Articles About Bat Mitzvah by Barbara Vinick and Shula Reinharz
The Prosen People Blog, Jewish Book Council
In the few months since our book was published, women of different ages have come up to us with stories of their own experiences of bat mitzvah... These stories have brought home to us in a personal way the trajectory of Jewish women's experience in the last half-century in the United States...Read more
The Prosen People Blog, Jewish Book Council
I didn’t have a bat mitzvah...When I reached 13 in the 1950s, girls who attended three-day-a-week
The Prosen People Blog, Jewish Book Council
The other day I had a discussion with a group of girls about their ideal bat mitzvah...Several of the girls said that that their ideal was to celebrate away from home. A few wanted to go to Israel, specifically the Western Wall or Masada. Other ideas were more surprising: “Germany, because it has great technology,” “Japan, because I love anime,” and “France, so I can see a real fashion runway”...Read more
"Bat Mitzvahs Around the World"
An interview in 614: HBI eZine
Meet Barbara Vinick, who has been collecting stories from Mumbai, Libya, Croatia, and other surprising areas of the world. Read the interview
"My Jewish Armchair Trip" by Barbara Vinick
614: HBI eZine
For the past several years, I have collected stories from around the world about bat mitzvah, the ceremony that marks the coming-of-age of Jewish girls. When I tell people about this collection, the question I hear most often is "So, did you go to those places?" No, in the digital age, I didn't have to. I was a virtual traveler on a tour that took me around the globe to Jewish communities in 78 countries. From my home computer, I journeyed to places near and far, from Jewish congregations in neighboring towns to remote locations where I never knew Jews had made their homes...Read more
"We Might All Be Able To Learn From These Bat Mitzvah Girls" by Shulamit Reinharz
The Jewish Advocate
Chatting with a young person who had just finished a year-long internship at a national Jewish organization, I asked her what she had learned. She answered immediately, “I learned to hate our competitor organization.” This response is altogether too common in a community with many organizations that often are trying to outdo each other in fundraising, attracting new members, drawing an audience and disseminating their divergent philosophies...Read more
The Jewish Advocate
Chatting with a young person who had just finished a year-long internship at a national Jewish organization, I asked her what she had learned. She answered immediately, “I learned to hate our competitor organization.” This response is altogether too common in a community with many organizations that often are trying to outdo each other in fundraising, attracting new members, drawing an audience and disseminating their divergent philosophies...Read more
"The history of the
book" by Barbara Vinick
When I was first given the
idea to collect worldwide stories about bat mitzvah, I wasn’t optimistic. After
all, wasn't bat mitzvah "invented" in the United States? Had they
heard of celebrating a girl's coming-of-age in other places in the world? And
wasn't it limited to Reform and Conservative congregations?... As it turned
out, I was wrong on all counts...Read
more