This lesson offers some historical information about the first Bat Mitzvah, the welcoming of a young Jewish woman to adulthood. Jews had for centuries celebrated a boy’s entry to adulthood with a Bar Mitzvah, meaning, ‘son of the commandments’. In 1922 Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, a member of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, performed the first Bat Mitzvah, for his daughter, Judith. This means ‘daughter of the commandments’. As we shall see, not everyone welcomed the move. We will explore historical information as well as information about Jewish belief, practice and community.

Lesson Outline

1. Search online for an image of Judith Kaplan at the 70th anniversary of the first Bat Mitzvah. The image is housed in the Jewish Women’s Archive, there are several versions online. You could also search for other images of Judith and her father Mordechai Kaplan, there are a few.
Give groups 3 minutes to come up with 3 questions about the image.

2) Cut the information below into cards and give a set to each group: (In the download at the end of this page there are ready made cards you can cut out.)

Judith’s father was a rabbi, and he performed her Bat Mitzvah

Bar Mitzvah is when a boy comes of age in Judaism

Judith Kaplan’s Bat Mitzvah was conducted in New York in 1922

No one had conducted a Bat Mitzvah before Judith Kaplan’s.

The young person reads from the Torah in front of the congregation

The first public Bat Mitzvah involved 13-year old Judith Kaplan

There are 316 commandments in then Torah (Jewish holy book)

Bat means ‘daughter’ in Hebrew

Bar Mitzvah means ‘son of the commandments’.

Ask groups to find answers to these questions, using the cards:
– What is a Bat Mitzvah?
– What is a Bar Mitzvah?
– why is the first Bat Mitzvah is significant in Jewish history?

3. Ask groups to predict how this was received in the Orthodox community. Do they think it was welcomed as a positive change, or resisted as an unwelcome change?

4. In fact not all New York Jews supported Judith’s Bat Mitzvah. Write the 4 statements below into 4 speech bubbles and display. Ask groups to identify TWO reasons why Judith’s Bat Mitzvah was seen as a bad idea, and TWO reasons why it was seen as a good idea.

A woman’s sphere of influence is the home, so it is right and fitting that a young woman should be welcomed into adulthood in the home.

Religions need to change with the times. Traditions adapt without destroying the religion. The belief has not changed, just the way of showing it has changed.

Women have more of a role in public life in modern times so it is correct for women to be more involved in public religious ceremonies.

Jewish women and girls have always been ‘daughters of the commandments’. A new ceremony is not necessary.

5. Introduce the idea that religion can be understood as a combination of beliefs, practices and community or tradition; how groups see the world, what they do, and who they do it with. Show a diagram like this. You could give examples of beliefs, practices and community traditions, which pupils have to match to each element to make this point.

6) Using the information squares below, answer the question; ‘Was Rabbi Kaplan seen as challenging religious beliefs, practices or traditions with the first Bat Mitzvah?’

The Torah is the first part of the Jewish bible, consisting of 5 books.

The 613 commandments cover all aspects of community & religion.

The Torah teaches about the Jewish prophets and early Jewish history.

Traditionally only men read from the Torah.

‘Torah’ means ‘teachings’ (Hebrew).

The Torah begins with God creating the universe.

The Bar Mitzvah ceremony is not mentioned in the Torah, or the Talmud (books that interpret the Torah).

The first mention of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony is in the Middle Ages, not the time of the Torah.

Traditionally, only men would read from the Torah in public. Women had no roles of authority in public; in business or religion.

The Jewish bible contains elements of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. For example, adult Jews fast on the Day of Atonement, and children would begin their fast at 13.

At a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, the 13-year old boy reads a portion of the Torah to the congregation at the synagogue. This is the first time he has read from the Torah in public.

The Mishnah (part of the Talmud) states, ‘”At five years old one should study the Scriptures, at ten years for the Mishnah, at 13 for the commandments…’ (Mishnah Pirkei Avot 5:21)

Resource Spotlight

Religious Imaginations is a religious literacy project of the LSE Faith Centre, kindly supported by Culham St Gabriel’s Trust.

Religions are imaginative frameworks that shape how believers interact with the world, in patterns that are recognisable but not uniform. In these films, the focus is on a key concept within the six featured religious imaginaries, to build understanding of both the unity and the diversity within the world faith traditions.

It is impossible to encapsulate the beliefs and practices of millions of people in a short film, religions traditions are diverse, however, it is hoped those from these faith backgrounds will recognise their expression of faith as fitting within the framework set out.

These films are offered as a resource for use by students, companies, and public service departments as a starting point for developing religious literacy skills. You can view the films here and see a sample film below.

