March 18 marks 100 years since Judith Kaplan became the first American young woman to become bat mitzvah at Society for the Advancement of Judaism - Judaism That Stands For All, the congregation founded by Judith’s father, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism. SAJ is celebrating the centennial of this momentous milestone in modern Jewish life with a series of programs, co-sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Archive. The festivities will culminate on the evening of Thursday, March 17 with a celebration including a panel at SAJ, co-sponsored by the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, moderated by Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann of SAJ, featuring Dr. Carole Balin, historian and scholar on Bat Mitzvah; Rabbi Sandy Sandy Sasso, first female Reconstructionist Rabbi and author of Judy Leads the Way, a children’s book about Judith Kaplan’s story; Rabbi Joy Levitt, pioneering female rabbi and officiant of Judith Kaplan’s second Bat Mitzvah; and Rabbi Tamara Cohen, Chief Program Officer at Moving Traditions. The evening will also feature a reenactment from “Judith Kaplan 1922”, a curated Instagram Story project about Judith’s bat mitzvah. 

At CKS, we’ll be celebrating with a multimedia text study at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday March 19, looking at the wonderful resources that SAJ and JWA have put together to teach about Judith Kaplan and the generations of American Jewish women who followed in her footsteps.