Palmer Trinity junior Maya Lebowitz moved from New York to Miami and experienced culture shock.
“I’ve never seen so many Hispanic people,” she says. “I was coming from a mostly Jewish area. Coming into a new school, just starting high school seems a scary thing. I feel I have been a part of it. Embraced by people that you don’t know that well.”
That acceptance gave her confidence to work with fellow student Sam Katz to revive the Jewish Culture Club.
As they work to organize the club, they have been educating students about Jewish holidays and what they mean. They had an apples and honey session to inform people about Rosh Hashanah.
“We’re trying to expand our reach outside of Palmer,” she says.
One program she’d like to get more students involved with is Friendship Circle at the Chabad of Kendall.
“We went to the Walk for Friendship. The club is still in the early stages,’ she says. “This year we’re going to try and do a lot more.”
She goes to the Chabad every other weekend to tutor children in Hebrew. She also participates in Friendship Circle and works with a 14-year old girl.
“That’s one of the reasons why I want to include Friendship Circle with my club,” she says.
This summer, she attended the Alexander Muss High School in Israel.
“I love Israel,” she says. “I am Israeli. We have so much family there. I’ve never seen it as a tourist.”
Lebowitz is a member of Palmer’s Vestry Club, which is an organization run by the school chaplain. They help with the school convocations.
“This year I was brought in,” she says. “I’ve been helping run it.”
Lebowitz is involved with the Palmer community.
“I really love to do things to help it,” she says. “Palmer gives you so many opportunities.”
One of those opportunities is the annual Nicaragua mission trip.
“As a Palmer student, if you don’t take those opportunities then you are missing out,” she says. “I don’t speak Spanish so going to Nicaragua was something outside my comfort zone. I’ve never seen the type of poverty they have.”
During the trip, the students helped build a home for a family.
“We mixed the cement and helped the builders build the house,” she says. “We played with the kids and took care of them when the parents were at work. We learned a lot while we were there.”
A big life lesson she learned is that she can’t take anything for granted.
“Because there are so many things that could go wrong,” she says. This school year she plans to go on a trip to South Africa with her class. “At Palmer they offer so many great things. It’s somewhere so different than the US. To be able to go is going to be incredible.”
Lebowitz runs the 100 meter hurdles on the track team. She trains from November to May. She has the school record in the event and was the district runner up. She tripped during the regional race so she didn’t make it to the state championship meet.
“I’m hoping to go this year,” she says. “I’m not the fastest runner in short sprints, but I do have that coordination and the ability to know when to do the jump.”
In college, she wants to focus on medicine.
“I love working with kids,” she says. “For sure I want to be a pediatrician.”
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
