Bar Mitzvah and Confirmation

[Eva Broman <evbr4965...>]

Hi everyone,

Roger wrote:

>Of course, you don't have to want to have a bar mitzvah party to be Jewish.

>Roger, who has been at any number of Catholic confirmation parties

I was thinking the very same thing! Not only Catholic youngsters, but Lutheran 
as well, at least in Sweden, go through the religious "confirmation" rite when 
they are around 13. And despite the fact that Sweden is a very secularized 
country and very few people actually practice religion, many parents still send 
their children to church confirmation groups and camps to get a basic Christian 
education-and a nice party afterwards, though I sincerely doubt that any family 
would spend the mindboggling sums mentioned in the article! In the older days 
confirmation did serve as a kind of "passage/coming of age" rite-children, at 
least working-class children were considered adults after confirmation and were 
expected to start working and contribute to the family economy. Many youngsters 
left their families at around that time, to work as domestics (the girls) or 
farm hands, factory workers etc. 

Knowing this,  it seemed odd to me that Christian families would have to 
imitate the bar mitzvah when there actually is a similar religious tradition in 
many Christian denominations-but then again, I'm not that familiar with 
American religious life-it may be that Methodists don't practice confirmation.

Sorry about the off-topic...

Eva