MAZEL TOV TIMES 80 ATHEIST'S GIRL 'COMES OF AGE'.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
The atheist's daughter stood outside the temple at the Jewish Home for the Aging on Saturday morning listening to the rabbi rabbi [Heb.,=my master; my teacher], the title of a Jewish spiritual leader. The role of the rabbi has undergone a number of transformations. In the Talmudic period, rabbis were primarily teachers and interpreters of the Torah. welcome the guests for her bat mitzvah ceremony - 67 years late. ``It's like going on stage: exciting,'' 80-year-old Dorothy Delmonte said, smiling as she made her grand entrance through the back door to attend the ceremonial occasion that marks the time when a young person traditionally is recognized as an adult in the Jewish community. Depending on where her father, Sam Rubin, is right now, he would be either very disappointed in his only daughter, or understand that, at 80, she is just trying to cover her bets. ``If he's with God, he'll understand,'' she said, sitting in her room at the home a few minutes before the ceremony. ``But if he just died and dropped into nothingness noth·ing·ness n. 1. The condition or quality of being nothing; nonexistence. 2. Empty space; a void. 3. Lack of consequence; insignificance. 4. Something inconsequential or insignificant. , well, I think he'd be upset with me.'' Either way, it was too late now. The rabbi and cantor cantor [Lat.,=singer], a singer or chanter, especially one who performs the solo chants of a church service. The office of cantor, at first an honorary one, originated in the Jewish synagogues, in which from early times it was the custom to appoint a lay member to were waiting. More than 80 guests were waiting. And her family was waiting. She had been studying the Torah for six months - driving everyone at the home crazy, she said - and it was finally time to put up or shut up. Dorothy grabbed her notes, including a few jokes she wanted to tell, and headed off to the temple - one day after turning 80. ``I asked her why she was doing this now,'' her son, Marq Delmonte said. ``She said, 'Why not now?' When you turn 80, you start thinking about mortality and being closer to God. ``Her father would think it's a waste of time, but I think he'd be proud of her. Not only was he an atheist ATHEIST. One who denies the existence of God. 2. As atheists have not any religion that can bind their consciences to speak the truth, they are excluded from being witnesses. Bull. N. P. 292; 1 Atk. 40; Gilb. Ev. 129; 1 Phil. Ev. 19. See also, Co. Litt. 6 b. , but I think he was a Communist, too.'' ``Rags, bottles and sacks!'' the junk man Junk man is the (largely American) term for a person that buys, trades, or collects disparate items (scrap and usable/repairable things) that are considered of little or no value to their owners. would yell from his horse- drawn wagon wagon: see carriage. wagon Four-wheeled vehicle designed to be drawn by draft animals. Wagons have been used from the 1st century BC; early examples used spoked wheels with metal rims, pivoted front axles, and linchpins to secure the wheels. on the streets of Boyle Heights in the 1920s and early `30s. ``I was just a little girl, but I remember my father sitting up there on his wagon during the Depression, selling his junk,'' Dorothy said. ``He died when I was 9. Even after his death, my mother never, ever mentioned religion in our home.'' As a child, Dorothy got a taste of the theater when Maury Schwartz, a well-known actor in Yiddish theater at the time, came to town and needed a cute cute adj. cut·er, cut·est 1. Delightfully pretty or dainty. 2. Obviously contrived to charm; precious: "[He] little girl in his plays. Her stage career never took off, though, and like a lot of other young Jewish women in the 1940s living in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , Dorothy began working in the garment industry until she moved to New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of in 1952 to give the theater one more shot. ``I worked in a couple of off-Broadway plays, but that was about it,'' she said. ``By 1959, I was married and back in L.A. ``We moved to the Valley, and I spent the next 30 years as a real estate broker for a lot of companies that went out of business.'' A couple of divorces later, Dorothy found herself a senior citizen living at the Reseda home - trying to convince her teenage grandsons that one day they should think about having a bar mitzvah Bar Mitzvah (bärmĭts`və) [Aramaic,=son of the Commandment], Jewish ceremony in which the young male is initiated into the religious community, according to tradition at the age of 13 years and a day. . ``I told them, 'If you don't, I will,''' Dorothy said. ``Well, they didn't, and I am.'' She also had a friend at the home who pushed her, saying it would be a lot of fun. It wasn't, Dorothy said. It was a lot of hard work. For the past six months, she hasn't gone anywhere without her notes on the Torah, and a tape-recording of the rabbi's instructions. ``I'd sit in the park listening to it and people would get up and walk away,'' she laughed. ``Many days, I emptied the park.'' But she filled the temple Saturday for her bat mitzvah - 67 years late. Asked after the three-hour ceremony what her father would have thought, Dorothy laughed. ``He would have said it was too long,'' the atheist's daughter replied. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Dorothy Delmonte, 80, finally got to have her bat mitzvah on Saturday at the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda. She said she doesn't know whether her father, an atheist, would approve. (2) Dorothy Delmonte, 80, blesses the Torah as Rabbi Rita Hertzberg Campbell looks on. Because Delmonte's father was an atheist, religion was never discussed in her childhood home. David Sprague/Staff Photographer |
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