Questions for teachers: 

• How do the concepts explored in these films influence the lived experience of the religious communities they belong to?
• In what ways can these films be used to explore differences both within religions and between them?
• What makes video especially effective for exploring religious imaginations compared to text?

Resource Spotlight

Whose worldviews is a free resource for you to use with your pupils created by Stephen Pett from RE Today. It is best suited for use with secondary pupils but could be used by pupils age 9-11 in the primary classroom.

School pupils (and anyone else!) can fill in their responses to questions about their idea of God, and the impact their worldviews have in their lives, and have their responses turned instantly into a graphic representation – a snowflake or a spidergram. These can then be compared across a group or a cohort, sorted according to age, location, religious or non-religious worldview. Teachers can set up a group to enable pupils in their classrooms to see visual representation of their ideas about God and how far ideas of religion have an impact on their personal worldview.

Building on research in psychology from Johnson, Sharp et al, and testing the famous theory of dimensions of religion from Ninian Smart, this website gives visual presentations of data from your own classroom, to compare with others around the world. You can find lots more on using the snowflake and the spidergram in the secondary classroom from RE Today.

Please note that this is a public website and take care with any names/labels that identify your pupils too easily.

Have a look at these examples:

Resource Spotlight: Resources from the Faith and Belief Forum 

The Faith and Belief Forum together with their RE partners have produced and signposted a number of excellent resources suitable for Inter Faith week and beyond. The team have produced four pupil facing PowerPoints with teacher prompts in the notes; for 4-7 year olds, for 7-11year olds, 11-14 year olds and 14-18 year olds. Each PowerPoint unpacks the Inter Faith week 2025 theme of Community: Together we Serve in four sections

• What community is
• How to build community
• Service and equality
• Sharing in community

The PowerPoints are replete with discussions, activities and films to share.

The Faith and Belief Forum produce a whole set of excellent resources that are useful for use outside of Interfaith week. You might want to look at

Skills for Dialogue (Primary)

Skills for Dialogue (11-14)

Skills for Dialogue (16-18)

Objects Connect (5-11)

The Art of Q & A (11-16)

Resource Spotlight: Telling Powerful Stories Through Film: Ten TrueTube Films

CTVC Ltd is an award-winning independent media company that makes programmes for TV, Radio and Digital platforms.

What makes this of interest to RE teachers is that CTVC is first and foremost a charity, set up by the late Lord J Arthur Rank in 1965 with a remit to produce religious, ethical and moral content. Lord Rank was a wealthy industrialist and film mogul (remember the guy banging a big gong at the beginning of old films? That was Rank Films), but he was also a devout Methodist and passionate about the power of film to educate an audience about religion.

So – for example – we have produced seven series of Pilgrimage for BBC Two (with an eighth coming up Easter 2026); we have made dozens of short films for Religious Studies (like this one) for BBC Bitesize; documentaries about religious issues (like this one) for BBC Radio; and we have our very own podcast site called Things Unseen for people who have a faith, or just feel intrigued by the spiritual dimension to life.

Watch this short film, which shows the range of content we make.

Think about…

• How you could use our films to help you explain a variety of worldviews in your lessons?
• How you could use our films to encourage your pupils to share their own stories?
• What films you would like us to make? (we’re always looking for ideas!)

Lord Rank’s vision for education is most obviously continued by TrueTube – a website that provides free short films for schools. All of the films are about values in some way or another, so they get used in assemblies, form times, PSHE, Citizenship and – yes – Religious Education. We have a short film about how to use the TrueTube website.

The strap-line for TrueTube is “short films, big stories” – and storytelling is at the heart of what we do. It might be a story we’ve made up, or a religious story that we’ve given a new spin, or a story that someone tells us about their own real-life experiences.

Here’s a selection of the short films we’ve produced…

The Demon’s Head – Nominated for a Children’s BAFTA and shortlisted for a Learning on Screen Award

The story of the goddesses Durga and Kali, and their defeat of the demon Mahishashura – a gory tale that is associated with the Hindu festival of Navaratri.

Origins – Winner of a Children’s BAFTA

This film came out of a conversation between members of the TrueTube team about how our different families and cultures usually shape what we grow up to believe. A baby is born – what lies ahead of her? What are the different lives she might lead? It’s a good film to show at the beginning of Year 7, right at the start of a course in Religious Education, to make the point that we don’t always choose our beliefs and so we should be open to finding out about other people’s.

Vaisakhi

The TrueTube cameras visited a Gurdwara on the day of Vaisakhi to see what happens there, and to listen to the locals telling us in their own words about the festival and what it means to them. This includes the story of Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s formation of Khalsa, told with simple narration and some beautiful pictures.

