Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah Celebrations
from 1914 to Today
The Bar Mitzvah marks the coming of age ceremony for boys at age thirteen At this time they become sons of the law. Confirmation classes for girls were introduced in the 1950s. The celebration of individual Bat Mitzvahs for girls, held at age twelve, did not occur in Saint John until the later 1960s. A number of women who did not have the opportunity in their youth have chosen to have Bat Mitzvahs as adults. After many years when there were no Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebrations, Saint John now sees as many as three such events in a single year. Until the 1960s Hebrew School classes were held every weekday afternoon and on Sunday mornings. Attendance at services or Junior Congregation was also expected. In the 1920s there may have been as many as one hundred students. From the 1950s to the 1970s, there were between 20 and 50 students. Today there are about 25 students.
Preparing for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Celebrations
To prepare for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, children study and learn the day’s portion of the Torah.
Many boys and girls present a brief speech that demonstrates understanding of what they had read and thanks their teachers and families. This is a time of a great celebration in the family.
Some families hosted elaborate parties beginning with a meal in the synagogue or in a local hotel with additional gatherings in the family home. Numerous gifts were bestowed, many of them reflections of their new religious responsibility—prayer books, Bibles, and other Jewish books.
Community members looked back on these events with nostalgia and humour:
Ben Cohen (1926)
“I had to start in at eleven or twelve years old with my Bar Mitzvah coming up in another year or so and I had to learn the Maftir so it was very difficult and I wasn’t a good student, I never was at any time… And then a month or two before the Bar Mitzvah Mr. Babb discovered he had giving me the wrong Maftir so I stumbled through it somehow or other and got my ‘today I am a man.”
Carl Bassen, 1914
Stanley Cohen (1947)
“ … The other interesting item about my Bar Mitzvah is that – at the last minute, and unknown in advance by my parents and me – I had to share it with a visiting rabbi. He was coming for a tryout, and I guess some of the balabatim [leaders] decided that one way to attract a crowd was to invite him when there was something doing at the shul. My Bar Mitzvah was what was doing. Thus, after months and months of preparation, I was not able to conduct all of the Friday evening and Shabbat morning services. Instead. I had to share them with the visiting rabbi …”
Susan Isaacs-Lubin (1955)
“It was really a confirmation. It was Rabbi Green’s big idea. He had a confirmation class. I don’t remember why we started it. We didn’t learn Haftorah or prayers that go along with it. We had a green book and we studied from that book and what it taught us were how to keep a Jewish home, not so much kosher, but just basically what a mother should do with children and things like that. … “
Back Row: Karen Essing, Sharon Cohen, Naomi Komar, Rabbi Green, Sandra Levine, Judy Guss, Michelle Green
Front row: Marsha Jacobson, Martha Everett, Sandra Tanzman, Susan Isaacs
Photograph: Confirmation Class, 1953
Andrew Koven (1970)
“For us it was a big deal, the religious aspect and the party. It was big deal and really important and particularly to my mother – for me it was the most important thing in my life that I would ever achieve. I better do it, I better do it well. I better make her proud. …
In those days, we did everything, conducted the entire Friday night service, we conducted both services on Saturday morning, the Shacharit and the Musaf and we did the Haftorah and we read directly from the Torah, not from the Siddur, without any vowels, so you had to know the tune, the trop, you had to know the words and the vowels and how they were pronounced without the vowels because there’s no vowels in the Torah itself. You basically had to memorize your whole Torah reading. …
The big question was, what was I going to wear that weekend. And I had to have different outfits because I was doing the Friday night service and then the Saturday morning service and then the party Saturday night and there was brunch on Sunday. I thought I was a kind of hipster kid and a natty dresser … I was dressed to the nines.”
Photograph – Marcia, Andrew and Jerry Koven
Teri Levine
“A Bar or Bat Mitzvah in the life of a young person growing up in Saint John was the very pinnacle of how a simcha should be done from beginning to end. The Bar or Bat Mitzvah needed someone to instruct them with the portion of the day. Some of the kids conducted services from Friday through to Havdalah on Saturday when Shabbat ended and others learned a Haftorah and a Maftir only. We were very fortunate to have some very capable tutors available for our kids like Dr. Moe Polowin, Lou Michelson and Danny Elman. All the kids in the community did us proud and we were delighted with everyone’s effort.
Invitations had to be ordered, kipahs obtained and a colour scheme determined. Types of flowers that were appropriate for the season and a friendly florist who was willing to make suggestions and to help create an original event were pretty much part and parcel. The planning began with the creation of many lists which were essential to the event running smoothly…”
Pearl Kanter, Lil Kashetsky and Jen Michelson, 1967
