Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School • 11710 Hunters Lane • Rockville, Maryland • 20852

lVolume 26 • Issue 5

May 22, 2009 • 28 Iyar 5769

the

ion’stale

In-Depth see page 8-9

CommonplaCe books

Featuresee page 13

mosCow ConneCtion

On April 24, the administration revealed in an e-mail to parents that marijuana, an Airsoft gun and brass knuckles were in the possession of a small number of middle and high school students.

In an additional e-mail sent on May 6, the administration added that it discovered one instance of alcohol consumption on campus.

As a consequence for their ac-tions, two students were expelled and an unspecified number of stu-dents were suspended.

After rumors from students sur-faced, the administration initiated an investigation to determine whether

or not illegal items were on the school’s campus.

“A major goal was to distinguish between what was rumor, of which-there is always a lot, and what was the truth,” Director of Judaic Studies Michael Kay said.

“Through our investigation, we have determined that on two oc-casions, items that are banned be-cause they are considered weapons were sold by high school students to middle school students. These items were an Airsoft gun and brass knuckles. Additionally, we have de-termined that a small number of high school students were involved in the use and distribution of marijuana outside of the school, and, in one case, in the consumption of alcohol

on the school campus,” read the May 6 e-mail to parents.

In addition to the disciplinary actions, the administration referred-some students to programs that pro-vide support and counseling.

The school then held class meet-ings about the importance of good-decision making.

“I think that the school has the opportunity and the responsibility to partner with families to teach stu-dents about the dangers of drugs and weapons and also to work with stu-dents to use sound judgment,” Kay said. “It is also a priority of ours to let students have an opportunity to think, talk, learn and reflect on situ-ations that have an impact on our school community.”

by David Weinberg

Dealing with discipline

Approximately 15 percent of staffing positions, or around 35 positions, will not be renewed in the next aca-demic year as part of the cutbacks the administration made due to a drop in enrollment.

These include teaching positions in the Upper and Lower Schools, as well as, administrative positions and additional positions within the school.

“Any number of them are occupied by people who them-selves aren’t returning. It’s a mixture of people leaving any-way and positions that aren’t filled that we are going to fill, and people we are not going to be able to offer them a con-tract,” Head of School Jonathan Cannon said.

For some teachers, however, their teaching contracts were not renewed for the next academic year.

According to Cannon, these cutbacks are being made to reflect a drop in school enrollment.

“The school has to make a tough decision. You have to have the income to justify the expenditure and if you don’t have the income, and the school’s main income is tuition, we cannot ask the parents in this kind of economy to pay more tuition than the school actually costs to run in order to support a level of staffing which the school doesn’t need,” Cannon said. “At the end of the day, if there are six classes of fourth grade and next year, there are five classes in fourth grade, there is no point for the school to be paying for the teachers who would be teaching the sixth class.”

Both Cannon and Dean of Students Roslyn Landy affirm that teacher cutbacks will not affect the education or experi-ence at JDS.

“I know that the students and faculty will miss the teach-ers who are leaving as they have been an important part of our community. While we will miss the individuals, the slightly smaller faculty will not impact the students’ educa-tion,” Landy said.

“There may be less sections, but our goal is that you are not going to feel dramatically a change in the education ex-perience,” Cannon said.

Some students however, do not feel that teachers shoul-

have been let go.“The school is losing a lot of great talent with [the con-

tracts were not renewed]. The school is worse off for the loss,” junior Jonathan Iskow said.

“In this economy I don’t really believe anyone should lose their job. I mean it is a little cruel, to defend people from losing their jobs and expect an organization to stay in equilibrium, because its practically impossible. I under-stand that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but the [change of class-room structure] is really upsetting,” junior David Friedland

said. “Most of my classes this year are 9:1 in a student to teacher ratio, and I already know next year every class will have at least 15 students. I acknowledge the school cares about us, but it seems like they care more about money than a better education.”

Competition bonanza

by Valerie Cohen

What’s InsideNews........................2-5

Israel.......................6-7

In-depth...................8-9

Op-ed..................10-12

Feature......................13

Sports..................14-16

For COLOR WAR COVERAGE, see page 2

For more on ZIMRIAH, see page 6

photo by Jordan Kovalsky photo by David Herman

see CUTBACKS, page 3

For ZIMRIAH COVERAGE, see page 6

15 percent; staff layoffs

junior grand entranCe (from left) Juniors Madeline Moss, Yaron Steinfeld and Alexandra Niakani dance to ‘Celebrity’ by Nsync in front of the entire school along with the rest of the junior class. The Class of 2010 strutted down the red carpet donning sunglass-es and jackets while students and teachers posed as faux paparazzi.

lets go blue Junior captains Ashley Silver and Zach-ary Cytryn cheer on the blue team during the Color War closing performances. The Incrediblue officers all dressed up as superheroes. The Incrediblues faced off against the Golden Gladiators during this full day competition, but triumphed with a 25 point lead.

Koby Mendell play

Israeli pen pals

A day in the life of Michael Greenberg

Student Council report card

Boys varsity tennis

Moscow Connection

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009News2

Incrediblue wins the day!The blue team triumphed over the gold team at this year’s

Color War, held on May 15 to celebrate Lag B’Omer. The entire Upper School spent the day competing and partici-pating in more than 70 activities as part of the competition. Many members on both the Incrediblue and Golden Gladia-tor teams worked tirelessly for weeks on end until the clos-ing ceremony where blue was announced as the winner.

During the annual Color War competition, the school is divided into three teams, although only the blue and the gold teams are eligible to win. The third team is comprised of Student Council officers who judge and govern over the entire competition as they don their team’s green garb. The members of the green team, specifically Benjamin Block, David Friedland, Thomas Gutterman, Kyle Hardgrave, Alon Krifcher, Zach Roth, Ezra Rudman and Student Coun-cil Advisor Mark Buckley, planned and were responsible for a bulk of the day’s preparations.

The blue and gold teams are each composed of members of different ranks. They each have two captains, two gener-als, two lieutenants, two sergeants, one chief and an army of regular student and teacher team members. The generals are teachers while the captains, lieutenants, sergeants and chiefs are all juniors.

The blue team’s captains were Zachary Cytryn and Ash-ley Silver. Their generals were Math teacher Victoria Ball and English teacher Jonathan Fichter. Their lieutenants were Dean Issacharoff and Madeline Moss. Their sergeants were Yael Fishbein and Samantha Trenk and their chief was Talia Evans.

The gold team’s captains were Alexandra Niakani and Yaron Steinfeld. Their generals were Math teachers Domi-nic Lee and Alison Rafalowsky. The team’s lieutenants were Matthew Goulette and Arielle Weiss. Their sergeants were Gabrielle Charnoff and Michelle Koblenz and their chief was Rebecca Hoffman.

The gold and blue team leadership both enjoyed color war, although the gold team was disappointed to lose at the end.

“We were disappointed for the first couple of seconds but then you realize that both teams worked so hard and you think of how much fun you had that day,” gold team captain Yaron Steinfeld said.

‘[When] they announced that we [the blue team] won, we all freaked out and we were all jumping and screaming,” blue team captain Ashley Silver said. “I cannot remember being happier in a very long time.”

All of the generals were holding their positions for their first times.

“We are mostly just in charge of going out [during color war] and having fun. We are spirited and keep everybody’s spirits high,” Ball said of her responsibilities as general. “I get to dress absurdly and act absurdly all day which I am always gung ho for.”

