600 Celebrate Joint Bas Mitzvah

The Bas Mitzvah Club of Centro Novo Horizonte, Brazil directed by Shluchim Noach and Pessy Gansburg, is the place for girls that want to make the most out of their Bas Mitzvah year.

Using the curriculum of the Bat Mitzvah Club, the girls learn about our culture and its traditions, Jewish history, the holidays, Jewish ethics and values, prayers and more in a fun and interactive way. Classes include culinary, arts, music and more.

To culminate the year, a Bat Mitzvah ceremony and party are organized. This year nine girls participated, with 600 guests. All of the girls who frequent the club are from secular schools with limited Jewish background.

Two of the girls were not from Sao Paulo, living in small cities with very few Jews and no jewish community. For them to be able to have a Bat Mitzvah, the Centro offered them weekly classes via Skype.

This year’s theme for the ceremony was Jewish Heroines. The girls prepared a beautiful presentation where every girl chose a woman from the Torah and represented her in an educational fashion show. Each girl also received a diploma with gifts of a Siddur and the Bat Mitzvah bracelet. It was a beautiful and inspiring event.

The year is over, but everything they learned will be with them for the rest of their lives. As one of the girls remarked, “today was the best day of my life so far!”