‘A Really Gorgeous Community’

On a chilly, overcast Saturday morning, a few dozen people file into the sanctuary of Helen Hills Hills Chapel. They grab siddurs (prayer books) on the way to their seats, and some drape tallits (prayer shawls) over their shoulders, preparing to celebrate the bat mitzvah of Vera Backman ’25.

Anyone familiar with bar and bat mitzvahs may be slightly confused. Typically, these coming-of-age ceremonies are held in celebration of Jewish children when they turn 12 or 13 and are deemed old enough to live out the teachings and commandments of the Torah. Backman is decidedly older than the average celebrant, but Smith makes it possible for any student who wasn’t able to have a bat mitzvah as a child or who discovered their faith in college to experience the ceremony with friends and family.

“Smith is really where I first found Jewish community,” says Backman, who was never enrolled in a Hebrew school when she was young and didn’t grow up with a congregation. Over the course of her time at Smith, Backman slowly began to immerse herself in her faith: she learned Hebrew, took a keen interest in Jewish studies, began regularly attending Shabbat services, and completed an internship in Israel. After attending the b-mitzvahs (a more inclusive, gender-neutral term for the ceremony) held by the Smith College Jewish Community (SCJC) for fellow students, Backman made a decision that brought her time at Smith full circle.

“It feels like an apt conclusion to this period of my life,” she says, adding that it was especially important for her to include the translation and interpretation of the Torah in her learning. “I’m delighted that I got to do so in the place where the community—faculty and students alike—inspired me to pursue my interests in the first place.”

Since the SCJC began holding b-mitzvahs back in 2023, Smithies have worked hard to ensure that their peers have a memorable ceremony. In between the rush of already demanding college schedules, they help each other study the Torah, volunteer to read passages during the ceremony, arrange for Kosher catering for the reception, and most importantly, show up to celebrate their friends at the ceremony itself.

Backman’s bat mitzvah was attended by family, friends, professors, and fellow members of the SCJC, including Lux Onigman ’26, who worked with Backman as her tutor leading up to her bat mitzvah. “[Vera] had a lot to process, and it’s a lot of work,” Onigman says, citing that due to the organized chaos of college schedules, students have around six weeks to study and prepare for their b-mitzvahs as opposed to the typical nine months to a year. “There’s so much effort that goes into it, and it’s not about whether or not it’s perfect. It’s the fact that she’s engaging with the text and having her own ideas about what it means for her. Rabbi Bruce [Bromberg Seltzer, Jewish student adviser at Smith] and I were really, really proud of her and how she brought it all together.”

Backman isn’t the first student Onigman has tutored; they’ve held a tutoring role since the SCJC began offering b-mitzvah ceremonies. “There was a senior back then who had gotten really connected to the Jewish community here and who had never really had a b-mitzvah as a kid,” Onigman explains.

“They were advocating hard for it to be a thing we did, whether it was for students who never really had a b-mitzvah, had transitioned since their original b-mitzvah and no longer felt connected to it, or wanted to convert.” Thanks to donations through the Florence “Florrie” Farber Einhorn ’66 Rabbi Discretionary Fund, the SCJC has been able to hold b-mitzvahs for 14 students since 2023.

One of those 14 students was Sofia Rosenbaum ’27, who also attended Backman’s b-mitzvah after completing her own last year. “I didn’t have a bat mitzvah when I was a kid for a variety of reasons, and felt it was important to do so at this time in my life when I was starting to explore Jewish identity on my own terms,” says Rosenbaum, who looks back fondly on her own ceremony, especially the fact that her parents and sisters were able to attend. “I wanted to do it because I was truly interested in doing the preparation and learning required for it, and not just because I was ‘supposed to’ at a certain time.”

The decision Rosenbaum made is one that Rabbi Bruce appreciates, and one he knows isn’t taken lightly. “B-mitzvahs are always exciting,” he says, “but to have someone decide to have one later in life as an adult, to make that conscious decision for themselves—that’s something very special.”

While Lily Martin ’26 didn’t have her b-mitzvah through the SCJC (instead, she completed hers at a local synagogue through Smith’s Wilson-Rikert Grant), she’s quick to credit the Jewish community at Smith for playing a pivotal role in her decision.

“When I came to Smith, I got to meet a whole new group of Jewish friends from all over the country, and I learned more about my religious traditions in class and in temple,” she says. After regular jokes with friends about having an adult bat mitzvah, she made the decision to pursue it. “Smith was such a big part of my decision to take the leap.”

That welcoming environment Martin describes is the exact atmosphere Onigman strives to create both on campus and within the SCJC itself. “There are some of us who were involved in Jewish life at home and grew up with a Jewish background, but I think for the most part, the SCJC is made up of people who are connecting to Judaism now that they’re in college and want to engage more with their identities. We’re geared toward inclusivity; we do a lot of teaching and learning together. It makes for a really gorgeous community.”