This is an article published on May 20, 1977 in the B’nai Brith Messenger announcing the confirmation ceremonies that were going to take place in synagogues in Los Angeles on the festival of Shavuot. Twenty synagogues and temples are listed in the article along with the names of the confirmation students: some of the lists include boys and girls, while some are only girls. The article also provides information about the festival of Shavuot, saying that it is also called the Festival of Weeks and that it commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. Other customs, such as reciting the Yizkor (memorial) prayers and reading the Book of Ruth, are also mentioned. The article refers to the meaning of holding confirmation ceremonies on this specific date:
“The offering of fruit and grain that marked the primitive aspects of the festival has evolved into the confirmation services, signalizing the presentation of Jewish youth to the ideals of Torah.”
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Shavuot - Shavuot, also known as the Festival of Weeks – is celebrated on the sixth of Sivan. Shavuot, one of the three biblical pilgrim festivals, commemorates many different things: it marks the day that the Israelites received the Torah on Mount Sinai; it celebrates the wheat harvest in Israel; and it signifies the end of the Counting of the Omer. It is celebrated with many colourful and festive traditions such as holding bikkurim ceremonies, eating dairy food, decorating the synagogue with flowers and greenery, reading the Book of Ruth, and studying the Torah all through the night (Tikkun Leil Shavuot). In modern Israel, kibbutzim celebrate Shavuot and the bikkurim with processions displaying their produce of the previous year, including fruit and vegetables, farm animals, and even the new babies!
Confirmation – Confirmation is a ceremony based on the Christian practice that was first developed by Reform Jews in Germany in the early nineteenth century. Confirmation was held around the age of sixteen, and its original intent was to replace the bar mitzvah ceremony, as it was thought that thirteen-year-old boys were not intelligent or mature enough to fully understand Jewish religious principles. The initiators of the Jewish confirmation ceremony believed it would fulfil several goals: raising the age of Jewish adulthood, including girls in the ceremony, and putting more emphasis on belief rather than practice. Confirmation ceremonies usually took place on Shavuot, the festival that commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments and the acceptance of Jewish tradition. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of the Reform movement in the United States, brought the confirmation ceremony from Germany to America, where it became popular in Reform and Conservative synagogues. However, confirmation didn’t replace bar or bat mitzvah celebrations as originally intended; rather, the congregations added it as another opportunity for students to “confirm” their commitment to Judaism and highlight the education that they had received.
