LI woman celebrates her bat mitzvah at 75

Claire Shapiro says she never got a chance to have a bat mitzvah ceremony because years ago in the Queens neighborhood where she grew up, her synagogue, like many others, didn't give girls the same opportunity as boys.

So this week, she finally realized her dream when, at the age of 75, she achieved the milestone at her synagogue in New Hyde Park.

"I wanted to do this because it was something denied me in my childhood," said Shapiro, a Fresh Meadows resident and retired television comedy writer. "It was unfinished business."

Shapiro and seven other women -- one 74 -- had the service at Temple Tikvah, which started adult education classes several years ago. The women studied Hebrew, practiced reading from the Torah aloud and took classes in general Jewish education and theology.

At the ceremony on Saturday, the women read from the Torah and delivered personal statements before a packed synagogue of about 250 people.

"I think it takes a lot of courage to do it," said Rabbi Randy Sheinberg, the congregation's leader.

For centuries, Jewish girls were not permitted to have a ceremony, which marks a girl's passage -- normally at age 12 or 13 (13 for boys' bar mitzvah) -- to taking responsibility for being a full-fledged member of the Jewish community. The first woman to have a bat mitzvah ceremony in the United States was Judith Kaplan Eisenstein in 1922.

Jewish girls and women "were not getting the same opportunities for Jewish education" as Jewish boys and men were, said Rabbi Moshe Edelman of the Manhattan-based United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

As much of Judaism evolved and the women's liberation movement took off in the 1960s and '70s, more and more synagogues opened the way for girls and women to have bat mitzvah ceremonies. Some women are just now getting around to doing so, at an advanced age, Edelman said.

In her statement on Saturday, Shapiro said she long felt resentment for what she considered second-class treatment. "It bothered me," she said. "It was humiliating to know that my Jewish upbringing meant cooking, cleaning, getting married, having children."

But since having the ceremony, "I haven't stopped smiling," she said. "This was a wonderful moment for me."

Beverly Osrow, 74, of Great Neck, joined her. She said that as she prepared for the bat mitzvah through the classes, "it became exciting and daunting. I wasn't sure I would be able to make it through."

Now she is glowing. "I felt it was a tremendous achievement in my life," she said.