Wish Fulfillment

by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

I was recently talking with my niece about what her bat mitzvah will be like—we’re both looking forward to it, although it’s still four years away.

When Flo Wish has her bat mitzvah in a little over a week, she’ll have her own niece there to support her—as well as her grandniece. Flo is 90 years old. She will celebrate her bat mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ritual that usually occurs when a girl reaches 12 or 13, alongside eight other women in their 90s, and one woman who is a mere 89 years of age.

When these women were 12 or 13, girls did not have bat mitzvahs. It was only boys who got to have bar mitzvahs and be welcomed into the adult Jewish community as full members. But much has changed and in most Reform and Conservative Jewish congregations today, women are accepted as equals. These women’s experiences chart the progress we have made over the past century, in both religious and secular communities, and make us stop and appreciate where we are today.

This group of 10 women have been studying hard to prepare for their upcoming bat mitzvahs. They are proving something to themselves, and they are proving to the rest of us that it is never too late for anything.