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Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
T
rue to her word, on Saturday morning, April 23, 1955, thirteen-year-old
Judith Hyman stepped onto the
bimah
to become the first girl to mark
her
bat mitzvah
at the Isaac M. Wise Temple, the congregation playfully
dubbed the “Mother Church” of Reform Judaism. Dressed to the nines in a
blue-and-white-checked spring suit with matching heels, the
bat mitzvah
girl
read Torah, recited the
haftarah
,
led part of the service, and delivered a
bat
mitzvah
speech. The following day, to celebrate the
simchah
,
guests enjoyed
tea and cookies at the Hyman home while teenagers danced on the small
patio in the backyard to the music on Judith’s new, electric blue record player.
To our 21st-century eyes,
Judith Hyman’s
bat mitzvah
looks like a rather typical,
if modest, version of what
we are accustomed to
seeing. Girls regularly
mark their coming-of-age
on Saturday mornings in
ceremonies identical to
those of boys. Like Judith,
they are permitted to
participate in all aspects
of communal worship.
They regard themselves,
as their brothers do,
as rightful heirs to the
traditions contained in the Torah scroll,
which is usually passed down to them, both literally and figuratively. To
celebrate the milestone, parties of all shapes and sizes commonly follow
the service, as in the case of Judith’s lovely
suburban soirée.
But in post-World War II America, marking
a
bat mitzvah
was a rare event, especially
among Reform Jews. Temple records, along
with a national effort to survey “
Bat Mitzvah
Firsts,” have yielded fewer than a dozen
who stepped onto the
bimah
prior to
Judith Hyman.
The road to
bat mitzvah
was not neces-
sarily straight. A first did not necessarily
yield a second. Wise Temple, for instance,
would wait twelve years before another girl
followed in Hyman’s footsteps, and only
thereafter did
bat mitzvah
became a regular
feature of the congregation’s ritual practice.
Until 1979, confirmation remained the coming-of-age ceremony of choice
among Reform Judaism’s female adolescents. When Judith Hyman ascended
the Wise Temple
bimah
for a second time in 1958 to become confirmed, she
stood among 104 (!) stu-
dents, including 41 boys and
63
girls.
In a strange twist of fate, the
Reform Movement, the first
to promise religious equal-
ity to women, was last
among liberal Jews to
regularize
bat mitzvah
in
congregational life. Ironi-
cally, thirteen-year-old
Sally Priesand did not
chant
haftarah
or read
Torah to mark her com-
ing-of-age; she acquired
those skills years later in
rabbinical school at HUC-
JIR. Her groundbreaking
ordination did, however, inspire at least one girl to take the plunge. Shortly
after Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk ordained Sally Priesand, thirteen-year-old Sally
Rappeport agreed to become the first
bat mitzvah
at Congregation Oheb
Shalom in Baltimore in 1973. As she remembers with pride: “I was Sally, too.
I felt a strong connection to Rabbi Priesand – from Sally to Sally.”
Within six years of Rappeport’s first, the Reform Move-
ment’s Responsa Committee would report that Reform
Jews “universally observed”
bat mitzvah
as “an initial
step toward maturity,” leading to “continued Jewish
education.” Within a decade, the
bat mitzvah
girls
would have ceremonies identical to their brothers, both
in terms of content and timing.
Bat mitzvah
had
come of age in the Reform Movement.
Given the current, vigorous efforts in our
Movement to engage and retain youth after
b’nai mitzvah
,
the experiences of
bat mitzvah
pioneers can invigorate our thinking and help us to
chart a path forward.
Rabbi Carole B. Balin, Ph.D., is a co-curator of “
Bat Mitzvah
Comes of Age,”
a traveling exhibit sponsored by Moving Traditions and the National Museum of
American Jewish History, which tells how pioneering girls stepped onto the
bimah
to
become
bat mitzvah
and changed Jewish life forever. For more information and to secure
the exhibit for your community, go to
batmitzvahcomesofage.com.
When my Hebrew teacher, a young rabbinical student at Hebrew Union
College in Cincinnati named Hank Skirball, suggested that I become bas
mitzvah when I turned thirteen, I responded, “What’s that?” I didn’t know
of the concept. . . . I [only] knew of the group confirmation ceremony. . . .
Even my father, who was born in 1902, didn’t have a bar mitzvah. So [my
teacher] explained it to me, . . . and I said, “Okay! I’ll try that.”
—
Reminiscence of Judith Hyman Darsky
Bat Mitzvah
’
s Delayed
Coming-of-Age in Reform Judaism
Rabbi Carole B. Balin ‘91, Ph.D.,
Professor of History, HUC-JIR/New York
