Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah Gifts

The staff of Kolbo Fine Judaica is committed to making Jewish life more meaningful and beautiful. To that end we have assembled the largest assortment under any one roof of hand-made jewelry, ritual items, talitot kipot, and Kiddush cups. You may purchase your invitations through us in-store or online making for easy one-stop shopping. We have everything you need to help create lasting memories for your son or daughter that will carry Jewish tradition from generation to generation.

Every young woman looks forward to the day she is considered an adult. If your daughter is about to reach that special time in her life, kolbo.com is an excellent resource. We have a variety of Bat Mitzvah gifts and are more than willing to share them with you. We also sell items in bulk to cater to parties and celebrations, including our unique selection of bulk Kippot, talitot, benchers and invitations. We have taitot/taleism (plural of talit or talis - Jewish prayer shawls) for every taste and budget. With have that special pink or purple talit for your fashionable daughter. Add to that almost something in every other color from folk-art t traditional styles and the selection is amazing!  One special gift you can personally give your young lady is her first mezuzah case. Knowing that it came from her family will make it a staple in her own home the rest of her life. Make your daughter's special day even better with help from kolbo.com. Choose us for Bat mitzvah.

The same goes for the Bar Mitzvah. We have a wide array of handsome talitot from machine made to handmade. If you are looking for a gift for a family member or friend, take a look at our Jewish Star, Chai, and Mezuzah necklaces. We have appropriate sculptural pieces and many pieces of graphic art that are based in biblical or Talmudic text that hold great meaning. We also carry many Jewish books that are suitable as gifts.

From Wikipedia: According to Jewish law, when Jewish children reach the age of majority (generally thirteen years for boys and twelve for girls) they become responsible for their actions, and "become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah". In many Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal synagogues, girls celebrate their Bat Mitzvahs at age 13, along with boys. This also coincides with puberty. Prior to this, the child's parents hold the responsibility for the child's adherence to Jewish law and tradition and, after this age, children bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics and are privileged to participate in all areas of Jewish community life. 

In modern Jewish observance, the occasion of becoming a Bar Mitzvah or (in non-Orthodox congregations) a Bat Mitzvah usually involves the young man or woman being called to read the Torah and/or Haftarah portion at a Shabbat or other service and may also involve giving a d'var Torah, a discussion of that week's Torah portion. Precisely what the Bar/Bat Mitzvah may do during the service varies in Judaism's different denominations and can also depend on the specific practices of various congregations. Regardless of the nature of the celebration, males become entirely responsible for following Jewish law once they reach the age of 13, and females once they reach the age of 12.

History of the Bar Mitzvah (from Wikipedia)

The modern method of celebrating one's becoming a Bar Mitzvah did not exist in the time of the Bible, Mishnah or Talmud. Passages in the books of Exodus and Numbers note the age of majority for army service as twenty The term "Bar Mitzvah" appears first in the Talmud, the codification of the Jewish oral Torah compiled in the early 1st millennium of the common era, to connote "an [agent] who is subject to scriptural commands," and the age of thirteen is also mentioned in the Mishnah as the time one is obligated to observe the Torah's commandments: "At five years old a person should study the Scriptures, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments..." The Talmud gives thirteen as the age at which a boy's vows are legally binding, and states that this is a result of his being a "man," as required in Numbers 6:2. The term "Bar Mitzvah," in the sense it is now used, can not be clearly traced earlier than the fourteenth century, the older rabbinical term being "gadol" (adult) or "bar 'onshin" (son of punishment); that is, liable to punishment for his own misdoings. Many sources indicate that the ceremonial observation of a Bar Mitzvah developed in the Middle Ages, however, there are extensive earlier references to thirteen as the age of majority with respect to following the commandments of the Torah, as well as Talmudic references to observing this rite of passage with a religious ceremony. 

History of the Bat Mitzvah

Except among Italian Jews, no ceremony parallel to a boy's Bar Mitzvah ceremony developed for girls before the modern age: "There were occasional attempts to recognize a girl's coming of age in eastern Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the former in Warsaw (1843) and the latter in Lemberg (1902). The occasion was marked by a party without any ritual in the synagogue.

Documents record an Orthodox Jewish Italian rite for becoming Bat Mitzvah (which involved an "entrance into the minyan" ceremony, in which boys of thirteen and girls of twelve recited a blessing) since the mid-nineteenth century and this may have influenced the American Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, who held the first public celebration of a Bat Mitzvah in America, for his daughter Judith, on March 18, 1922 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City.

Kaplan, an Orthodox rabbi who joined Conservative Judaism and then became the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, influenced Jews from all branches of non-Orthodox Judaism, through his position at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. At the time, most Orthodox rabbis strongly rejected the idea of a bat mitzvah ceremony.

As the ceremony became accepted for females as well as males, many women chose to celebrate the ceremony even though they were much older, as a way of formalizing and celebrating their place in the adult Jewish community.