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Several years ago, based on citations about bat mitzvah which appeared on H-Judaica, I found the sources at the JNUL and used them in a talk at my son's bar mitzvah. This week I will be using the texts for a graduate seminar on gender, childhood, and family at the Rothberg School, so I thought I would pass the translations on for the benefit of interested readers. Joseph Hayyim Eliyahu ben Moshe of Baghdad, Ben Ish Hai (Jerusalem, 1870), Parashat Reeh, p. 132: "The male becomes obligated to perform the commandments at the age of thirteen years and one day. Therefore on the first day of the fourteenth year his father takes him by the hand and says, "Blessed is he who has freed me from the punishment incurred by this one." . . . He makes a banquet for friends and relatives, invites to it sages, and increases the banquet and the joy as the hand of God has been generous to him. This banquet will provide great protection for the Jews when their defenders say before God, 'Master of the universe, see how happy your children are to enter the yoke of the commandments.' This banquet is called a seudat mitzvah. . . . and those present will bless the son that he will merit Torah, fear of heaven, and fulfillment of the commandments. The great among the invited will place their hands on his head and bless him with the priestly blessing. If the son knows how to preach about the Torah he will give a proper word of Torah, if not the father will preach, and if not a sage among the guests will preach. . . . And also the daughter on the day that she enters the obligation of the commandment, even though they don't make for her a seudah, nevertheless that day will be one of happiness. She will wear new clothing and bless the sheheheyanu prayer and arrange for her entry to the yoke of the commandments. There are those who are accustomed to make her birthday every year into a holiday. It is a god sign and this we do in our house." An actual bat mitzvah ceremony was celebrated in Lwow in 1902. The Rabbi Dr. Yehezkel Caro, rabbi for the enlightened Jews and an opponent of the Zionists, arranged the ceremony, against which, for political reasons, young Zionists organized a protest demonstration outside the synagogue during the ceremony. No record of the name of the woman involved in this incident was noted. Dov Sadan, "Bat Mitzvah," Dat umada, (Tevet, 1949): pp. 59-61. Further discussion appears in Sarid esh, no. 94 of Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg (1885-1966). These texts were identified on h-judaica and further discussion has taken place on the Israeli Feminist Forum. Howard Tzvi Adelman, Jerusalem, Adelman@macam98.ac.il
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