Divine Providence: Serving and former mayors of Rhode Island capital celebrate bar mitzvahs

Under tight security, and before a packed synagogue and a live feed, the acting and former mayors of Providence, Rhode Island, were among a group that celebrated their bar and bat mitzvahs on Saturday.

Together with them were 11 other Jews, by choice and by birth, who for a variety of reasons had never undergone the traditional Jewish rite of passage usually performed at the ages of 12 or 13.

The serving mayor, Brett Smiley, 46, had a German-born Jewish grandfather (this reporter’s uncle), who arrived in the United States in 1941 and married a Unitarian. Smiley was raised in the liberal Protestant United Church of Christ until he was confirmed. He converted to Judaism in 2024.

David Cicilline, who, like Smiley, is a Democrat and gay, was the first openly gay mayor of a US state capital, leading Providence from 2003 to 2011. He went on to represent Rhode Island’s 1st congressional district from 2011 to 2023, leaving to become president and chief executive officer of the Rhode Island Foundation.

According to Jewish law, Cicilline is Jewish through his mother. His father and four siblings are practicing Catholics.

The adult bnei mitzvah service at Providence’s Temple Beth-El Reform Synagogue followed 18 months of weekly study by the group. The course is run every one to three years, depending on demand.

Smiley grew up in a Chicago suburb with a vibrant Jewish community, and in Providence celebrated Jewish holidays with friends for years. He met Rabbi Sarah Mack, Temple Beth-El’s senior rabbi, with whom he would frequently consult, and took his first trip to Israel in 2017 while working as chief of staff to then-Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo.

“As you start to get older, life happens around you,” Smiley told The Times of Israel. “Loved ones die, people get sick, and I felt an increasing desire to be part of a faith community to deal with some more challenging events in life.”

He said his family’s history, with which he has a “borderline obsession,” converged with his “moving” trip to Israel and his relationship with Mack.

As mayor, he said, “Some of the decisions I had to make morally weighed heavier on me than before. At night, I’m the one lying in bed, wondering whether I did the right thing. That pushed me along the final stretch to reach out to Rabbi Mack and to tell her I wanted to explore conversion.”

After privately studying with Mack for a year, Smiley converted in August 2024 and immersed himself in a mikveh, or ritual bath. The bnei mitzvah class followed.

“It was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had as an adult,” Smiley said. “On the spiritual side, it was clearly the next step in my learning. It deepened my understanding to be allowed to read from the Torah, and to be able to read the texts in Hebrew is fulfilling.”

Cicilline, raised in a Catholic household, said he had been close to his Jewish grandparents and had always felt Jewish.

“I joined Temple Beth-El 20 years ago,” he said. “When our cantor announced she was retiring and said she was doing her last [bnei mitzvah] class, I reckoned this was the time to do what I’d always wanted to do.”

Cicilline said his parents, siblings, and cousins all attended the ceremony and were proud of his journey. He wore a watch that his maternal grandmother had given his grandfather in 1945, and a pin made by his late best friend, jeweler Harriet Quinn, who had regularly attended Temple Beth-El services with him.

“It was a special class,” Cicilline said. “While 13-year-olds are dying to get out of Hebrew class and get it over with, this was different. You have life experiences and wisdom that come with the age we were all at, which makes the experience even more meaningful.”

Smiley said that the celebration provided “a much-needed and palpable moment of joy for the community at this difficult time.”

In December, a former graduate student at the city’s Brown University murdered two students and wounded nine others on campus, later taking his own life. And earlier this month, an attacker armed with a rifle rammed a truck into the doors of a large Reform temple near Detroit, Michigan. Armed guards fired on the attacker and he was killed at the scene, according to police.

Rhode Island is home to around 20,000 Jews, with the majority residing in Providence, which has a population of 200,000. Providence also has a substantial Muslim community, many of them African refugees.

Smiley said he has received hate mail connected to the Israeli-Arab conflict “as if I had something to do with it,” but has received nothing negative about his conversion.

In June 2024, he used his mayoral veto to stop a city council proposal to divest city funds from Israel bonds.

Last May, he found himself in the eye of controversy after city councilors raised the Palestinian flag at City Hall.

He subsequently signed an executive order creating a new flag policy.

“The City Council will have to vote and pass a resolution, as opposed to any given council member deciding to [fly the Palestinian flag],” he said.

As for the Israeli flag, which he has flown annually on the Jewish state’s Independence Day, he pledges to continue raising it by mayoral decree.