Gush, IL   (10.29.13)
5. Many Blessings!
Ezra ,   San Diego   (10.29.13)
May HaShem bless you and bring you peace! Wonderful news.
6. Whatever...slow news day I suppose..Its breakfast time..
Al   (10.29.13)
7. and I thought she was a Muslim :)
(10.29.13)
Funny. Many years ago I read somewhere that Paula Abdul's father was an Arab Muslim and her mother French :) To find out now that she is Jewish and her mother is even an Ashkenzi Jew is funny. She's one of us!
8. Yasher Ko'ach!
Chaim Yankel ,   Chelm   (10.29.13)
Lovely, but what's a nice Jewish girl doing with a family name 'Abdul'? Why not 'Abdulovitz' or 'Abdulski'? B'li ayan hara.
9. To Sephardic readers....
Gil ,   Tel Aviv   (10.29.13)
Apologies on behalf of the ignorant Ashkenaz comments made by 7 and 8. Sounds like old polaniyot savtot.
10. #7 / 8. She is a Syrian Jew originally
EgyptianJew ,   Ex. Cairo, Egypt   (10.30.13)
#7 / 8. She is a Syrian Jew. Did you know we Jews from Arab countries exist???????
11. She is...
Walt K ,   Sherbrooke, Canada   (10.31.13)
one of the most beautiful lady I have ever see. She is amazing !
12. Chaim,
Walt K ,   Sherbrooke, Canada   (10.31.13)
But the real pronounciation of her name is Avdul not Abdul.
13. 10
Gil ,   Tel Aviv   (10.31.13)
Don't blame you for writing that comment. Honestly there are some really ignorant Ashkenaazim out there, they embarass the rest of us. I for one though am not. My wife's family are all from Egypt.
14. @ #12 Walt K, no, "Abdul" is correct transliteration
Mikey   (11.01.13)
The Hebrew letter "beth" without the "dagesh" (the dot in the middle) is pronounced by Syrian and most other Mizrahi Jews as a soft /b/ (as in "boy") and not identitcal with the English sound /v/ as in "Victor" as is the practice among Ashkneazim for the "beth refuya" (weak "b" sound). It's just slightly softer than "b" with a dagesh. So, "abdul" is correct, not "Avdul". She is Syrian-Jewish (by way of Brazil) on her father's side, Ashkenazi-Jewish (by way of Winnipeg, and later Montreal, where her parents met and married). She was born and raised in LA though. I've seen her sometimes mistakenly referred to as French-Canadian (because of the Montreal connection) and Brazilian Arab, making her sound more exotic, but she's a normal Jewish girl with one Sefaradi and one Ashkenazi Jewish parent, like so many of us in Israel.
15. She's already been bat mitzvah since she was 12
Mikey ,   SomeWhere OverHere   (11.01.13)
It's nice she's getting more in touch with her roots and her people, but it's unneccessary to have a "bat misva" ceremony, at the Kotel or anywhere else (and it's even unncessary for a "bar mitzva" ceremony too). When a Jewish girl reaches her 12th birthday according to the Hebrew calendar, she's a bat mitzva, and has the duty to observe all the commandments. (Same thing goes for a Jewish boy who reaches his 13th Hebrew birthday, although it's become customary for him to get called to the Torah for the first time, something that women don't do, at least not in Orthodox Judaism.) SO Paula Abdul had her bat mitzva 39 years ago, when she reached 12. Well, mazal tov, hazak u' baroukh anyway.
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