My favorite parts about being Jewish are being a part of a community that comes together to support each other, and the holidays and traditions that we have as Jews. In the Jewish community, I have noticed that everybody that I have met here is very kind and helpful. I noticed this when I started my bat mitzvah project, and some people I have never met before asked me how they could help. That meant a lot to me because it reminds me how everybody here will be glad to help you. I love the holidays we have as Jews (mostly Chanukah:). I love the holidays because they are always a very warm time, I would say. I love all of the foods we have, like latkes, brisket, and all of our other delicious foods. I always feel good around the holidays and I hope you all had a great Chanukah!

To become a bat mitzvah to me, means that I am passing into adulthood and taking on more responsibilities and choices that will guide me in my life. I can choose what I want to do in the Jewish community, if I want to keep kosher, how I can keep doing mitzvot, and many more things. As I make these decisions, it will guide me into what kind of person I will turn out to be. I am very excited to become a bat mitzvah.

Something I have learned when preparing for my bat mitzvah is that in the Torah, a lot of the words in there have the same tune, they are just chanted in a different order each time. I learned this when I was learning my Torah portion and Haftarah with the highlighting. I realized that the highlighting represents the words that have the same tune. That surprised me because I have never thought about that before.

For my bat mitzvah project, I decided to donate my time to help foster children. I did this by gathering essential things like duffel bags, toiletries, and blankets. We also gathered things for them to do like coloring books, journals and stuffed animals for the little kids. These kids are most likely in a very bad situation where they had no time to prepare to be removed from their family. These things are for them to get through their first couple of weeks when they may not have access to much. I also helped at the Childrens’ Home Society at the holiday party for foster families.

Now that I am a Jewish adult, I plan to keep helping out my community by continuing donating my time to helping people that need my help. I want to do this because it makes me feel good that I can help out the people that are less fortunate than we are. It is good to know that we can use our benefits to help others.

Alexa is the daughter of Debbie and Greg Bullard. She is the sister of Maia Bullard. She is the great granddaughter of Shirley Kamenetz from Greensboro, NC and the granddaughter of Fran Kaplan from Greensboro, NC and Sue and Carroll Bullard from Woodstock, GA. Send notes of mazel tov.