Tending bar on Saturday night

[xiphias]

Friday, I tended bar for an event at MIT; tending bar at the Sloan Center is always weird, because they've got the weirdest system of inventory management and alcohol setup: bartender's choice. Every other place I've ever worked, the event planner and the event holder jointly choose what will be served at the bar; at MIT Sloan Center, if there's a full bar, the rule is just "Go into the liquor closet and grab what you think people will want, and keep track of it." I guess it's pretty fun, but it's weird. Oh, and they lack some things that I consider basics, like Jack Daniels. They won't buy the stuff -- their bourbon is Wild Turkey. No idea why.

Anyway, on to Saturday night. It was a bat mitzvah, but not through Bruce. I like to think that, had Bruce been in charge, it wouldn't have been like that.

Here's a copy of the email I sent to the Temple:

I was one of the people working at [REDACTED]'s bat mitzvah celebration this past Saturday.

It was an example of the kinds of excesses that I had heard about in the past, but had never seen at any bar or bat mitzvah celebration.

Booze luges are inappropriate at a bat mitzvah celebration, and, indeed, at a Temple except possibly during Purim.

And go-go dancers are significantly beyond the pale.

Several of us who were working the event were shocked and dismayed at the event. While the dancers were perfectly nice people, this was not an event at which they should have been working.

If the [REDACTED] family did not have a basic comprehension of what constitutes appropriate behavior, as, evidently, they did not, I believe that the rest of the community should have taken action and not allowed such a shonda. Several of the people working were Jewish, and, although they did not make us ashamed to be Jewish, the [REDACTED]s certainly made us ashamed that they
were Jewish. We found ourselves having to explain repeatedly to our co-workers that they were not typical examples of Judaism.

While a celebration of a bat mitzvah should be a simcha, this party was something else entirely.

Such an event reflects badly not only on their family, not only on your community as a whole, but would have reflected badly on the entire am Yisrael, had those of us who are Jewish not explained how abberant the [REDACTED]s' actions were.

If anyone at the Temple, including the [REDACTED]s, would like to contact me to communicate further about this, this email address is usually the best way, but I am also available by telephone at [REDACTED].

Thank you for your time;

- Ian Osmond

There were other examples of excess, as well, of course, but those weren't worth getting into in an email. And, really, the the bat mitzvah's best friends reading a three-page poem they'd written about how much of a slut she was, that wasn't really the family's fault.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Nope; Temple Beth Avodah in Brookline.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you wrote to the synagogue about your concerns, but please take the name of the place off your post - lashon hara, and all that. Also - perhaps you could direct people to the reply from the executive director in your post on Sept 13 - or maybe I just did that.