[Avodah] Bar Mitzvah at the Age of 12

[David Havin via Avodah]

My maternal grandfather, who lived in Lithuania until his late teens, told
me on a number of occasions that he celebrated his bar mitzvah when he was
12 years old, as his father had died and he was considered to be an orphan.

Some years ago I recalled this and decided to learn more about the custom,
but each of the rabbis I asked had never heard of it.  Recently, however, I
was re-reading A Tzadik in Our Time: The Life of Reb Aryeh Levin and, at
page 95, he recounts that he attended a bar mitzvah of an orphan in
Jerusalem on his 12th birthday.

Does anyone know anything of this custom?

David Havin
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