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The bat mitzvah turns 90, and religious equality for Jewish women is still growing

It was a simple walk from her seat to the front of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a New York City synagogue. But when 12-year-old Judith Kaplan was summoned by her rabbi father to read from her Bible and recite some blessings, the act was revolutionary. On a March Saturday in 1922, two years after women in America got the right to vote, Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan broke tradition. He had, in essence, held a coming-of-age ceremony for his daughter, what boys at 13 had celebrated for centuries.

... Rebecca Einstein wore a prayer shawl designed by her mother in 1984 in Fountain Valley, Calif. (Courtesy of the National Museum of American Jewish History)
... Rebecca Einstein wore a prayer shawl designed by her mother in 1984 in Fountain Valley, Calif. (Courtesy of the National Museum of American Jewish History)Read more
    by Sally Friedman, For The Inquirer
    Published 
Published