YORK’S Liberal Jewish Community is set to to stage the city’s first Bar Mitzvah ceremony in more than half a century on Saturday.

The service will be followed within hours by the consecration of what is believed to be York’s first Jewish cemetery since medieval times.

Esther van der Bos, 14, will be the first child to be B’nei Mitzvah - the gender neutral term for a Bar Mitzvah coming of age ceremony - in York since the demise of the old York Hebrew Congregation in the 1970s, and probably significantly longer, said community chair Ben Rich.

He said there would be two more such ceremonies in the next four months

“Esther will read a passage from the community’s Czech Torah scroll, which was rescued from Holocaust and lent to the York community by the Memorial Scrolls Trust, and will deliver a sermon on its meaning,” he said.

“The service will be conducted jointly by York’s student Rabbi for the year, Gabriel Webber, and Liberal Judaism’s Director of Strategy and Partnerships, Rabbi Charley Baginsky.

“Later on the same day, Rabbi Baginsky will perform a short ceremony to consecrate a plot of land in Fulford Cemetery, which is being set aside for Jewish burial.

“The plot can accommodate around a hundred burials, although the community hopes not to make use of it for years to come.”

He said the developments reflected the rapid growth of the new community, which was only founded three and a half years ago, to nearly one hundred members.

Esther’s mother, Miriam Thorpe, said: “I am so excited. This has been very much a personal journey for Esther. I am proud as punch that Esther has chosen to follow a Jewish life, as a result of the creation of this wonderful community in the city.”

Ben said the co-incidence of the first coming of age ceremony and establishment of a cemetery showed how Jewish life was returning to York.