to a regular student in the rabbinic program; in response, in May of that year they unanimously recommended the admission of women to the institute on the same basis as men. In 1935, Regina Jonas became the first formally ordained female rabbi; she was ordained by the liberal Rabbi Max Dienemann, who was the head of the Liberal Rabbis' Association, in Offenbach am Main, Germany. In 1939, Helen Levinthal became the first American woman to complete the entire course of study in a rabbinical school, which she did at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Her thesis was on women's suffrage from the point of view of Jewish law. However, she only received a Master of Hebrew Letters (and a certificate recognizing her accomplishment) upon graduation, rather than a Master of Hebrew Letters and ordination as the men received, since the faculty felt it was not yet time for women's ordination as rabbis. In 1955, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism declared that women were eligible to chant the blessings before and after the reading of the Torah, a privilege called "Aliyah". However, in 1962, a study found that only eight conservative congregations had fully embraced the ruling while fifty implemented it with conditions and 196 congregations still had not adopted this newfound right of Jewish women. In the late 1960s, the first Orthodox Jewish women's tefillah (prayer) group was created, on the holiday of Simhat Torah at Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan. This development came by the judgement of the synagogue's rabbi, Shlomo Riskin. Further, the late 1960s saw Bat Mitzvahs, a public coming of age ritual for Jewish girls, become widespread after Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative Jews allowed women to partake in and lead a congregation in prayer. In 1973, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards passed a takkanah (ruling) allowing women to count in a minyan equally with men. Also in 1973, the United Synagogue of America, Conservative Judaism's congregational association (now called the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism) resolved to allow women to participate in synagogue rituals and to promote equal opportunity for women for positions of leadership, authority, and responsibility in congregational life. In 1974, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopted a series of proposals that equalized men and women in all areas of ritual, including serving as prayer leaders. In the early 1970s, new rituals