•

LED
TO TH

Adult men and women reaffirm their
Judaism through b'nai mitzvah
ceremonies.

LESLEY PEARL STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY GLENN TRIEST

1

ibby Krieger Hirsh died at 50.
Her daughter, Frumeth Hirsh
Polasky, stood at the bimah and
chanted a Torah and Haftorah
portion at the same age.
The ceremony was the 38th
anniversary of the day when a
small, traditional synagogue in
Gary, Ind., called its second girl
to the altar to give a dvar Torah, a commentary,
and read the Haftorah at a Friday evening ser-
vice. The ceremony, a bat mitzvah, was consid-
ered progressive at the time — especially where
and when it occurred in 1955.
However, adult ceremonies like Ms. Hirsh Po-
lasky's, conducted in both Flint and Saginaw,
(J)
have grown increasingly common.
•
Like many women, and some men, Ms. Hirsh
Polasky had as an adult a desire to reaffirm her
= commitment to her religion and culture. A grow-
-u2 ing number of congregations now offer group class-
es, studying from one to two years and concluding
LJ.J
-
with a b'nai or b'not mitzvah ceremony.
The majority of participants are women who
2 did not have the opportunity before for bat mitz-
L-, vah ceremonies. Men, many of them converts or
c--) raised as secular Jews, are joining the classes,
too.
-
Although each participant has his own reasons
for making the decision, from creating a visible
statement of commitment to expressing ritual
equality, most share the feeling that the bar or

4

bat mitzvah ceremony was among the most im-
portant moments of their lives.
Susan Weidman Schneider, in Jewish and Fe-

male: Choices and Changes in Our Lives Today,
says the first known bat mitzvah ceremony oc-
curred in 1922.
Judith Kaplan, the eldest daughter of Rabbi
Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Reconstruc-
tionist movement, read from the Torah and chant-
ed the Haftorah.
Ms. Weidman Schneider said the concept of the
bat mitzvah gained popularity in the 1950s, and
adult bat mitzvah ceremonies in the 1970s. For
many adult women in the Midwest, who are just
now having bat mitzvah ceremonies, the right did
not exist during their childhood.
At Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, the first
adult bar and bat mitzvah class graduated in
1985. Rabbis and educational leaders at area syn-
agogues and temples say classes were formed
when people began to ask for them.
In Orthodox communities, the bat mitzvah cer-
emony is still something of an anomaly. Ortho-
dox synagogues do not allow women on the bimah
before a mixed crowd. However, the day after a
girl's 12th birthday, she automatically becomes
bat mitzvah in that she takes on the role of an
adult in the community. No ceremony is neces-
sary. Yet, in recent years, some girls mark the
coming of age with a dvar Torah, or sermon.
Ms. Hirsh Polasky's experience at 13, of not
reading from the Torah, was typical of the few bat

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Fran Pearlman assists Jill Goldman with her tallis.

