After the First Bat Mitzvah

Exactly one hundred years ago, on March 18, 1922, Judith Kaplan stood before her father’s newly formed congregation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, and read from the Torah, the holy scroll containing the Five Books of Moses. It was the first bat mitzvah anywhere in the world. Before then, only Jewish boys participated in this ritual.

It must have made a huge impact on the young woman, because she grew up to teach and compose Jewish music. She married a rabbi, Ira Eisenstein, who at the time of their wedding was the assistant rabbi at the very synagogue where she had celebrated her bat mitzvah. This was the first Reconstructionist congregation in the world, which is also celebrating its centennial anniversary this year.

Currently, there are about a hundred Reconstructionist congregations, mostly in the United States. Bat mitzvahs are common not only in Reconstructionist but also in Conservative and Reform temples. I have been invited to a bat mitzvah later this year. I’ll be certain that the young lady knows she is following in a tradition begun a century ago in New York City.