Pilgrimage Moments: Journey of Faith

Because CTVC Ltd makes the Pilgrimage TV series for the BBC, they kindly allowed us to take lots of clips from the full episodes to share on TrueTube. This particular film is a good example of someone sharing their own story. Paralympian Steph Reid tells her fellow celebrity Pilgrims how she lost her foot in a boating accident, and how it affected her belief in God – and it’s not in the way you might expect.

The Bible in Ten Minutes – Shortlisted for a Sandford St Martin Award

It does what it says on the tin. One of those ideas that looks great on paper, but then someone has to figure out if it’s even possible. Turns out it is, just about. It’s an animated overview of the Bible’s contents (and some of its stories) and shows how the different books within its covers are arranged.

Hijab and Me – Nominated for a Children’s BAFTA, shortlisted for a Learning on Screen Award, a Sandford St Martin Award and a Broadcast Digital Award

This is a great example of contributors telling their own stories. Three young Muslim women share their different interpretations of “hijab” and why wearing hijab is important to them.

The View from the Classroom: Abortion

This is more about young people telling us their “truths”, rather than “stories” in the usual sense. We took a camera around the country to visit school classrooms and asked young people to tell us what they think about various ethical issues. There are five films (so far) and this one provides a wide range of views on the topic of Abortion.

Holy Cribs – The Synagogue

Again, not a “story” as such, but this film gives a young Jewish man the opportunity to show us his Synagogue and to talk about his beliefs and culture. The Holy Cribs films are TrueTube’s most successful series – so successful that in 2023, we decided to completely re-shoot the original Holy Cribs films we made back in the early 2010s to make sure they stayed as relatable as possible to our audience. Each film provides full access to a holy building – ideal if you can’t go on a visit, or great preparation if you’ve got one coming up.

Refugee – Winner of a Children’s BAFTA, a Learning on Screen Award, Broadcast Digital Award and a Sandford St Martin Trust Award.

A rare venture into actual drama, this is the story of a young refugee, told in reverse – so we see where she’s come from (what looks like a normal UK home) right at the end. Not specifically RE, but it can be used to start an empathy exercise when talking about multiculturalism, community cohesion and the like.

Screwball! – Winner of two Children’s BAFTAs and a Sandford St Martin Award, shortlisted for a Broadcast Digital Award

Another drama, in which a young man and a young woman navigate their first sexual experience together. Again – not specifically RE, but it can be used as an introduction to discussions around pre-marital sex, sexism and gender roles.

Resource Spotlight: What do people do with Culham St Gabriel’s grants?

July 2023

We bring our theme of ‘celebrating the Religion and Worldviews’ community to a close with a truly heartening, exciting and inspiring insight into the questions teachers are asking. Culham St Gabriel’s are proud to present those individuals and groups who have received CSTG grants in the last year or two years. Below you will find videos where grantees explain their projects, what they were hoping to achieve, and the fascinating insights they have gained through the process. As you will see, grantees had many different types of questions, such as how to create a Religion and Worldviews curriculum from age 4 upwards, how to explore religious diversity with young people across Europe and how to engage teachers and pupils in learning about the climate crisis through Religion and worldviews.

 

Timings for the individual films are:

00:00 Barnet SACRE Bringing the High-level Academic Religion and Worldviews Approach of Anne Waves into the RE Classroom
01:32 The University of Strathclyde After Religious Education: Pedagogical Principles for an Education in ‘Religion and Worldviews’
03:03 Open University Young People and Religion: Creative Learning with History and Filmmaking
04:46 University of Leeds Engaging Local Communities with Teaching Religion and Worldviews
06:02 Diocese of Bristol and South Gloucestershire Local Authority ‘RE:Hive’ Project: Peer to Peer School Improvement
07:30 St Peter Saltley Trust and the University of Birmingham RE:Connect RE Teacher Fellowship Programme
09:33 Wikimedia UK Tackling Cultural Bias on Wikipedia
13:22 Rose Castle Foundation Religions and Worldviews Through Scripture

As you can see from the films, grant-funded projects use different sources of information to further their understanding, such as interviews with teachers, pupils and faith members, reading around relevant literature and in the field research. The results of these projects will benefit different aspects of the Religion and Worldviews community, from pupils to classroom teachers, to those pursuing a more scholarly understanding of teaching and learning in the world today.

Why not think about applying for grant funding? If you have a question that has always bothered you, or an idea that you think could make a positive change, think about putting it to the test.

Culham St Gabriel’s welcome applications from all people. Our main strategic objective is the promotion of Religion and Worldviews as a curriculum subject. If you have an idea which increases understanding of Religion and Worldviews, engages decision-makers, supports teachers’ development or champions inspiring teaching, this could be for you.

Find out about applying for grants with Culham St Gabriel’s