13 Ways to Celebrate
- Invite girls, women, and non-binary folks of all ages to read from the Torah on Shabbat, March 19, 2022.
- Honor your community’s bat mitzvah pioneers with an aliyah or special blessing.
- Honor members of your community who became bat mitzvah as adults with an aliyah or special blessing.
- Record and upload your own bat mitzvah story for posterity to the Jewish Women’s Archive.
- Offer an adult education class on the rise and development of bat mitzvah.
- Follow @JudithKaplan1922 on Instagram or watch them on Youtube and delve into these Instagram Stories through a lesson plan created by Moving Traditions.
- Read and discuss the picture book Judy Leads the Way with younger students.
- Invite congregants to contribute their bat mitzvah photos to a community collage to be displayed on your website or in your building.
- Engage in community-wide conversations about gender-inclusive language and coming-of-age ceremonies, using Keshet’s Guide for the Gender Neutral B-Mitzvah and JWA’s video and discussion questions.
- Using Zoom break-out rooms, facilitate an intergenerational conversation with people of all ages sharing stories of their coming-of-age ceremonies.
- Learn about and honor pioneers and “firsts” in your community (e.g. the first woman to serve on the Board, the first LGBTQ president of your congregation, etc).
- Invite a communal leader to speak on the history and significance of bat mitzvah, women and Jewish ritual, or the effect of new conceptions of gender on the Jewish lifecycle.
- Make a time capsule for the next generation to open in 100 years. What would you like them to know about Jewish tradition and gender?
Rise Up/Bat Mitzvah at 100 is a project of the Jewish Women’s Archive and SAJ: Judaism That Stands For All.
