Rabbi Carole Balin explores how, as increasing numbers of girls followed in Judith Kaplan’s footsteps and marked their bat mitzvah, girls and women began to expect – and even demand – access to ritual honors and roles in synagogue leadership. Bat mitzvah pioneers were a catalyst for expanding all women’s participation in Jewish life, paving the way for female rabbis and inspiring their mothers to become bat mitzvah as adults. Created by the Jewish Women's Archive for Rise Up/Bat Mitzvah at 100, in partnership with SAJ: Judaism That Stands For All.