Many Motivations for Adult
B’NAI MITZVAHS
SELAH MAYA ZIGHELBOIM | JE STAFF
J Senior Rabbi Jill Maderer (far left) poses with Congregation
Rodeph Shalom’s most recent B’nai Mitzvah class. PHOTOS PROVIDED
UDAISM JUST FELT RIGHT to Julia Engel,
who grew up Catholic but converted to Judaism
more than two decades ago.

She studied the religion and attended services.

She married a Jewish man and had a Jewish family.

But there was one element of the Jewish tradition
she had never experienced, so when her 10-year-old daughter
received the date for her Bat Mitzvah four years ago, Engel start-
ed to think that she wanted to have one, too.

“This will bring my journey, maybe, full circle, from where I
started 20-some years ago when I was 26 years old, when I want-
ed to become Jewish as a choice, a Jew by choice,” Engel said. “I
thought, ‘This is it then. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to
do. I’ve attended; I’ve studied; I’ve worshipped; I’ve lived. Now,
I’m going to actually complete it by doing this.’”
For the women and men — though mostly women — who
have B’nai Mitzvahs as adults, their reasons for doing so vary.

Some, like Engel, converted as adults. Others grew up in fam-
ilies that didn’t have a strong connection to their Jewish com-
munities or couldn’t afford Hebrew classes. And then, of course,
there’s that common story of the woman who has a Bat Mitzvah
as an adult because the community she belonged to as a child
only performed Bar Mitzvahs for boys.

Unlike B’nai Mitzvahs for 12- and 13-year-olds, these adult
B’nai Mitzvahs tend to be done as a group, the celebrations tend
to be more low-key and the B’nai Mitzvahs themselves bring
added perspective to the experience.

16 MARCH 22, 2018
Barbara Marx (standing, second from left) with retired Adath Israel
Cantor Bernard Lowe (far left), Rabbi Eric Yanoff (far right) and her
B’nai Mitzvah class
Congregation Rodeph Shalom has an adult B’nai Mitzvah
class whenever there are enough people who have expressed in-
terest in participating, said Rabbi Eli Freedman, which generally
happens every few years. Their last class, a group of eight wom-
en, had their B’not Mitzvah in March 2017.

Freedman said adult B’nai Mitzvah classes used to be domi-
nated by older women who hadn’t had a Bat Mitzvah when they
were younger because their communities didn’t practice them.

Now, that’s no longer the case.

“We’re seeing less of that,” Freedman said. “There’s just not
as many of those women around. ... What we’re seeing more of
now is more conversion students.”
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Converts are now the most common reason for adult B’nai Mitz-
vahs at Rodeph Shalom, he said, but most of their adult B’nai Mitzvahs
are still women because most of the conversions they do are of women.

Despite the changing motivations to have adult B’nai Mitzvahs,
women still dominate this custom at other synagogues as well. All 10
people in Barbara Marx’s adult B’nai Mitzvah class at Adath Israel in
2014, for example, were women.

Marx never had a Bat Mitzvah as a child because her parents could
only afford either piano lessons or Hebrew school, and she was doing
well with piano. But as a child, she had conversations with her grandfa-
ther about having a Bat Mitzvah one day, and as the years went by, she
became more observant.

“When Adath Israel offered the adult Bat Mitzvah classes, it
seemed like the opportunity was right,” she said. “It was too good to
pass up actually.”
Studying for her Bat Mitzvah took about eight months. Like most
adult B’nai Mitzvahs, the class had their ceremony together. At the end,
they were blessed beneath a chuppah held by their adult children. Af-
terward, they had a kiddush luncheon, where Marx held up a thimble
of vodka to her grandfather, who died when she was 11 years old.

“He was the smartest person in the world, or at least in my world,”
Marx said. “His good opinion of me meant an awful lot.”
More recently in January, Melissa Ufberg had what she called a
“surprise Bat Mitzvah.” After eight months of learning to read He-
brew and trope with Susan Novack, she went to Congregation Adath
Jeshurun to read Torah for the first time and found out that her hus-
band had invited her friends and family for an event he had made into
her Bat Mitzvah.

As a child, Ufberg didn’t have a Bat Mitzvah because her family
didn’t belong to a synagogue, and she had little Jewish education. Her
husband, though, had a strong Jewish upbringing, so they decided
they wanted Judaism to be a major part of their home.

Their children attend Perelman Jewish Day School, and seeing
them learn Hebrew inspired Ufberg to learn to read Torah. A trip she
took to Israel with the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project motivated
her as well.

“That really also lit the spark for me to seek out learning and to
seek out something that I always felt was missing, and to take the
time — because everybody’s lives are so busy and everything — but
to take the time to do something that I had wanted to do for a long
time,” Ufberg said.

At the ceremony, Ufberg’s friends gifted her with a tallit from Israel
that they chipped in to buy.

“I had tears in my eyes when they gave it to me,” she said. “It was
such a meaningful moment in receiving a tallit of my own. I had nee-
dlepointed one for my sons that they’ll receive on their Bar Mitzvahs,
but I had never imagined that I would have one of my own, that I
would have the opportunity to be wearing that.”
That evening, her husband gave her a pocket watch that once be-
longed to his great-great-grandfather. Ufberg said it is a custom in
their family to re-gift this same watch to each person in their family
who has a Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Having one when she did, Ufberg said, gave the ceremony deeper
meaning for her than it might have when she was just 13.

“Being older, you have the perspective of the specialness of the
moment and just kind of thinking, Jews all over the world, not
everyone has this,” she said. “Not everyone is able to openly read
Torah and worship as they want. Through the ages, our people
haven’t, so that really struck me also, that I’m part of this history,
this heritage. As a 13-year-old, I might not have appreciated that
as much as I would as an adult.” ❤
szighelboim@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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