Bat mitzvah
Rachel Elizabeth
Mitnick.

Sunshine Girl

A new bat mitzvah takes aim at her future.

HARRY KI RS BAUM

StaffWriter

F

or nearly a year, Rachel Eliz-
abeth Mitnick studied the
Haftorah under the tutelage
of Adat Shalom's Cantor
Howard Glantz.
She'd get up, go to regular school,
.
then depending on which day it was,
head to Hebrew school or her bat mitz-
vah tutor's class.
The cantor would assign a para-
graph of her Haftorah on Monday and
she would have a week to learn it.
"I'd cram for it on Sunday night,"
she said.
True college material.
Last Saturday, she became bat mitz-
vah in front of a packed house of

friends and family at Adat Shalom, but
she wasn't that nervous. She got her
first taste of stage fright two days
before, when she had an aliyah in front
of 30 people.
"I was really nervous at first, but
once I started, it flew," she said. "I had
a blast at the bat mitzvah."
After the service, the family held a
luncheon at Relish in Farmington Hills
called "Fun in the Sun with Rachel."
Her great-uncle, Julian Lefkowitz,
and her grandmother, Edie Klein,
made centerpieces of balloons, beach
balls, sand pails and penny candy.
On Sunday, she threw a whirlyball
parry in West Bloomfield for her
friends.
Rachel is the granddaughter of Her-
bert and Charlotte Mitnick and Edie

Klein and the late Sheldon Klein,
daughter of Ronald and Marsha Mit-
nick and sister of Scott and Emily.
For her mitzvah project, Rachel
helped deliver flowers with her cousin,
Rabbi David Nelson of Beth Shalom,
to the pediatric wing of William Beau-
mont Hospital.
She felt sorry for the children; "I
didn't want to cry, but it was really
sad," she said.
Her most memorable moment came
when she helped Nelson perform Shab-
bat services in the hospital chapel for
the patients.
"Anyone could watch us on televi-
sion from their hospital bed," she said.
She also gave a donation to JARC in
memory of Cantor Glantz's father.
In her spare time, Rachel babysits

for five different families, or a total of
13 kids — "it can get pretty nuts," she
said. A member of the basketball, vol-
leyball, and softball teams, the West
Hills
Middle School student likes socializ-
ing and cooking.
"It doesn't matter who I cook for,
what I cook, or even if I'M not going to
eat the food. I just like the feeling of
cooking," Rachel said. "Sometimes, my
mother will let me have the kitchen;
then I can experiment."
But culinary school is not in the
cards. Rachel looks forward to a future
in medicine, specifically ophthalmolo-
gY“
You do just a little surgery, you
work with kids," she said, "and it has a
low rate of malpractice." 0

6/26
1998

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