Following the passion
Jersey City man, 83, celebrates bar mitzvah among Bayonne’s Chabad community
Born in Jersey City to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, Roy Woods grew up knowing he had Jewish heritage, although he did not practice the faith.
In 2025, at his great-grand niece’s bat mitzvah, he was asked to open the ark that houses the Torah scrolls, and something ignited in his soul.
“I felt so overwhelmed that I thought my heart was going to burst,” Mr. Woods said. “I felt like a light was put on inside of me and I had to have more.”
This quest led him to Rabbi Yisrael Bennish of Chabad Jewish Center of Bayonne (chabadbayonne.org). Rabbi Bennish and his wife, Shulamis, established the first permanent Chabad House there in 2017 to help revitalize Bayonne’s Jewish community. They were building on the groundwork laid by Rabbi Moshe and Shaindel Schapiro, who founded Chabad of Hoboken & Jersey City in 2001 and had led intermittent Jewish activities in Bayonne until the arrival of the Bennishes.
In May, after eight months of preparation under Rabbi Bennish’s tutelage, Mr. Woods celebrated his bar mitzvah in the company of family and new friends — 70 years after he reached the official bar mitzvah age of 13. His was the first bar mitzvah held in the new building that Chabad acquired in 2023.
“My bar mitzvah was all about love, respect, and knowing that you’re never too old to go back to your roots,” Mr. Woods said. “Having a bar mitzvah was one of the most memorable things in my life.”
The circumstances of his belated coming-of-age ritual and the modest Jewish comeback in Bayonne intersect in a special and unexpected way.
Rabbi Bennish explained that in its heyday in the mid-1960s, Bayonne sustained eight synagogues serving a Jewish population that added up to one-fifth of the city’s residents. But a decades-long decline culminated last March in the demolition of the historic Congregation Ohav Sholom — the Uptown Synagogue — that stood for more than a century on Avenue C, about a mile from the Chabad House.
Mr. Woods, an antique enthusiast and Jewish artifact collector, was part of the Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission’s effort to rescue artifacts, including a Holocaust memorial plaque.
“It was very meaningful to Roy that, although this shul was torn down to the ground after 110 years, he was involved in preserving some of its artifacts,” Rabbi Bennish said.
“The story of Roy is the story of Bayonne’s Jewish community today and in the future. People remember when the shuls here had standing room only on the High Holidays. Those big crowds of the past probably won’t come back, but there are individuals who want to be together and grow. These days, our regular Shabbos crowd is 10 to 15 people; on Passover and Purim we get 50 to 60.”
Rabbi Bennish said it was “beautiful and meaningful” to prepare Mr. Woods for the occasion, teaching him how to read Hebrew, put on a tallit and tefillin, and recite the blessings over the Torah. Before the ceremony, the two visited the grave of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens.
“I’d never done this kind of thing before, and it was very emotionally special for me, especially considering that older Jews who grew up in Bayonne don’t have a positive feeling about the Jewish future here,” Rabbi Bennish said. “Roy’s story has added passion to why we are here and what we are here for.”
The bar mitzvah took place on Memorial Day, May 25. Mr. Woods’ guests included his daughter Carrol, her husband, and their three children; his son Clayton, with his son and daughter and his son’s girlfriend; his brother and sister; and his relatives from Maryland whose daughter’s bat mitzvah had been such a life-changing experience for Mr. Woods. His niece presented him with a family tree tracing his Jewish ancestry back to the 1700s.
Rabbi Bennish gave him a bar mitzvah certificate inscribed to Avraham ben Avraham, the Hebrew name Mr. Woods now carries.
Proudly sporting a Star of David necklace, Mr. Woods said that his belated bar mitzvah “wasn’t the end; in fact, it is only just the beginning” as he increases his involvement in the Jewish community and in Chabad of Bayonne’s weekly and holiday synagogue services and Torah classes.
The center also offers a Hebrew school and children’s programs, a women’s circle, classes, and weekly Shabbat dinners. “We have a lot of seniors and a lot of people on their own, and they love when we connect on a one-on-one basis,” Rabbi Bennish said. “Several times a year we have volunteers deliver holiday packages, and our kids are part of it,” he added, referring to the older of his four sons, who range in age from eight to two years old.
Earlier this summer, Rabbi Bennish went with Mr. Woods to visit Mr. Woods’ brother in hospice care. They wrapped tefillin and said a prayer together.
“The message Roy is sharing is that it’s never too late to do something meaningful and to learn about Judaism, even if you didn’t have opportunities to do that before,” Rabbi Bennish said. “No one is ever too old, too far, or too late to grow.”