“It’s actually really exciting. I have always seen other teachers do it and I have always wanted to. When they asked me I was very excited,” Lee said. “[I am supposed to be] hyping the crowd, going to different activities, cheering people on and getting decked out costume wise.”

Color War began with students and teachers alike hud-dled into the gym for the day’s opening ceremony. The

green team introduced themselves at the ceremony, and introduced both teams’ leadership.

The green team contin-ued the ceremony with its team video which was di-rected and edited by junior Jake Klein.

“The story was [that Ms. Landy] is picking teams for Color War and she picks blue and banana. So, the gold team complains and the green team becomes the judges,” Klein said of the beginning of the video. “There is not really a coher-ent story throughout, but in the next scene there is a long dance sequence…and then there is just a scene where Ben Block and Thomas Gutterman are fighting over a banana.”

Following the green team video, the blue team played their video, which they played as a substitute for their skit. It was also written, directed and edited by Klein.

“The blue team video was about the gold team taking over JDS. The Incrediblue had to come in and save the day,” junior Emma Rodwin said. “[The video] brought up a lot of the issues that the country is going through right now in a humorous light. For example the Somali pirates, swine flu and the economic crisis.”

Both videos were well received. Many people thought they were very well done.

“Joe [Jake] Klein has sort of taken on the Quentin Taran-tino role [with our videos] and he is a very serious film-maker….he spent an inordinate number of hours putting our film together,” Ball said.

“We made a really good video and we were so excited to show it to the whole school…that video made us get pumped up for the rest of the day,” said Blue Team Sergeant Samantha Trenk.

After the opening ceremony, the blue and gold teams held team meetings in separate locations.

After team meetings, the student body reas-sembled outside for 11 tug-of-war matches which pit students and faculty of opposing teams against each other. The score for the event was 7-4 in gold’s favor.

“At tug of war the spirit was definitely really incredible and everybody on the gold team was cheering really loud. It was really cool because we were winning a lot so, you know, when people win they are more likely to be more spirited,” eighth-grader Arielle Panitch said.

“Tug of war is Color War in my eyes. You see so much heart, so much will, so much strength, so much power, emotion, endurance [and] soul in it,” Blue Team Captain Zachary Cytryn said.

During the four hours that followed tug-of-war, there were five periods of activities planned, which were split up by a lunch period.

Activities were of both competitive and non-competitive nature. However, some students felt

that too many of the games were competitive.“There was too much competition. I think we could have

played more [noncompetitive] games,” seventh-grader Ja-son Cohen said.

“They made the gladiator activity competitive so I could not fight against all my friends on gold...I do not want to fight someone that I do not know,” junior Adina Klingman said.

Although some teachers did get extremely spirited for Color War, many teachers felt that they were generally not as spirited as students.

“We sort of did this in our high schools and colleges so this is part three of getting school spirity. It’s not about proving something. It’s just a chance to have fun,” English teacher Julia McAdams said.

“There are also fewer activities [for teachers]. Like there was the faculty tug of war where it was blue versus gold but other than that we are running things and not com-peting. So we do not have that same sense of spirit and

competition,”English teacher Kelly Enochson said. “The tug of war was fun because we got to participate.”

Many seventh graders, who were participating in the Upper School Color War for the first time, felt neglected throughout the day.

“They kind of give the seventh graders all the [activities] no one else wants…they gave me trivia and spelling bee, and that’s not really the point of Color War,” seventh- grader Jonathan Silverman said. “The point of Color War is to have fun and do sports.”

After the day’s activity periods, there were another round of team meetings and a closing ceremony that culminated in the blue team’s victory.

At the ceremony, teams presented their banners, cakes, English songs and Hebrew songs. The blue team won He-brew song, while gold team won banner and English song.

The blue and gold team each worked extremely hard dur-ing the day and spent more money on Color War prepara-tions than was allotted for them.

“We got $150 for our budget, and after preparations we were probably $200 over budget…We bought so much stuff [for color war],” Trenk said. “We had to buy decorations for outside the school, posters, paint, hairspray, glitter [and] our costumes.”

Student Council was very organized during Color War and stressed that Color War was primarily about having fun and community building.

“[The emphasis on Lag B’Omer] kind of comes and goes. I thinks its really emphasises community building and bringing everyone together,” Buckley said. “[Color War] is a nice way to pause, have some fun together and just enjoy one another’s company.”

“[The point of Color War] it to unify the school, make sure everyone is having fun and to relieve stress,” Student Council Vice President Ezra Rudman said.

By the end of the day, the administration was very happy with Color War.

“This has been a terrific Color War and it is so clear how hard the students worked to prepare for it. It has been a great success and a fun day,” Academic Dean David Solomon saiding

by Daniel Liss

Follow the beat Gold team sophomore Max Levine helps keeps the rhythm going during the gold team’s song, which was based on the tune for “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Each team had its own band perform both their English and Hebrew songs. The green team graded each team’s performance and spirit during the songs.

painting to win Sophomore Simone Roarke, center, puts the fin-ishing touches on the gold team’s banner. Both banners fit with each team’s theme, gladiators for gold and superheroes for blue.

pull iinCrediblue, pull! Junior captain Zachary Cytryn puts all of his energy into cheering on his teammates, Madeline Moss, Jordan Kovalsky and Renee Dunn who put all their might into defeating the gold team.

photo by Josh Raanan

photo by Josh Raanan

photo by David Goldstein

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 News 3

On Feb. 17, the JDS community gathered to mourn the loss of Maria Bermudez, a school maintenance worker who died of a stroke on Jan. 29. A school-wide assembly was held in her honor.

In a speech at the assembly, Assistant Head of School Susan Brinn Siegel remembered Bermudez as a friend.

“We remember Maria as a sweet and caring member of our school family. She was a steady presence on the Upper School campus since it opened 10 years ago,” Siegel said. “Everyone speaks about her smile and sweetness and many students refer to her as their friend. She treated us like her family and this building like her home. She loved the school and we loved her back.”

Bermudez was born in El Salvador. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 22, eventually settling in Maryland.

Her husband of 21 years, Julio Cruz, a maintenance worker at the Lower School, and her daughter Rosemarie Bermudez were in attendance at the assembly.

“It was very very nice, and I thank everyone for taking the time to do it. It makes me feel special, that my mom was such a special and loving person,” Bermudez said. “I want to thank you guys.”

Facilities Administrator Martin Dempf was also im-pressed with the assembly.

“I thought it was a wonderful idea,” Dempf said. “The students conducted themselves absolutely perfectly... I was very proud of the students.”

Dempf added that the assembly was also very meaning-ful for the rest of the maintenance staff, who worked with Bermudez on a daily basis. When asked what the reaction of the staff was, Dempf said, “Everybody was just in shock. It took us several days to realize that she wasn’t coming back.”

At the assembly, Siegel gave a eulogy for Bermudez, which was translated into Spanish by Romance Language

teacher Emily Horowitz. One of the goals of the assembly was to be inclusive to Maria’s colleagues on the maintenance staff, many of whom are Spanish speakers. For example, Psalm 23 was recited in Hebrew by all those in attendance, as well as in Spanish by sophomore Gabriel Wilk, who had always felt a linguistic connection to Bermudez.

