ime Adat Shalom
nursery school
. , director
Liottie Levztsky re
on kids- education
and retirement.

C",1
•

V

28

D

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Staff Writer

ottie Levitsky has been tuned in
to preschoolers' moods for most
of her adult life.
So when Levitsky, who retired
July 6 as nursery and kindergarten
director at Adat Shalom Synagogue,
heard kindergartner Sydney Rosen of

West Bloomfield ask her the same
question over and over, she sensed
some anxiety in the little girl's voice.
"Every day before school closed, she
asked me what my favorite color was,"
Levitsky says. "`I like all the colors of
the rainbow,' I told her."
Finally, when Levitsky's retirement
party rolled around, she understood
Sydney's concern. One of her retire-

ment gifts was a colorful quilt made
by the nursery and kindergarten stu-
dents. Each square, painstakingly col-
ored in permanent marker, illustrated
a Jewish theme.
Sydney's square was brown.
"So I told her, 'I like all the colors —
but I like brown best,"' Levitsky says.
After more than 16 years at the
helm of Adat Shalom's nursery and

kindergarten, there's nothing a pre-
schooler could come up with that
would faze Levitsky.
A graduate with distinction from the
University of Michigan's School of
Education, she was working as a substi-
tute teacher when, "out of the blue," she
received a call to interview for the newly
formed Adat Shalom nursery school.
The Farmington Hills-based school