We love working with Miriam for a million reasons. She is knowledgeable, passionate, and warm—and sensitive to our son’s interests. Learning with her has been fun, engaging, and inclusive. Her guidance has been indispensable. Most importantly, our son likes her and approaches his bar mitzvah with positivity and confidence.
Rachel Berinsky and Ilan Kayatsky
TESTIMONIALS
See What Parents Are Saying
TESTIMONIALS
Miriam brings her passion, knowledge and warm spirit to our son's group Bar/ Bat Mitzvah tutoring sessions. She is a deep listener, and organized facilitator. We are an interfaith family, and she has created a space for our family, and more importantly our son, to understand and develop an authentic Jewish identity. She has been a true blessing for our family!
Mimi Choi, Mother of Davi Scheinok
Miriam has been such a blessing for our son and our family. She helped us with our vision and planning for our son’s bar mitzvah and has kept us on track. She has so much warmth and positive energy that she brings which has helped our son feel confident and excited about his bar mitzvah. She really understands how to connect with our son. We trust that the bar mitzvah is going to be a wonderful celebration.
Lelah Nichol mother of Julian Nichol
Our son participated in a study group with two of his friends, facilitated by Miriam, to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah. She was incredibly kind and supportive, and truly engaged the kids in the learning process— and with great results! On the day of his Bar Mitzvah, our son was clearly confident and comfortable with the structure of the service; the prayers, songs, his Torah portion and with delivering his Drash. Thank you Miriam!
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Lani Schlafman mother of Nathan Weltzien
Miriam tutored my son for his bar mitzvah last year. She did a wonderful job - she was knowledgeable, patient, kind, and encouraging. In short, just want he needed. Its easy for kids to be overwhelmed by the difficulty of learning the read and chant their Torah portion, but Miriam broke it down into manageable pieces so my son was not overwhelmed, and he learned what he needed to learn. He did an amazing job at his bar mitzvah. Our whole family really appreciated Miriam's tutoring!
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Mara Bernstein, Mother of Asher Bernstein
"Dev's Bar Mitzvah will forever be in our hearts for all the growth, fun, authenticity and love emanating from the whole process. You held our values and guided our child. You are simply amazing and we love you.
-Deepti Sethi mother of Dev Nabizadeh
To say that Miriam was the joy that made the ceremony would not be an exaggeration. I cannot thank her enough for the warmth, fun and peaceful celebratory atmosphere she brought to Isaac's Bar Mitzvah. Things went wrong (I forgot the Challah and the wine cup) and Miriam was beautifully calm. She improvised a lovely "imaginary Challah" blessing that had us all smiling and communing. But the ceremony was only a small part of what Miriam did for us. She was Isaac's tutor and support as he studied. She provided calm guidance and encouragement which I credit to the amazing job he did. He sang beautifully, he read perfectly and was eloquent in his Torah interpretation. Finally, I loved how Miriam explained Jewish traditions/meanings to our mixed crowed of Jews and Goyim. It was with love of these traditions that she brought everyone in and made them apart of my son Isaac's becoming a man. I can't thank Miriam enough and can't recommend her highly enough.
-Rebecca Archer, mother to Isaac Mye
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Miriam, we cannot begin to express how grateful we feel that Sasha's bat
mitzvah brought you into our lives. You are a gift to all of us. The love and
support you have given Sasha along the way, the incredible support you have
given to me and Mike, and the way you officiated the service on Sunday... it's
all been magical and wonderful! Sasha truly shined! She shined in a way that
we have never seen her do before! She radiated confidence and poise and
truly became the bat mitzvah she was that day! We heard her words and her
voice in a whole new way and it was magnificent! THANK YOU for all that
you did to help her feel empowered in this process and able to truly come into
her own at the ceremony! I know she will take that into her life from here
onward! Friends and family who were there with us on Sunday kept coming
up to us to say how special, inclusive, moving, connecting, and spiritual the
service was. From people who had only ever been to a few b'nai mitzvahs to
folks who had been to hundreds ... they all felt that this was TRULY special
and something they wished everyone could experience! Thank you for
crafting such an incredible ceremony and for knowing how to beautifully bring
people into it in the way that you did! Sasha's Bat Mitzvah was absolutely
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perfect in every way! We love that this process has brought you into our lives
and we cannot wait to stay in touch, to have you and your daughter up to
Occidental, and to building and growing our friendship and our spiritual
connection from here on!!
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THANK YOU SO MUCH, Miriam!
We love you!
- Rachel Benson, Mother of Sasha Demmer