“In the hallways I always exchanged smiles with her and said hello in Spanish,” Wilk said. “I guess the fact that I’m a Spanish speaker contributed to them picking me because they felt that they could connect with the family more.”

Wilk said that the assembly itself reflected how far Ber-mudez had progressed in her life.

“I thought it was very meaningful, I mean, especially for her family, coming from El Salvador, in a very poor place, growing up in poverty,” Wilk said. “I think that the assem-bly got through to people. That it was important. There was a lot of people: maintenance, you know everyone in the Up-per School showed up, and we showed the family and we showed her that we do really care about her and I think that that’s really an accomplishment for her, coming where she came from.”

Those who knew Bermudez wanted to preserve as much of her in their memories as they could. Dempf said that she was a unique employee.

“Maria is what I call a self starter. All you had to do is show her what you wanted, and assign her the task, and you could stand out of the way. Maria would drive herself until it was completed properly. And I got to the point where it wasn’t necessary to inspect her work. It was always good,” he said. “She had a great attitude. She was fun to work with.”

Rosmarie Bermudez preferred to remember the everyday moments she shared with her mother.

“I would come from work. She’d be home. I would tell my mom, ‘I’m here,’ and she’d say ‘Oh, you got here OK, you want something to drink?’ And I’d say no, and I’d go to my room, go upstairs around six or seven for dinner, and she’d be there,” she said. “I’m going to miss my mom.”

by Josh Boxerman

Commemorating Maria Bermudez

Shortly after MORP was held on March 7, science teach-ers Carrie Michelson and Kimberly Agzigian resigned as the junior class’ grade advisors.

Both Michelson and Agzigian declined to comment.A grade advisor’s role is to work hand-in-hand with

grade officers to ensure that the grade is run smoothly and effectively.

“In January, Ms. Agzigian was not satisfied on how things were going. About a month and a half ago right after MORP, when we got back from break, she said that it’s time for them to leave since she couldn’t handle it anymore,” junior Secretary of Fundraising Jordan Kovalsky said. “We have our difficulties, we don’t always respect each other and we still don’t do things the right way. A lot of times, we would go around their backs, they realized that it wasn’t any longer

something they were interested in doing.” “The grade advisors made a personal decision to give up

their position which is certainly their choice,” Dean of Stu-dents Roslyn Landy said.

After Agzigian and Michelson resigned, Landy tempo-rarily served as the junior class’ grade advisor before turn-ing the position over to Math teacher Victoria Ball.

“The main event for the seniors is prom and they will need advisors to help them with the planning for that event,” Landy said.

Ball will be able to commit more time to the position of advisor.

“I’m going to be in touch with people who have done the job in the past to see what all it entails. I plan to bring energy and enthusiasm to the position, Ball said.

Agzigian and Michelson now serve as the freshman class’ grade advisors along with science teachers Elizabeth

Burguieres and Annabella Kraut.“Every meeting we discuss matters and things we want

to do. Then we split up into committees,” freshman Eitan Sayag said. “I usually come up with ideas and we figure out how we are going to make it happen…The first half of the year, we were very unproductive. We had one public event for our grade, it was movie night.”

“It wasn’t successful. It took months to plan. Nothing happened after that. We were trying to restructure grade government. That’s when we started the new committees. Ms. Agzigian helped with that. We have gotten so much done,” he said.

For now, Ball is looking forward to her new position. “I just have to find out in what ways that would be most

useful... I’m eager to hear what people have to say to make it happen for them,” she said.

Grade government changes affect junior and freshman classesby David Goldstein

When students come to school dressed in wacky cos-tumes, yearbook photographers have a field day and the a capella choir sings festive songs, it can only mean one thing, Purim has arrived.

This year, Purim was held on Mar. 10, and was celebrat-ed with a variety of activities, including a costume contest and many different megillah readings.

Following a megillah reading, students attended both a Purim carnival and a Purim assembly.

The Purim carnival featured booths by each grade level, Henna tattooing, tug-of-war and other hands on games.

The school also held a Purim assembly which showcased the school’s a cappela choir singing Purim tunes.

Many students enjoyed this year’s Purim celebration. “I think that Purim at school is really fun and everyone

has a good time. The best part is dressing up; and I did, as a butterfly with one of my friends,” seventh grader Rina Bardin said.

Sophomore Shira Singelenberg enjoyed Purim because it gave her an opportunity to practice her photography skills.

“I really enjoy Purim because I am on the yearbook staff so I get to walk around and take photos, and I took a lot of photos. It is fun to watch people do silly things in crazy cos-

tumes. I really enjoyed it,” Singelenberg said.Despite the fun activities and the excited atmosphere,

some students chose not to attend school on Purim.“It’s not that I didn’t want to participate in the school

spirit of what was happening, [but] it was that I had a lot of work that needed to get done and I saw this day as a oppor-tunity for that,” sophomore Ilia Esrig said.

Dress me up before you ‘go-go’ to the Purim carnival and megillah readings

by David Weinberg

painting pretty piCtures Sophomore photographer Shi-ra Singelenberg gets a henna tatoo from Anu Gupta. At the Purim carnival each grade government set up a dif-ferent booth, with a different activity or game.

photo by Alex Berger

photo by Jordan Kovalskyjabb awoC keez Juniors Yaron Steinfeld and Zach Cytryn dance at the Purim costume contest.

Junior Lindsay Schneider thought the school made the right decision in letting teachers go, but she did not agree with their choices. “I think there are a lot of teachers who are no longer needed [due to the lack of enrollment] but I think they made the wrong decisions about who to let go of,” Schneider said. Cannon admits the decision was not an easy one. “I’m humbled everyday by who we have in this school. Good people are not being offered a position next year trying to pretend otherwise is to minimize their incredible contribution and to devalue everything that do,” Cannon said. Other cutbacks being made include compensation freezes for faculty members not on a pay scale, as well as compensation freezes for administrators. Additional cutbacks were made in programmatic expenditures, building expenditures and maintenance. Landy feels that these cutbacks will ultimately not affect clubs and extracurricular activities at JDS. “I believe that, in the past few years, the school has been very generous and we have been able to fund many co-curricular activities and programs,” Landy said. “While I understand that there will most likely need to be some decrease in certain budgets, I believe that we can continue our outstanding programming even with certain cutbacks.” “Most Americans and most institutions in the country are having to “tighten their belts” also and I am confident that both our academic education and our co-curricular programming will continue to be of the highest caliber,” she said.

CUTBACKS, from page 1

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009News4

During the month of March, JDS partici-pated in spreading awareness about the im-portance of student athletic trainers.

At school, all teams have student athletic trainers assigned to them.

These trainers supply water, ice and a first aid kit to each team.

In addition, they attend each practice and game so they can care for any injury that may occur.

This year’s theme for the Athletic Train-ing Awareness Month was “Health Care for Life & Sports.”

The goal was to educate people on the medical and physical aspects of living a healthy life, as well as the importance of having certified athletic trainers to advise the public on how to prevent injuries during work and play.

Head Athletic Trainer Jessica Matula and student athletic trainers made t-shirts and posters in order to raise awareness for the month.

“I do believe that [Ath-letic Training Awareness Month] was successful due to the comments that we received amongst our classmates [and] co-work-

ers,” Matula said. I was able to answer a lot of questions

pertaining to sports medicine. Next year I do hope for it to be even bigger with weekly announcements stating facts about athletic training,” Matula said.

