Judith K. Eisenstein

Author, composer, and musicologist, theologian (September 10, 1909 – February 14, 1996). Kaplan was the first young woman to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah publicly in an American congregation on March 18, 1922. From 1929 to 1954, Dr. Eisenstein taught music education and the history of Jewish music at Jewish Theological Seminary's Teacher's Institute (now known as the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies in Manhattan). While there she published a Jewish songbook for children, "Gateway to Jewish Song," which was followed by other books of Jewish music and musical history for young people. From 1942 to 1974, she wrote seven cantatas on Jewish themes, among them the frequently performed, "What Is Torah," which she wrote with her husband, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein.