Twinning my Bar Mitzvah with Rafail Kozodoi added to the significance to one of the most important days in my life
Rafael Davies celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on 29 May 2021
I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah during Covid. Some would think that was unlucky but thankfully the harshest of the restrictions had been lifted. I was fortunate enough to be called up in shul to daven my sedra in front of my friends and family including all four of my grandparents. With the help of Yad Vashem I was able to twin my Bar Mitzvah with Rafail Kozodoi who was tragically murdered in the Holocaust and help keep his memory alive.
Rafail was born in the Ukraine as were some of my family. He was only 8 years old when he lost his life. As part of my twinning I received a page from the diary of another victim Donia Rosen. In it he asks us not to forget the dead and to honour them. In his own words:
I want you to erect a memorial to us – a monument that will reach the heavens, a marker that the whole world will see – a sculpture made neither of marble nor of stone but of good deeds. For I believe with all my heart that only such a monument may assure you a better future.
My Bar Mitzvah hope is to follow the example of my family and others that have taught me and contribute my own good deeds to that monument.
Twinning my Bar Mitzvah with Rafail Kozodoi added to the significance to one of the most important days in my life.