Photo Every Day 2026

The Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem’s Old City is a typical place for Jewish families to have a bar mitzvah celebration. Here you see a young man with a tallit draped over his shoulders and tefillin straps wrapped around his left arm. At this age he is formally recognized as a bar mitzvah—“son of the commandment”—and becomes responsible for observing the mitzvot (commandments) as an adult. The ceremony usually includes being called to the Torah, and many boys wear the tallit and tefillin for the first time on this occasion.