Its roots are religious in origin, but the practice is popular with Jewish people from across the religious spectrum, including many who would consider themselves secular. The celebration itself varies greatly, both historically and between different sects of Judaism. According to Jewish law, girls become Bat Mitzvah at the age of 12 or 13. Although the Bat Mitzvah is often understood as an extravagant birthday party (as in the 2006 film Keeping Up with the Steins or the 2005 episode of the television show Entourage entitled “The Bat Mitzvah”), Bat Mitzvah literally refers to the girl’s becoming a “daughter of the commandments.”

Origins and Evolution of the Rite. The Bar Mitzvah, a Jewish male’s coming-of-age ceremony (literally, “son of the commandments”), is a rite of passage dating back to medieval times. The Bat Mitzvah, however, is a modern invention. It is said that Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the left-wing movement known as Reconstructionist Judaism, developed the ceremony based on having seen a Bat Mitzvah on a trip to Italy; his daughter, Judith Kaplan, became the first American Bat Mitzvah in New York City in 1922. Since then, the Bat Mitzvah ceremony has become increasingly popular, especially in egalitarian Jewish communities where girls and women are regarded as having equal rights and responsibilities in religious practice as boys and men. In Orthodox communities, Jewish girls may have ceremonies or other familial events to mark their coming of age.

However, these generally do not involve reading from the Torah (Old Testament) or leading services, because these practices are not included in the religious participation of Orthodox women. Orthodox girls are not invited to have an aliyah (which literally means “ascent” and involves stepping up to the bimah, or stage, to recite a blessing over the Torah before it is read). Although the coming-of-age celebration for an Orthodox girl is more likely a small affair among family and friends, if she is to read from the Torah or conduct services in honor of becoming Bat Mitzvah, she does so exclusively in the presence of other women. It is in Orthodox communities that the differences between Bat and Bar Mitzvah ceremonies are most apparent; the ceremonies that mark a boy becoming Bar Mitzvah are much more public than are the ceremonies for girls.

The Bat Mitzvah Process. Bat Mitzvah ceremonies differ from place to place. In fact, in its most basic form, all that is required to become Bat or Bar Mitzvah is to be called up to the Torah for an aliyah-in theory, then, it is technically impossible for Orthodox Jewish girls to become Bat Mitzvah. In many denominations of Judaism today, the ceremony is increasingly marked by the full participation of the Bat Mitzvah in the entirety of a Saturday morning Shabbat (Sabbath) service. Usually the service is followed by a party (or sometimes several parties) and a Seudat Mitzvah (literally, a “commandment meal”), a celebratory feast.

In Conservative synagogues that support egalitarianism in the Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremony, young women embarking on the Bat Mitzvah journey often begin with Hebrew lessons three times a week. A girl may begin these lessons as early as first grade and may then become Bat Mitzvah five or six years later. Over the course of these years, she learns about Jewish history, the Hebrew language, Israel, ritual, and prayer. She is working toward gaining the knowledge and confidence to lead her congregation in a full Saturday morning service (two to three hours in length) on the day of her Bat Mitzvah. At a Conservative synagogue, the service is likely to be in Hebrew and much of it is sung, so the Bat Mitzvah also needs to learn the words and be able to carry the tunes to the various songs and prayers.

A main event in the Bat Mitzvah ceremony is the reading of the Haftorah, a text selected from the book of Prophets (Nevi’im) and read directly after the reading of the Torah during the Saturday morning service. The Haftorah is also in Hebrew, and, like the Torah portion, it is chanted, but the notes (called trope) of this cantillation are different from those used for other parts of the service. Although some girls read all or part of the Torah portion that falls on the day of their Bat Mitzvah, the Haftorah portion is usually the piece that they focus on most diligently during preparation in the year leading up to the big event.

At the end of the service, the members of the congregation often throw candies at the Bat Mitzvah as a way of offering hope for a sweet future. After the service, there is usually a party. In a Conservative synagogue, the ceremonies for girls and boys are often exactly the same, as are the expectations for them as members of the community. Another important part of many Bat Mitzvah celebrations is the D’var Torah, literally a “word of Torah.” In this case, the Bat Mitzvah is invited to discuss the Torah portion that is read on her Bat Mitzvah day. Usually this involves giving a summary of the reading, selecting its key themes, and consulting relevant commentaries on the portion (many of which are now available online). In their D’var Torah, young people often tie their portion to themes that are close to their own life experiences, as well as those of their families and communities.

Many look for ways to make the reading both personally meaningful and socially relevant. An interesting tradition one might encounter involves Bat or Bar Mitzvah youth who are using their celebrations as a way of remembering a young person who perished in the Holocaust, by symbolically sharing the bimah with her or him. In this way, the Bar or Bat Mitzvah takes on the adult responsibility of remembrance. It is also not uncommon to see young people use their Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebrations as a way of practicing tzedakah (literally, righteousness or justice, but generally understood to mean charity, which is considered an obligation given by God to all Jews) by earmarking a portion of the gift money they receive for a charity of their choice. In many synagogues today, individual or class tzedakah projects, usually involving some form of social justice, are an encouraged or even mandatory part of the preparatory curriculum.