Junior Michelle Koblenz said, “My fa-vorite part was being able to wear the same shirts as the other trainers because it was nice to have all of us together and even in the hallways, it was unifying, people would ask us what they meant… and it also just showed the school what was happening.” Ninety JDS donors, who each gifted

$1800 or more to this year’s annual Ma’ayan Campaign, attended this year’s Head of School Circle Reception, from 7-8:30 p.m., on March 30.

The reception was chaired by JDS parents Jamie and Scott Siegal and planned with the help of Debbie Stillman, Associate Director for Campaign and Alumni Relations.

The reception’s theme was “A taste of JDS.” It featured a series of tastings related to Pesach, a performance by the a capella choir and a light dessert.

“The [Head of School Circle] event was designed to honor and thank the school’s major donors, while giving them the op-portunity to see and experience the incred-ible education, experiential education that we are providing to our students,” Stillman said.

The event’s first tasting was a wine tast-ing led by JDS parent Louis Marmon who helped attendees recognize the different flavors that comprise a wine, learn how to choose a wine that they might like and find

wine pairings for various foods.A charoset tasting followed, which was

led by Food Services Manager Erick Gil-bert.

He spoke about the history of charoset, its meaning and why its ingredients came to be different throughout the world.

The last tasting was a “taste” of torah, led by Director of Judaic Studies Michael Kay and junior Jessica Lieberman.

They discussed the story of Passover, how to understand its history and how par-ents should share it with their children.

Stillman thought that the event was well received and tried to keep costs down wher-ever possible.

One way she saved money was by buy-ing wine at cost from a JDS parent.

She also used lent centerpieces for the tables that the Siegal family provided for the event.

“[We] tried to show that we can do a re-ally impressive event like this while really still maintaining the opportunity to put all of [our donor’s] donations dollars where they need to be, which is in supporting tuition as-sistance,” Stillman said.

As preparation for their upcoming global health unit, the seventh grade took a day trip to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Feb. 26. The trip was organized by History teacher Janet Collier.

“I worked with NIH to create lesson plans related to the exhibition on global health. I know they are passionate about opening young people’s eyes to the idea that health is a human right,” Collier said.

The students were excited to get an in-sider’s look at NIH, and to learn about issues related to health.

“We saw what they do at NIH. Mostly [we heard] lectures on malaria and animals used for testing. There was also an exhibition that

related Harry Potter to factual things which was cool,” seventh-grader Gabrielle Mendel-sohn said.

Although students enjoyed the content, many students felt that the trip should have been more interactive.

“I would make the trip more hands-on and have less lectures,” seventh grader Judah Drelich said.

Collier felt the trip may have been too long.

“It should have been a half day trip. [The kids] spent the afternoon sitting and listen-ing.”

However, despite not being as hands-on as students would have liked, Collier said that the trip was still worthwhile. “Most of the kids seemed to enjoy it. The real proof of whether they benefited will come when [they] work on the global health project,” she said.

Many students have experienced argu-ing with their parents and siblings, but three JDS sophomores have taken it to the next level by qualifying for the Montgomery County Debate League Finals.

Sophomores Josh Boxerman, Matthew Blank and Galit Krifcher qualified for the debate finals after attaining records of 6-4, 5-5 and 6-2 respectively. Although they did not attend finals, juniors Benjamin Block and Ari Blask both enjoyed successful sea-sons as the team’s veteran leaders.

Before the finals, Boxerman, Blank and Krifcher spent four to five hours preparing.

“I spent a lot of time learning about the topic and trying to understand all possible angles,” Krifcher said. “I also looked at all possible arguments that my opponent could use and figured out in advance how to rebut

them,” she said. Debate topics have been varied through-

out the season and have included political topics such as whether felons should have the right to vote and ethical topics such as whether it is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people.

Jewish History teacher Sara Coxe coached the team along with captains Blank and Boxerman.

Blank recommended that more JDS stu-dents consider joining the debate team be-cause it provides useful life skills.

“I think that debating gives you great skills that you can keep with you through-out your life,” Blank said. “Debating teach-es you how to become a confident public speaker and it also teaches you how to con-struct well thought out arguments, as well as teaching you how to think quickly.”

by Daniel Liss

Head of school dinner celebrates top Ma’ayan campaign donors

by Haley Cohen

Seventh graders visit NIH

by Adam Weinberger

Athletic trainers raise awareness

by Zachary Wexler

Sophomores lead debate

The junior class spent Shabbat with their peers in New York City as part of the annual Junior Shabbaton on March 27-29.

The class got the full New York experi-ence by staying in a hotel on the Upper West side, roaming around Central Park, seeing the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ex-ploring Jewish life in New York City.

“The goal of the Shabbaton was to show the students the different types of Jewish communities they could envision them-selves at in the future,” Director of Student Life Victoria Rothenberg said.

To accomplish this goal, students were allowed to select which synagogue they would attend for services on Friday night and Saturday.

“We got to experience different kinds of synagogues which were so amazing.

I went to the BJ [B’Nai Jeshurun] syna-gogue on Friday night which was really fun. Everyone was singing and dancing, includ-

ing the JDS kids,” junior Elaine Prigal said.Outside of services, the students were

able to fully experience New York in their free time.

In addition, students participated in a Saturday night Havdalah service.

“It was fun. Free time was something nice because they are usually just ‘stay stay in the hotel,’ just structured activity all the time, they sort of said do whatever you want within this certain area. Go out, shop and see stuff. It was nice to have a little freedom,” junior Ryan Strassman said.

On Saturday night, the students were scheduled to have a surprise activity, which fell through.

However, it was replaced with a trip to Madame Tussauds, a wax museum.

Some students were disappointed with Madame Tussauds but described the trip as a whole was a sucess.

“The Saturday night activity was a little disappointing, but other than that it was an amazing experience,“ Prigal said.

by Briana Felson

Juniors experience Jewish life in NYC

On March 31 the seventh grade gathered to discuss global health problems during their annual Global Health Conference. Each seventh grader researched a country and presented facts about its health issues.

The seventh graders made display boards representing each country with information about the diseases.

The posters were arranged by continent in the central hallway of the school.

History teacher Marc Dworin said the goal of the conference was to spread aware-ness about global health.

“It’s a part of the seventh grade curricu-lum. It’s also a great way to get the informa-tion out there,” Dworin said.

The seventh graders researched countries

all around the world. “I did Russia and their health problem

with tuberculosis,” seventh-grader Jeffrey Blackman said.

“I did East Timor, a country in the Pacific right next to Indonesia, and its biggest prob-lem is that it doesn’t have enough doctors. It only has 100 doctors for every 1 million people in the country,” seventh-grader Mat-thew Foldi said.

The project demonstrated that there were different diseases in different parts of the world.

“There was no one disease that was the most prevalent. There was a lot of Malaria, Yellow Fever, AIDS, and malnutrition, but there was no disease that was the most prev-alent based on the amount of countries we had,” Dworin said. A similar conference is being planned for next year.

by Isaac Nelson

Researching global health

lets get physiCal Sophomore David Greenberg visits Athletic Trainer Jessica Matula after a baseball injury. Greenberg is a student athletic trainer.

photo by Jeremy Lynn

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 News 5

This past February, sophomore Andy Siegel became the Youth Leadership Coor-dinator in the volunteer department at the Charles E. Smith (CES) Life Communities in Rockville.

