Aviv and Dylan Gefen
Aviv and Dylan GefenCourtesy

Israeli Singer Aviv Gefen celebrated his son Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah this week. The event was attended by only 20 participants, in accordance with the latest coronavirus restrictions. Friend and singer Eviatar Banai assisted in putting tefillin (phylacteries) on Dylan for the first time.

The Bar Mitzvah boy was named for ledgendary singer Bob Dylan.

Gefen has been a famous singer in Israel for more than 20 years, and he was known for being outspoken against the observant community and religion. However, recently he has been expressing his wish for solidarity and unity in the nation.

In a recent interview in the Israeli newspaper Yisrael HaYaom, Aviv Gefen expressed himself on this son’s approaching Bar Mitzvah.

“Many of his friends will not be reading from the Torah on their Bar Mitzvahs since they see it as completely unnecessary", Gefen said in the interview, "And so Dylan came to me and said, ‘Listen Dad, is it true you don’t care if I read from the Torah on my Bar Mitzvah?’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute, actually I do care.’ And then he asked, ‘Why? You’re a secular atheist , you are Aviv Gefen.’ And I said, ‘Something inside of me thinks that yes you actually will read from the Torah.’ There is an attachment here that is deeper than any ideology or politics, there is a connection to something that we must recreate and experience together."

In October, 2019, Gefen appeared in the community of Elkana in Samaria and despite his perfomer friends’ boycott of communities in Judea and Samaria, Gefen told the audience: “All of us live in the Land of Israel and because of this I came here tonight.”