Why there was no dancing at my bat mitzvah
Why I waited to have a ceremony as an adult—when I was ready to embrace my Jewish identity on my own terms
The first ceremony a century ago marked a turning point—in retrospect. But the new ritual didn’t catch on for years.
When to be Jewish is to feel besieged, how should we celebrate a bat mitzvah?
As parents plan bar and bat mitzvahs during the pandemic, a rite of passage is reimagined with new priorities to fit a new reality
My niece Shirley’s big day was a spark of light in the darkness
Without knowing the language, there was no way to fully participate in my community—not in the way I wanted to
Twenty residents of senior-living communities in Massachusetts prove that bat mitzvahs aren’t just for 13-year-olds
I’m not afraid of the bullies anymore
Party favors are Satan’s carnival prizes, and other bits of wisdom from a seasoned organizer of rites of passage
The most boring, the grossest, the most embarrassing to chant in front of your classmates!
A review of Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin’s new ‘B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary,’ which sometimes feels uninspired and out of touch
Eugenia Unger, a Holocaust survivor and co-founder of Buenos Aires’ Holocaust museum, celebrated the momentous occasion this past Shabbat
Jews do the milestone event all wrong. Here’s a quick, and meaningful, fix.
A sweet story about a group of women—three octogenarians and one nonagenarian—who embarked on a journey to become bat mitzvahs shows, once again, that it’s never too late to fulfill a lifelong dream
The legendary R&B singer has us feeling emotions after she stole the show at the bat mitzvah of her manager’s daughter
Your new Star Wars star is Alden Ehrenreich, a ‘Jewish prince of the Palisades’ who was discovered after a video he made with a buddy was shown at a bat mitzvah
Puritan restraint is fine, if you haven’t been unaccommodated and unwelcome elsewhere for centuries