CES Life Communities encompasses the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington and several other senior residential facilities.

For the past couple of years, Siegel has been an inexhaustible volunteer for the He-brew Home. He was selected for the coor-dinator position because of his dedication demonstrated by his many hours of service.

Now he is tasked with overseeing the se-lection of new volunteers.

His main responsibility is to conduct selection interviews for prospective volun-teers to fill a variety of positions.

Last year, as a volunteer at the CES Life

Communities, Siegel became involved with the Lessons of a Lifetime Project.

In this project, student volunteers help elderly residents compose ethical wills, which are documents that contain their per-sonal beliefs, values and experiences.

Siegel described that his volunteer work as being very rewarding.

“There is no other experience that could top this,” Siegel said.

In addition to his position as Youth Leadership Coordinator, Siegel now serves as the Operations Manager for the Lessons of a Lifetime Project.

This year, along with sophomore Orly Farber, Siegel brought the ethical will proj-ect to JDS.

At JDS, he promoted the project and at-tracted new volunteers.

“In one conversation with the elders, you can learn so much more than in any other

setting,” Siegel said.Siegel’s classmates are

impressed by his enthusiasm for his volunteer work and are inspired to participate in community service activi-ties.

“He really loves to do community service…no-body really tells him to do it, he just does it on his own,” sophomore Max Levine said.

“If everybody could spend a little bit of time with a se-nior citizen and really under-stand what they’ve been through and learn what expe-riences they’ve had, they will learn much about themselves and how to live their lives,”

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Sophomore rises to youth coordinatorby Alex Gilden

During the days of Feb. 20-21 and March 24-25, both high school and middle school students had a chance to debate and vote on legislations drafted by their fellow peers. It was through both the JSA (Junior Statesmen of America) and eighth grade Model Con-gresses that students had the opportunity to interact with one another in a unique way.

“For the JSA Model Congress, the stu-dents were broken down into either Senate or House committees that evaluated a docket of 10-12 bills. Those bills that passed both the House and Senate Committees went forward to the Full House and Full Senate sessions,” History teacher Michael Connell said. “For the eighth grade Model Congress, the students attended a two-period session on two consecutive days. Each Congress debated and voted on about eight student-

prepared bills.” Students that attended the JSA Model

Congress also took part in other related ac-tivities. These activities included a visit to Capitol Hill to hear different speakers from the government and interest groups and a chance to sit in the actual House of Rep-resentatives to hear a retired Congressman speak to them.

Students also participated in a Political Fair, where they had the chance to talk with representatives from various interest groups, debate on various topics and different social activities.

Nevertheless, students who attended both the JSA and the eighth grade Model Congress thought they went well and “Stu-dents who [enjoyed] the eighth grade Model Congress should definitely consider joining JSA when they get to high school,” Connell said.

Models of Congressby Jonathan Waksman

art indulgenCe on April 30, The entire 11th grade, as well as the 10th graders taking Spanish and French, visited the National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery houses famous paintings from around the world from various time periods and styles. The Spanish and French classes took tours in their respective languages and saw paint-ings they had previously studied. The students saw such paintings as “The Sacrament of the Last Supper” by Dali and “Two Women at a Win-dow” by Murillo. The trip took place during the first half of the day. The stu-dents returned to school after lunch outside the National Gallery. To the right, students enter the National Gallery of Art.

Visiting the National Gallery

photo by Josh Raanan

A brand new doctor comes to the school

Judaic Studies Director Michael Kay re-ceived his doctorate on Mar. 25 after com-pleting his disserta-tion on leadership and community building in ideologically plu-ralistic Jewish high schools.

Dr. Kay began his working towards his PhD as early as 2003. Most of the work Dr. Kay completed while still working at JDS.

“I was teaching here part time, and doing my dissertation part time. Last year, which was year five, was my first year as director of Judaic studies, and I was halftime director of Judaic studies, and halftime working on my dissertation. And then this year, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my dissertation, and working here full time. So it was a slow transition from full time stu-dent to full time school administrator,” said Kay.

A PhD is the highest degree that a person can hold in a particular field.

“A PhD shows that you know how to do research. You know how to find informa-

tion, you know how to process information and you know how to analyze information…people who write PhDs have a very spe-cialized knowledge,” Jewish History teacher Sarah Coxe said.

And, of course, there is nothing but praise for Dr. Kay from his fellow staff members.

“I know he’s been working on this for quite some time, and I’m very excited for him that he was able to complete it while fulfilling all his other duties for JDS. Iit’s quite an accomplish-ment,” said Chair of

the Math Department Ethan Merlin.“We are so proud of Mr. Kay,” said Di-

rector of Upper School Admissions Robin Shapiro.

niCe jewish doCtor Kay is one of sev-eral administrators and teachers at JDS to earn their PhD.

photo courtesy of CESJDS.org

by Joshua Handelman

photo courtesy of Andy Siegelmaking a diFFerenCe Sophomore Andy Siegel helps to lead the volunteer department at the Charles E. Smith Life Communities.

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009Israel6

May 6 was JDS’ 16th annual Zimriah, serving to commemorate not only Israel’s 61st birthday but also Tel Aviv’s centennial. The theme was Tel Aviv, with each class incorporat-ing the hustle and bustle of the city into their skit, banner, dance and energy they brought to each song.

Judging the competition were Ari Roth, director of the DC-JCC Theater, Monica Lev-Cohen, director of Academic Affairs and Speakers Bureau, and Yonatan Peled, spokes-person for the Israeli embassy. Alumni Michal Abraham and Jonah Nelson, both of the Zimriah triple-champion Class of 2009, and 2008 graduate Elisheva Layman served as advi-sors to the judges, but could not vote.

At the end of the festivities, the freshman class took first place, the seventh grade and sophomores tied for second and the eighth grade won the banner competition.

“Zimriah this year was really awesome,” freshman Eitan Sayag said. “I had so much fun with it. I worked to sort of oversee everything, but we had different committees – for decorations and for the skit and so on, and they mostly did everything. We had about half our grade involved. I was so proud of us and I thought everyone did a great job.”

“Zim was awesome,” eighth grader Arielle Fontheim said. “It was really cool to win banner because a lot of people worked hard on it and it paid off.”

“I loved the theme of Tel Aviv because Tel Aviv is my favorite city in Israel,” sophomore Ari Eisen said. “I thought everyone did great – our skit was awesome. I’m proud of us for coming in second place, but it’s not really about the awards.”

Nevertheless, the competition results were met with some disappointment from the Class of 2010, the only class which

did not receive some sort of accolade.“We had all been working so hard, and we really thought that this was going to be the

year for us,” junior Jillian Racoosin said. “At first when they announced that we hadn’t won anything, it was really hard for me.”

Attempts to assuage the hurt feelings of the disgruntled junior class included breakfast the next day, a sympathetic e-mail from the school administrators and a neon green poster claiming that the junior class is “preposterously awesome” – courtesy of Math teacher and

class advisor Victoria Ball. “We know that you were disappointed

in today’s Zimriah competition results,” the e-mail began, “and we understand your disappointment because we know how you put your heart and soul into planning for the day.”

“You may not have placed in the Zim-riah awards,” it continued, “but you cer-tainly placed in our hearts and minds for the passion and ruach that you bring to our school.”

