A Thousand B’nai Mitzvahs & Counting
Local dentist coaches dozens of students on his one-year rolling admissions plan and still has time to coach a winning baseball team.
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.

Some know Dr. David Frankel as a dentist — but his real “drills” may be the teacher to student kind.
He is currently working with 40 students and had five bar mitzvahs in the last few weeks of 2024; then, shortly thereafter, he added three new students. His sessions are 30 minutes long, averaging three lessons per month per student. Calculating the time is mindboggling. For 35 years, Frankel has worked four days a week as a general dentist while tutoring four to five students on weeknights and up to 16 students on Sunday.
At Frankel’s “home” shul, Congregation Beth Tefillah, 99 percent of his students are boys. The one female student from CBT had her bat mitzvah at AJA where she read the Torah in a female assembly. His other students have been from: B’nai Torah, Ahavath Achim, Beth Jacob, Ohr Hatorah, Ariel, Shearith Israel, Temple Sinai, and Chabads of Cobb, Alpharetta and Intown. As much as he would like to be at every student’s bar/bat mitzvah, he can only attend walkable events. For B’nai Torah students, he walks 3.5 miles each way.
If that doesn’t make him busy enough, Dr. Frankel has been coaching baseball for more than 30 years. Many of his former students played on his Maccabi baseball teams. This past summer, his team won gold in Detroit and is determined to repeat this summer in Tucson.

If the Frankel name rings a bell in tandem with education, David’s father was Dr. Ephraim Frankel, Head of School at the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta in 1967, when the family left Ottawa, Canada, and planted roots here in a “modern Orthodox home.”
In 1983, David was a junior at the University of Texas. As a source of income, he became the local USY advisor and a bar/bat mitzvah tutor with his first 10 students. His real inspiration stems from his father who taught David and his two brothers. Ephraim was a stickler for articulation, accent and grammar.
David added, “He taught me in reverse order, starting with the last verse of an Aliyah or Haftorah and working forward. I still incorporate this method today!”
While he uses a structured approach to teaching, he notes that every student’s learning style and needs vary. He explained, “I seek to adapt to all types of learning. The most important ingredient to success is finding a way to connect with each student. Once I get to know them, I try to become their biggest support. The belief that I have in them provides the confidence to achieve way beyond their expectations. The bond that exists between the student and teacher is very unique – and the nachas (satisfaction) that I feel with each bar/bat mitzvah is what keeps me going!”
Frankel has tutored many twins and many brother/sister/cousins/friends b’nai mitzvahs and has helped prepare adults who never had a bar/bat mitzvah or who never had the opportunity to read Torah/Haftorah. He added, “I had one brilliant student who was handicapped since near birth. The parents were skeptical if she could have a bat mitzvah. She turned out to be one of my best students!”

Delineating parents’ roles, he said, “I always tell the parents that they have no responsibility in this learning process. It is my job to prepare each student and to make sure that they adhere to the process. Many students have some period in their preparation where their motivation wanes. This is a real challenge for me!”
If coaching for the English D’var Torah is needed, David defers to the child’s rabbi or Frankel’s brother, Danny, who, according to David, “is the real scholar.”
Frankel receives compensation for his service, but if a family is unable to pay, he waives any charge. An avid sportsman, Frankel plays golf, softball, tennis and pickleball. His “true sports love” is baseball.
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