Bark Mitzvah at dog laundry

ANT KATZ

Sarah, a regular user and contributor who lives in the US, couldn’t help sending the Jewish Report a copy of an advert she saw on Monday. “I’m out in Portland this week and saw this ad in the local Jewish Life Oregon magazine,” she e-mailed. “I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Hashem should be more important to us.”

Sarah offered that she had “kept the mag, and can probably get a better photo/scan when I’m home later today. Shavua tov.”

“Yes, please!” was our immediate responds. This was just the type of story we were looking for to kick off our new website’s content section called Our Whacky Jewish World.

True to her word, Sarah duly scanned and sent us the Jewish Life Oregon advert. SEE IT BELOW STORY or DOWNLOAD PDF which we have put on SAJR.co.za so you can save or print it – and even e-mail it to your family and friends. “I know it is tongue in cheek,” wrote Sarah today, “but nevertheless it does leave me a little speechless… kippah and tallis seems a little sacrilegious to me,” the frum user told us.

 Sarah, who has a famously sharp sense of humour, said she’d “love to see the self-service pet wash. Maybe that’s the miracle. Does the dog get a paw-friendly bottle of shampoo and do the washing all by itself, or are humans needed?”

As if that wasn’t enough mirth, she postulated: “Is the bark mitzvah age measured in dog years? Is this the moment they move from puppy to adult? I’m guessing this dog doesn’t shave?”

The company, called Beauty For The Beast, says it can meet all a pet-owner’s “Bark Mitzvah Needs” and even offers a “pet laundrette” service.

Their wares include Jewish dog toys, like a fluffy sheep doll with “BAA MITZVAH” embroidered on the side – and even kipot and talitot to suit all sizes of pet heads.

We circulated the advert to some other readers in the US and Jessica, another SA expat who attends a Chabad Shul in LA, replied: “Cute. We were at Shul on a Friday night a couple years ago and a woman came to say Kaddish for her dog who had recently died!”

Only in America…