“I thought the e-mail was really sweet,” Racoosin said. “And overall we came together as a grade so much to celebrate Israel and I thought that was amazing. In the end, it wasn’t really about winning or losing.”

Indeed, Zimriah this year included more than the annual intra-grade rivalry. Some of the non-competitive highlights of the day included an Israeli dance per-formance given by juniors Amalia Cow-an and Emma Rodwin and freshman Tamar Gasko.

“We learned the dance at Yesodot,” Rodwin said, “Which is an Israeli dance

troupe for high school students in the greater Washington area. I was really happy to share one of my talents with the school, to help celebrate Israel.”

“I really enjoyed the Israeli dancing,” Jewish Text, Thought and Practice teacher Paul Blank said. “But the best part of the day was when J-boy did that song,” referring to junior Jonathan Iwry who performed a combination of Hebrew and English verses celebrating Tel Aviv.

Teachers added to the Zimriah mayhem too, at one point running into the gym in various superhero costumes.

“Basically, Matt Grossman, a member of the class of 2009, contacted a bunch of teach-ers to carry on the 2009 legacy,” Ball said. “We all dressed up as superheroes to represent the class of 2009, because their graduation theme was superheroes.”

The results of the 2009 Zimriah celebration may end up serving as a catalyst for a change in the judging system.

Hebrew teacher Yaffa Dagony said, “There have been no plans yet to change the judg-ing system, as it has worked so well for so many years, but perhaps it is time to review and potentially make it more fitting for our current school community.”

Tel Aviv’s big birthday bash by Maya Felman

shake that stuFF In the Class of 2011 skit, Yehudah Abraham, Dov Block and Rachel Milner audition to get into Tel Aviv late night club. The club was called Club Period.

walk it out Math teacher Dominic Lee danced to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. Lee played an essential role in the Class of 2011’s skit.

photo by Josh Raanan

photo by Josh Raanan

photo by Josh Raanan

photo by Josh Raananthe world Champion Sophomore Barry Shapiro finishes off his solo dance moves dur-ing the Class of 2011’s dance. Shapiro also preformed an assortment of flips.

disCo disCo woo-woo Freshmen Stephanie Aserapf and Asaf Wurmbrand dance dur-ing their grade’s beach-themed skit. The Class of 2012 won the Zimriah competition.

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 Israel 7

On March 16, students in grades eight through 11 watched a play about Koby Mendell, a 13-year-old boy who was murdered in 2001.

The play told the tale of Koby and his friend, Yosef Ishran, who were stoned to death by Palestinian terrorists in a cave near their homes.

“[The purpose of the play was] to have young people think about why and how people, who live in Israel, even those who have been through trauma, connect to Israel, as well as how those of us who don’t live in Israel can still connect to Israel in mean-ingful ways,” Middle School Directer Joan Vander Walde said. “I think serious Israel programming is important,” she said.

“Seeing the play made me realize events like this are re-ality,” freshman Arielle Green said.

Following the play, Koby’s father, Seth Mandell, spoke to students about his son’s tragic death.

Mandell also discussed the organization started in honor of Koby, which provides healing programs for families who have lost loved ones due to terrorism.

“The program made me feel a vast range of emotions,” freshman Scott Goldstein said.

“A play can dramatize a person’s thoughts in a way that speaking can-not,” Vander Walde said.

The organization has programs such as ‘Camp Koby’ to help kids struggling to deal with the tragic expe-

riences they have faced.

“A play can dramatize a persons’ thoughts and expiriences in a way that speaking cannot,” Joan Vander Walde

Koby Mendell tragedy remembered

destined to remember Students will remember Actress Lisa Robins’ performance as Sherri Mandell, Koby’s mother. Koby’s father answered questions afterwards. photo by Andy Siegel

Thanks to a new pen pal program, juniors in, Hebrew teacher Anat Entin’s second semester I Speak Ivrit class have practiced their Hebrew skills by writing to Israeli juniors at Branco Weiss high school in Beit Shemesh.

So far, Entin’s I speak Ivrit class has sent two PowerPoint presentations to the Bronco Weiss School and received two in return.

In the first PowerPoint presentation, Entin’s class used the textbook’s vocabulary words to describe life at JDS and life at home.

Junior Gil Kline said, “We get to use our Hebrew skills in real life situations. I can’t think of a more appropriate way to use our Hebrew skills.”

Students in Entin’s class said they discovered many simi-larities between their own lives and those of their Israeli pen pals.

Junior Frankie Sadoun said, “I think that it is really cool that we get the chance to talk to Israeli kids because they are a lot more [like us] than I expected. They like the same kind of movies and they like to hang out at the mall just like us.”

“I just put on some basic facts about myself so they prob-ably just know things like, I go to JDS and I like certain

foods. You don’t really know the person, [but] you know a couple things about them,” Kline said.

Entin plans on continuing the pen pal project for the re-mainder of this year and for next year’s class.

Both classes are also trying to set up a conversation with each other over Skype.

“I am talking with Ms. Thornton [and] we are planning to Skype with the class. We have to make the time and place. We will talk to the other class, real conversation,” Entin said.

“I am so excited for the phone conversation, as it is going to be a blast to talk to them,” junior Andrew Lewis said.

Pen pal relationships connect juniors with Israeli peersby Briana Felson

by Haley Cohen

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009 In-Depth8

The Moscow ConnectionOn Dec. 8, 2008, eight JDS juniors left for Moscow to spend a

week with students from the Moscow National Jewish School No. 1311. On May 3, the Russian students completed the Moscow con-nection by coming here for a week to tour Washington, D.C., connect with American families, improve their English and learn about what it means to be Jewish in America.

The idea for the program first originated when JDS Head of School Jonathan Cannon met with the head of the Moscow School, Gregory Lipman. The program was then subsidized by the Jewish Federation

of Greater Washington, the umbrella organization for Jewish philan-thropy in the D.C. area, as part of its Russia committee.

Regrettably, between Madoff and the economy in general, the Federation is making cuts, and this exchange program will not be continued next year. But for the 16 students and four chaperones that participated in the exchange, the program was an invaluable experi-ence, and all have expressed their gratitude for the opportunity. There were more than a few tears when the Russians departed on May 10.

For your convenience, and to reinforce the connections made dur-ing the Russian visits, The Lion’s Tale has created this profile of the eight Russian students.

by Kyle Hardgrave

Toma TavdiToma Tavdi is one of the younger members

of the group, only 14-years-old, though she of-ten comes across as older and more mature. She speaks English with poise and few mistakes, even in situations that others would find intimidating; whether in front of a dozen representatives from the Jewish Federation or while playing Apples to Apples on Shabbat, her English does not fail her. She also speaks fluent Hebrew.

Tavdi describes herself as a “religious Jew,” and is by far the most observant of the group. She keeps Shabbat and kosher strictly — she would not swim on Saturday, for example — and she celebrates all the Jewish holidays, a bit of an out-lier among the students from the Lipman School. But like many students here at JDS, she does not feel that her level of observance in any way alienates her from her peers.

For her, as well as for the other Russian stu-dents, it was a powerful thing to see some of the simple freedoms that American Jews enjoy, such as the ability to wear a kippah in public. At the same time, Tavdi noted that “Judaism in Russia and in the USA is very similar” in terms of how Jews practice.

In her free time, Tavdi likes to dance, sing and spend time with friends. Though she does not like Russian TV or movies, she does like Prison Break and One Tree Hill. Her favorite subjects are math and Hebrew, and she says that she would like to be a doctor or psychologist when she is older.

