Jessica Reich, a 12-year-old East Brunswick girl, will become a bat mitzva at the East Brunswick Jewish Center on Nov. 9, the 69th anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a two-day Nazi pogrom that is often considered the start of the Holocaust.

To mark the solemn anniversary, Jessica is both "twinning" with a Shoa victim and vowing to finish the synagogue's efforts to collect 1.5 million pennies to memorialize each Jewish child killed during the Shoa.

"I'm trying to make my bat mitzva very meaningful, not just a service," said Jessica, a seventh-grader at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley in East Brunswick. "I will never think of the Holocaust the same way again."

On Nov. 9-10 in 1938, 1,668 synagogues were ransacked and 267 were set on fire along with 8,000 Jewish shops, while 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps throughout Germany and Austria.

Jessica said she was inspired both by her parents and her congregation and their efforts to keep alive the memory of child victims of the Holocaust.

EBJC's former rabbi, Chaim Rogoff, started a remembrance project several years ago in which congregants pledged to "adopt" young Shoa victims. Memorial plaques for each adopted child have been placed on the sanctuary wall.

Jessica's parents, Steve and Jodi Reich, adopted Eszter Vitrael, an 11-year-old Hungarian girl who died at Auschwitz.

"We say Yizkor for her," said Jessica.

Jessica also decided to "twin" with Eszter during her bat mitzva ceremony, symbolically sharing with the murdered girl the religious responsibilities of Jewish adulthood.

"She never had a chance to have a bat mitzva," Jessica explained.

The pennies, neanwhile, will fill a star of David memorial sculpture created by EBJC member Uziel Sason, which stands in the synagogue's lobby. The memorial already held 220,000 pennies when Jessica decided to take up the cause and urge congregants and guests to fill it to its 1.5 million-penny capacity.

"Her family just handed me the first $300," said synagogue educational director Steve Solomon. "Now I have to go to the bank and convert it into pennies. I don't think I can do it all at once though because I won't be able to carry them. That's 30,000 pennies."

Solomon said Jessica had in recent weeks spoken to all the religious school classes asking them to contribute. The school, whose students and staff contribute tzedaka money monthly, has decided to donate contributions given in both September and October to the penny project.

Jessica said she also plans to donate 10 percent of her bat mitzva gifts to the collection and vowed to keep going until the 1.5 million goal is achieved.

Her mother said the family was thrilled to see Jessica undertaking a project in which the entire community could get involved.

"With the president of Iran sponsoring a conference on Holocaust denial, we have to constantly tell our Jewish youth this is important to keep alive," said Jodi Reich. "If your parents were murdered you would never forget. We cannot let our children forget the relatives and children who were murdered in the Holocaust."

Steve Reich said Jessica with the rest of the family had been researching Kristallnacht and its implications.

"Instead of just a celebration or party, we've tried to integrate this Kristallnacht concept throughout the entire service and really make it meaningful not only to her, but to put the mitzva back into bat mitzva," he said. "We're very proud of her."

Those who would like to contribute to the penny project can send checks to Solomon at the East Brunswick Jewish Center, 511 Ryders Lane, East Brunswick, NJ 08816. Write Jessica Reich bat mitzva project on the memo line of the check.