Group of women prove bat mitzvah is ageless

It's never too late to celebrate one's bat mitzvah, as a group of women at a Commack nursing home discovered.

On Monday, eight women and a staff member at the Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center had a ceremony during which they were inducted into the home's "Bat Mitzvah Society," named for the coming-of-age religious celebration that occurs when a Jewish girl turns 12.

The women, who ranged in age from their 60s to 97, didn't have a bat mitzvah ceremony when they were girls because it wasn't a common practice back then, said Rabbi Zev Schostak, director of pastoral care at the center.

"When they grew up, there was no such thing as a bat mitzvah," Schostak said.

Judy Kahn, 77, a resident who taught the bimonthly classes in Jewish history and practice to prepare the women for the ceremony, said her students came from diverse Jewish backgrounds.

"Some had had a little bit of Jewish education. Many have not had anything," she said.

Kahn studied Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. One of her teachers was Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, who in 1922 became the first woman to have a bat mitzvah ceremony in the United States.

Adult bar and bat mitzvah classes are now a mainstay of many synagogues.

At the Monday night ceremony, each woman read aloud a personal essay that described an aspect of her Jewish learning, and how it related to her life and history.

Barbara Lefkowitz, 82, said she never knew about bat mitzvah ceremonies as a girl, and she felt her Jewish education had been lacking.

Monday's event, she said, felt "like a hole's been filled in."

Karen Nash, director of therapeutic services, oversaw the classes and eventually came to participate in them as well.

"This really gave me my formal Jewish education," Nash said.

She said after the ceremony, more residents - including non-Jewish residents and even some men - decided they wanted to attend the classes, too.

"When achieving a goal," Nash said, "success has no age boundaries."