Modern Incarnations of the Bat Mitzvah Rite. In recent years, criticism of the lavishness and excess of some Bar or Bat Mitzvah events has increased. In 2005, Washington Post reporter David Segal wrote that a New York businessman “reportedly spent millions on his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, renting out the Rainbow Room, which sits atop Rockefeller Plaza, and flying in the rapper 50 Cent, as well as Aerosmith, Tom Petty, and Stevie Nicks” (p. C-1). As Segal reports, this is an extreme case, but even more “average” events can include expensive dinners and live musicians or performers. In this respect, there is usually little difference between parties thrown for boys and girls. The focal point of the rite becomes the celebration, and, in a way, the individual child and her religious rite of passage is made peripheral, only the first chapter in a very long book of events organized around her becoming Bat Mitzvah. This certainly is not always the case; Bat Mitzvah ceremonies can be held at home with close family and friends, or they can be held in a synagogue filled with community members, followed by a modest lunch. Some girls travel with their immediate families to Israel to become Bat Mitzvah there. Indeed, there are probably as many ways to celebrate a Jewish girl’s coming of age as there are girls themselves.

Critics of the lavish turn that many of these events have taken are particularly concerned with how they detract from the ceremony’s significance (both religiously and symbolically, as a rite of passage). Indeed, the high visibility of Bat Mitzvah ceremonies has sometimes made young Jewish girls and boys the envy of their non-Jewish peers. Just as Jewish children have long envied Christmas and begged their parents for trees, Gentile children now demand “faux Mitzvah” parties. A 2004 Wall Street Journal article reported on one Methodist teen from Texas who had been to so many Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties that she insisted she was willing to learn Hebrew if it meant she could have one of her own. Her parents acquiesced to a party hosted by their daughter and two of her friends for 125 people at a country club, complete with all the nonreligious trappings she had come to associate with her Jewish friends’ rites of passage. The teen was quoted as saying: “I wanted to be Jewish so I could have a Bat Mitzvah. . . . [H]aving the party fulfilled that.” There have also been reports of “black Mitzvahs” thrown to celebrate a girl’s African American heritage. Heralded by USA Today reporter Olivia Barker as the “Bar or Bat Mitzvah bloat,” this idea represents a broader trend of holding increasingly elaborate teen celebrations, including Sweet Sixteens, debutante balls, and Quinceañeras.

Bat Mitzvahs in Popular Culture. Most people are more familiar with the Bar Mitzvah than the Bat Mitzvah, likely because the Bar Mitzvah has appeared much more frequently on film and in television. However, quite a few pop culture images of Bat Mitzvah girls exist. Young adult novels about Bat Mitzvahs include You Are So NotInvited to My Bat Mitzvah (2007), The Bat Mitzvah Club: Debbie’s Story (2001), and Pink

Slippers, Bat Mitzvah Blues (1994). Dozens if not hundreds of “how to” and “what is” books have also been published. Classic texts such as Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970) have also tackled discussions of religion and identity, including the Bat Mitzvah.

Bat Mitzvahs have also been visible on television. In 1981, Archie Bunker celebrated his niece and adopted daughter becoming Bat Mitzvah on Archie Bunker’s Place; in 1982, mean girl Muffy Tepperman (of Square Pegs) excluded her series’ stars Lauren and Patty from her Bat Mitzvah celebration; and, in the third season of Sex and the City (2000), Samantha was hired to be the publicist for the Bat Mitzvah of a cunning New York teen, who calmly states, “We’ll be lucky if we can swing this for under a mil.” More recently, Delia Brown of Everwood became Bat Mitzvah (2006). This story arcs across the last season of a five-year series following the life of a New York City surgeon who moves to Colorado after losing his (Jewish) wife. Delia, his daughter, sees Judaism as a way of connecting with her mother, which makes her father a bit perplexed. He would like her to have a party but is discouraged by the obstacles of preparing Delia to become Bat Mitzvah in their somewhat remote Colorado community.

It is through a chance connection with a patient, a Holocaust survivor, that Dr. Brown decides that finding a way for Delia to become a Bat Mitzvah is meaningful and worth struggling for. One of the most interesting popular culture Bat Mitzvahs is certainly Grace in Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005). Grace is a whip-smart independent thinker who defies every stereotype about Jewish girlhood. After refusing to become Bat Mitzvah at the age of 13, much to the chagrin of her Rabbi father, she decides to go through with it at age 16. In episode 10 of season 2, Grace tells her best friend Joan: “It was a political thing and a daughter of the Rabbi thing . . . one last empty ritual and then I’m out of here. Then, when you handed me the Torah, it hit me. This is a genius way of attacking adulthood, this religion. There’s no easy answers here. It’s basically a book of questions . . . and I hope I’m up for it.”

There is an enormous amount of information for and about Bat Mitzvahs on the Internet. Roughly thirty to forty groups directly relating to Bat Mitzvah celebrations are found on the social networking site Facebook; these groups are devoted to anticipating upcoming Bat Mitzvah celebrations (“If you are counting down the days until Emily’s Bat Mitzvah”), reminiscing about those past (“Maddie’s Bat Mitzvah was amazing”), and discussing silly facts or memories (“The majority of my pajamas I got at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah when I was 13”). There are also dozens of blogs by girls and their parents counting down to Bat Mitzvah celebrations. Searching online, one can hire a Rabbi or Cantor, sign up for Hebrew lessons, find (or register for) gifts, and rent a hall, band, or photographer. Many of these consumer sites specialize particularly in the Bat or Bar Mitzvah scene.

A popular Web site entitled “Bar Mitzvah Disco” launched a campaign encouraging people who became Bar and Bat Mitzvah in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to send in pictures from their special day. The response was so overwhelming that the creators expanded the Web site, published a book, and are making a movie, all of which chronicle the festivities (in this case, quite dated) of this rite of passage in a forum that allows for both humor and critique.