Friendly and overflowing with character, Sam Rabaev can always be found jabber-ing lively with the other Rus-sian students and he is forever cracking jokes. Unfortunately, most of them are lost on the Americans; they are all in Russian, as his English skills

are only very basic. He has lots of energy and a passion for Texas Hold ’Em; Rabaev was the Russian finalist in the Russian-American Grand Poker Tournament (a.k.a. late Friday-night Hold ’Em at the Krifchers’). He eventually lost out to Yaron Steinfeld.

The members of the Rabaev family are what would be called “mountain Jews,” an ethnic subset of Judaism that comes from the

East Caucasian mountains, around Azerbaijan. When it comes to reli-gious practice, they are similar to many of the other Russian students — and, for that matter, to many American Jews. They do not keep strict kosher outside the house, and they have no qualms about driv-ing or using electricity on Shabbat.

Rabaev’s father is an economist and his sister is studying to be an economist so, naturally, Ravaev is also an aspiring economist. Rabaev’s mother is a gracious and hospitable gynecologist. They live together in a small flat on Leninsky Prospekt, the second-widest street in Moscow.

Like all the other Russian students, Rabaev has an acute fashion sense — he spent a good percentage of his shopping time at H&M — and he is also very active on Kontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, and a player on his school basketball team with Emil Yarkubov and Ilia Rijinisvalli.

Sam Rabaev

Sonya Lerman, at 16, is the oldest of the Russian students, and next year she will begin attending university. Students in Russia only attend school from first through 11th grade, after which point they take their exams and go to university. This is why, with the exception of Lerman, most of the Russian stu-dents were a grade younger than the American students.

For her part, Lerman has an abiding love of animals. She owns two cats, both of which she has taken to numerous shows, and she herself is a member of a number of cat clubs. Lerman is interested in all animals, however, and she has aspi-ration of becoming a veterinarian.

Unfortunately, Lerman’s trip was cut short when she was taken to the hospital with a strong headache and was diag-nosed with pneumonia on May 7. As luck would have it, however, her mother was staying with fam-ily in New York City, and a chap-erone was able to take her up to her mother by train.

“It was really nice having So-nya stay at our house,” said her partner Jordan Kovalsky. “She loved meeting my dog Murey, which was very fun since she loves animals so much. We were very sad to see her leave.”

Sonya Lerman

When it came time to match the Russian and American students, there was little rhyme or reason to who got paired with whom. Yet with Emil Yarkubov and Yaron Steinfeld, it was a match made in heaven. Yarkubov is an all-American Russian — his excellent English means that he has no trouble gushing about Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat with Steinfeld. They talk sports, cars, and movies, and all in English, with little language barrier.

When asked what he wants to do when he grows up, Yarkubov strays slightly from the typical answers of doctor, economist, etc. “I hope I will be an owner of hotels, casinos, restau-rants,” he said.

Naturally, Yarkubov is always cracking jokes — both in English and Russian. On the (frequent) occasion that the do not draw a laugh, he brushes it off casually. “It is Russian joke,” he says.

Yarkubov is very active in his free time. He plays basketball on the same team as Sam Rabaev and Ilia Ri-jinisvalli, and he also spends a great deal of time at the gym. He has an abiding love of American movies, and frequently, if he cannot wait for the dubbed version, he just watches it in English.

Yarkubov is outgoing and chatty, and he quickly got to know all the American students. Following Steinfeld’s lead, he and the other Russians picked up some JDS inside jokes to take back to Moscow, such as peppering his speech with the word “valid.” It is unclear whether they believe these jokes to actually be funny.

Emil Yarkubov

At first glance, Savin Benyaminov is the small and unassuming one. He hangs out with Sam Rabaev and Ilia Rijinisval, but he is a certain degree less energetic. Still, when you get him talking, he is motivated and articulate. Benyaminov cited improving his English as one of his primary reasons for participating in the program, as he sees it as very important for his future.

Benyaminov’s style of choice is Calvin Klein — Calvin Klein shirts, Calvin Klein belt, and Calvin Klein hat. Along with Rabaev and Rijinisval, he spent nearly an hour at Syms looking through suits

In Russia, Benyaminov is a dedicated student. But when not study-ing, he occupies himself on Kontakte and various online role-paying games. Most of the Russians are very tech savvy. One interesting cultural phenomenon is that they all seem to own an iPhone or iPod Touch — certainly more than the Americans. Benyaminov is no ex-ception, and he can often be found playing around on his iPhone.

Although Benyaminov can be shy, he is an excellent conversa-tionalist once you get him talking. He seems to approach English conversation seriously, recognizing that, although he is communicat-ing and making friends, this is also and important opportunity for him to sharpen his skills.

Savin Benyaminov

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 In-Depth 9

Self-described as “punk rock,” Liora Bleher is a bit of the rebel of the group. She loves music, and her passion for it shows through in everything she does.

While Sam Rabaev and Ilia Rijinisvalli were trying on shoes at Foot Locker, she spent her mall time browsing Hot Topic. Sometimes, while walking from place to place or hanging out, you can hear Bleher singing quietly the words of a Russian or American song. She enjoys watching American Idol, Step Up, Raise Your Voice and anything that has to do with music. And while the other Russian students re-turned to Moscow with brand-new shoes and clothing, her purchase of choice was a red electric guitar.

Bleher is also the girl of many names; her Russian name is Lillia, but she goes by her Hebrew name, Liora, or her nickname, Liorka. And when she is not singing or

playing the guitar, Ble-her is an excellent stu-dent. She likes to learn different languages, and so her favorite sub-ject is Hebrew. Even though she does not practice much in the way of Judaism, she enjoyed learning about it here in America. Her favorite experience of the week was Shabbat with the Racoosins, be-cause “only with fam-ily can you feel real Jewish life.”

The Moscow ConnectionOn Dec. 8, 2008, eight JDS juniors left for Moscow to spend a

week with students from the Moscow National Jewish School No. 1311. On May 3, the Russian students completed the Moscow con-nection by coming here for a week to tour Washington, D.C., connect with American families, improve their English and learn about what it means to be Jewish in America.

The idea for the program first originated when JDS Head of School Jonathan Cannon met with the head of the Moscow School, Gregory Lipman. The program was then subsidized by the Jewish Federation

of Greater Washington, the umbrella organization for Jewish philan-thropy in the D.C. area, as part of its Russia committee.

Regrettably, between Madoff and the economy in general, the Federation is making cuts, and this exchange program will not be continued next year. But for the 16 students and four chaperones that participated in the exchange, the program was an invaluable experi-ence, and all have expressed their gratitude for the opportunity. There were more than a few tears when the Russians departed on May 10.

For your convenience, and to reinforce the connections made dur-ing the Russian visits, The Lion’s Tale has created this profile of the eight Russian students.

If you saw Ilia Rijinisvalli from afar, the first thing you would notice would be his height. He is the tallest of the group. As you got closer, though, you would see the sly smile that is ever tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Rijinisvalli is only 14, and though he can be shy, he has a dry sense of humor and will often drop a quiet one-liner here and there, little gems for whoever is paying attention. Though he tends to shy away from using it, his English is deceptively good.

