![]() ![]() She will read a portion of the Torah and sing the blessings at the Saturday morning services. With fears of failure and ridicule, and with only one day to study and practice, 12-year old Judy will become bat mitzvah. Judy is completely surprised when her father announces that there will be changes in his synagogue. It is the 1920s, and women in the United States have both recently won the right to vote and are working at jobs once held only by men. She is particularly disturbed that during services in the synagogue, women sit separately from men, no women read from the Torah, and only boys become bar mitzvah when they turn 13. Scattered on the pages as if they are written notes, many of her questions are profound and posed to her rabbi father concerning beliefs and traditions of Judaism, even the existence of God. Judy Kaplan loves to ask all kinds of questions. The tradition of bat mitzvah in the synagogue had just begun. ![]() But when Judy's father, Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, said it was time for her to lead services, she nearly dropped the noodle kugel. Maybe it was time for things to change in the synagogue as well. In the 1920's the world was changing for women. Papa, why can't there be music in the synagogue? ![]()
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