Anna Gabriella Langer will celebrate her becoming a bat mitzvah on Shabbat Noach, October 29, 2011. She is the daughter of Pamela and Edward Langer and the sister of Dorina. A distinguished graduate of the Tikvat Israel preschool and the primary program of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Anna is a seventh grader at Julius West Middle School and the Shoresh Hebrew School.

Anna loves to express herself through her drawing and painting and through various forms of dance, including ballet, Irish, and Bollywood Bhangra. She is a skillful gymnast, an NRA-certified marksman, and an accomplished equestrian.

Anna volunteers at Days End Farm Horse Rescue where she cares for abused and neglected horses. She will relate some of her experiences there in her dvar Torah, which will explain how parashat Noach establishes the prohibition against causing tzaar baalei hayim, the suffering of animals.

If during her bat mitzvah the congregation hears muffled barking or chirping, Anna wants it known that the sounds are not coming from her dog Snickers or chinchillas Oreo and Marshmallow, and that no animal has been hidden in her large tallis bag. So no one needs to check. Really.