The First American Bat Mitzvah: A Personal Account

The First American Bat Mitzvah: A Personal Account

In this article, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein shares a personal account of her Bat Mitzvah, the first Bat Mitzvah ceremony celebrated in America in 1922. The daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Judith recalls her own hesitations and those of her community, emphasizing how her participation in the service, although radical for its time, was actually quite limited and anti-climatic. This article was reprinted from “The Book of the Jewish Life” (UAHC Press) on MyJewishLearning, an online resource that empowers Jewish discovery for people of all backgrounds and levels of knowledge.