Too Much Bar and Not Enough Mitzvah? A Proposed Research Agenda on Bar/Bat Mitzvah

Jewish educators are understandably interested in research on how bar/bat mitzvah affect Jewish education or research on what Jewish schools have done to avoid the distortions of a focus on bar/bat mitzvah. Research might also focus on the somewhat different and more ambitious topic of the role that bar/bat mitzvah play in contemporary Jewish identity. Three examples-the meaning of bar/bat mitzvah in intermarried families, bar/bat mitzvah as a ritual entry into early adolescence, and how bar/bat mitzvah perform values-indicate how this larger research agenda might be useful to those rethinking the role of bar/bat mitzvah in Jewish supplementary school education.