A Guide on the Bat Mitzvah

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.