100-year old Ellington synagogue hosts third-generation bar mitzvah
When 13-year old Joshua Ellin stepped up to the bimah at Congregation Knesseth Israel one recent Monday morning, he was marking a milestone in more ways than one. He was, of course, celebrating his passage into Jewish adulthood as a bar mitzvah – and, he was becoming the third generation in his family to do so in the Ellington shul where his father and his father’s father had celebrated their bar mitzvahs decades before.
Making the moment even sweeter, Josh Ellin’s bar mitzvah came just as the small Modern Orthodox congregation was preparing to launch a year-long celebration of its100th anniversary.
“This synagogue has a long and rich history, and we intend to keep that legacy going,” said the Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Glastonbury, which is affiliated with the Ellington congregation.
At the opening of the service, at which Wolvovsky officiated, Josh donned tefillin for the first time and was called up to the Torah. “It is very meaningful for us to see our son continuing the family tradition,” said his mother, Tammy.
“I remember your great-grandfather reading from the Torah in this very place,” David Burstein, a longtime member of the congregation, told the bar mitzvah boy after chanting from the Torah.
The public is invited to attend the next service at Congregation Knesseth Israel, which will be held on Sunday morning, Feb.10. In addition to prayers and Torah reading, it will include interactive study and refreshments.
Knesseth Israel is located at 236 Pinney St. in Ellington. For more information call the shul at (860) 870-1313 or the Chabad Jewish Center at (860) 659-2422.