Never too late; Depression-era girls get their wish.

• Position: NEWS

Byline: Bronislaus B. Kush

WORCESTER - Ninety-two-year-old Charlotte Egoodkin still remembers walking her brother, George, to one of the Orthodox synagogues on the city's Jewish East Side, where she "just waited around" while her younger sibling went inside and studied for his bar mitzvah, the traditional Judaic rite of passage for males.

"The boys were allowed to study the Torah and the girls were not," said Mrs. Egoodkin, who, as an adult, attended the Temple Emanuel Reform congregation on May Street. "Back then, that's just the way it was. But, like many things, time and attitudes change."

With the emergence of the Conservative movement in the 1920s, American Judaism began to very slowly embrace a similar ceremony for teenage girls, the bat mitvah.

But it wasn't until the later 1960s that the ritual became a norm, too late for Jewish women, such as Mrs. Egoodkin, who grew up in the Depression era.

That was until Harriett R. Katz, who volunteers at the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence on Salisbury Street where Mrs. Egoodkin resides, read a newspaper article about some senior women in Ohio who were bat mitzvahed.

She suggested that Mrs. Egoodkin and three other elderly residents at the Eisenberg center - Vita Hirsch, Florence Katz, and Kay Sotsky - consider taking part in the milestone ritual.

Next Saturday, the four, all in their 80s or 90s, will participate in the ceremony that was denied them by time, happily surrounded by a small army of family members.

"It never really bothered me that I did not have a bat mitzvah when I was young," said Mrs. Sotsky, an 86-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y. "But, I'm very happy and very excited that I will now have a chance to take part in the ceremony."

With a chuckle, she said her only concern was that she might have "a senior moment" when reciting the Torah.

Bar and bat mitzvahs, in the eyes of Jewish law, mark an individual's transition from childhood to adulthood.

A boy automatically reaches the milestone at 13 while a girl reaches it at 12. Ceremonies to mark the passages are not required, though they are commonplace today.

The four women will be "called to the Torah" at 10:30 a.m. next Saturday at the Eisenberg center to formally partake in the regularly held Shabbat service.

Harriett Katz, the volunteer coordinator at Jewish Home Hospice, said the women will each read a portion of the Torah in Hebrew, as well as leading the assembled in prayer and song. Rabbi Seth Bernstein of Temple Sinai...