a gu ide to s irnc ha hs

tut

Lisa Katzman
holds her environ-
mentally friendly
invitations.

`Green' Spirited

One family finds many ways to keep their
celebration environmentally friendly.

Judith Doner Berne
Special to celebrate!

Lisa Katzman's decision to plan an environmentally respon-
sible b'nai mitzvah celebration was a natural outgrowth of a
long-time philosophy.
"I've always been into the environment," said Katzman, who
lives in Bloomfield Township with her husband, Dr. Jim Relle,
a urologist, and children Daniel, 14, a freshman at Bloomfield
Hills Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, and Tess, 13, and
Alex, 9, who attend Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills.
"I used cloth diapers and I composted. I gave birthday
parties with the same reusable plastic plates. We don't have

paper towels. We don't use paper napkins; we use cloth. It's
been the way of the house for a while.
"I saw a tremendous amount of waste at the bar and bat
mitzvahs I had been to," Katzman said. "That's not me; that's
just not me:'
She freely acknowledged that her husband "doesn't believe
in it. He's Mr. Consumer. But he knows it's important to me. I
didn't tell my guests about it. I just went about it my own way:'
A first decision was to have Daniel and Tess, a year apart
in age, celebrate together. "That made it environmentally

Continues on page B20

B 18

celebrate! I

March

2008

•