Rijinisvalli plays with Emil Yarkubov and Sam Rabaev on the school basketball team. However, above all else, Rijinisvalli’s pri-mary passion is photography. While the others used their point-and-click Sonys and their iPhones, he brought a professional-quality Canon DSLR that he kept with him constantly.

When asked about their favorite part of the week-long program, all the Russian students mentioned the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yet Rijinisvalli is perhaps the only one of the group who lost a number of family members to the Holocaust. Originally from Moldova, his father’s side of the family perished with most of Eastern Jewry. Rijinisvalli himself moved from Moldova to Georgia and finally to Moscow before he was seven.

Sobering histories aside, however, Rijinisvalli shares the others’ strong fashion sense, and he too is a big fan of American media, including Scrubs, AC/DC, Lost and Kanye West.

Ilia Rijinisvalli

Liora Bleher

Friendly and overflowing with character, Sam Rabaev can always be found jabber-ing lively with the other Rus-sian students and he is forever cracking jokes. Unfortunately, most of them are lost on the Americans; they are all in Russian, as his English skills

are only very basic. He has lots of energy and a passion for Texas Hold ’Em; Rabaev was the Russian finalist in the Russian-American Grand Poker Tournament (a.k.a. late Friday-night Hold ’Em at the Krifchers’). He eventually lost out to Yaron Steinfeld.

The members of the Rabaev family are what would be called “mountain Jews,” an ethnic subset of Judaism that comes from the

East Caucasian mountains, around Azerbaijan. When it comes to reli-gious practice, they are similar to many of the other Russian students — and, for that matter, to many American Jews. They do not keep strict kosher outside the house, and they have no qualms about driv-ing or using electricity on Shabbat.

Rabaev’s father is an economist and his sister is studying to be an economist so, naturally, Ravaev is also an aspiring economist. Rabaev’s mother is a gracious and hospitable gynecologist. They live together in a small flat on Leninsky Prospekt, the second-widest street in Moscow.

Like all the other Russian students, Rabaev has an acute fashion sense — he spent a good percentage of his shopping time at H&M — and he is also very active on Kontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, and a player on his school basketball team with Emil Yarkubov and Ilia Rijinisvalli.

Sam RabaevLika Alon is friendly and easygoing and she is a big fan of all things American,

particularly President Obama. She loves Obama. She also watches Lost, listens to T.I., reads Dan Brown books and watches American movies, such as Titanic, August Rush and The Devil Wears Prada. She is generally quiet mellow, and she likes to read or relax with friends.

Alon has an excellent relationship with her family, and she often takes care of her younger brother Luka, 6. Their family moved to Moscow from Georgia, where she was originally born. She still speaks Georgian, in addition to her Russian, English, and Hebrew. She is also an Israeli citizen from when her family made aliyah — at the airport, hers is the lone blue that stands out against the red of the other Russian students’ passports — and her fluent Hebrew made it easier for her partner Michelle Koblenz to communicate with her. Her family observes some

basic Jewish laws, though in general they are fairly secular.Alon is an excellent student; her favorite subject is Algerba, and although she has not “solved precisely” the

problem of what to do when she graduates university, she is tending toward the field of medicine.

Lika Alon

Liora Bleher

Ilia Rijinisvalli

Lika Alon

Sonya Lerman

Emil Yarkubov

Savin Benyaminov

Sam Rabaev

Jillian Racoosin

David Freidland

Michelle Koblenz

Jordan Kovalsky

Yaron Steinfeld

Alon Krifcher

Kyle Hardgrave

Russians Americans

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009Editorial10

David Goldstein

The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School’s ability to pro-vide a high quality education for its students depends on the school’s ability to retain and attract excellent faculty.

In an April 2 press release euphemistically entitled “CESJDS Plans to Secure the Excellence of its Educational Programs in the Context of the Current Economic Climate,” the administration declared that it would lay off 15 percent of its professional community. Unfortunately, it appears that the administra-tion has not yet exhausted every alternative to laying off teachers, which I fear will greatly impact the school’s ability to provide a high quality education.

Laying off 15 percent of the faculty will greatly affect the students at school. Many of these teachers are excellent educators and when they leave, the quality of education will diminish.

I have personally been taught by some of the teachers who are leaving and it is diffi-cult for me to imagine my senior year without them.

In addition, JDS is such a close-knit com-munity that many students have established friendships with their teachers.

I oftentimes stop into the Science Depart-ment and the Jewish History Department to strike up conversations with the teachers who have impacted my life. The idea of so many of the people who I have known for the last five years leaving pains me.

The administration argues that the teacher layoffs are necessary because of the declining enrollment. Therefore, the school contends that there may not be the same classes for the teachers to teach. However, it is important to note that enrollment varies from year to year.

This year, there were 94 new families and the largest sev-

enth grade class in school history with 140 students. When enrollment returns, the school will need to hire additional teachers and they will probably not be able to hire the same excellent teachers back because they will be teaching else-where.

In the current economic downturn, the Jewish Day School

is not the only employer facing difficult times. However, unlike JDS, some employers have found ways to avoid large

layoffs by leveling the gap between executive and worker pay.

I urge JDS to follow the concept of V’ahavta L’Rayakha, set forth in its mission statement which describes creating a caring community where members “are responsible for each other and the community.” Our school should follow the ex-

ample set by Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Medical Center, who cut adminis-trative pay at his hospital so that lower paid employees would not be laid off.

As Leonard Abess the CEO of the Na-tional Bank of Florida understands, the low level employees who perform the day-to-day tasks are often more impor-tant to the customers than the high level administrators.

As he stated, “if the president of a bank doesn’t come to work it’s not a big deal, but if the tellers don’t show up it’s a serious problem.” Similarly, at a school like JDS, it is the teachers, not the admin-istrators, who educate the students, which is the primary mission of the school.

After viewing the school’s 2006 IRS Form 990 available online at guidestar.org, I believe that the school’s highest level administrators receive grossly dis-proportionate higher salaries than teach-ers.

At a time when even the president of the United States is questioning the pro-priety of executive pay, it does not seem unreasonable to question the salaries granted to the school’s top administrators especially when the school claims that it needs to lay off teachers because of

declining revenue. If the highest level administrators were to take temporary pay cuts, many teachers’ jobs could be

saved. Besides lowering administrative pay,

I also suggest the school consider us-ing some of its endowment and invested money. In a 2006 report to the community, Nancy Hamburger, the past president of the board of directors said, “I feel proud to be part of a school that gives our kids the tools to lead extraordinary lives and the in-centive to give back to their community.”

In the same report, JDS cited an im-pressive $57 million in net assets. The school also declared that it had invested five percent of its revenue which amounts to $1.89 million. If the school were to cash in just some of its investments or take some money out of the endowment, many additional jobs could be saved. Finally, the school is blessed to have many philanthropic alumni and support-ers who care deeply about the Jewish Day School. Many supporters choose to give unrestricted donations, which can be used for any purpose the administration deems prudent.

The school should use the unrestricted donations to create a teacher fund to avoid layoffs. As for the restricted donations that specify how the donations must be used, the school should consult with the donors and ask them if they would be willing to allow their donations to be reallocated to a teacher fund. This is yet another way to help avoid layoffs.

Our school is entering a period of great uncertainty over the economy. Howev-er, the school is fortunate to enter tough economic times from a position of great strength.

The proposals outlined above will help ensure that our school continues to provide a high quality of education focused on in-dividual attention for every student.

The Schmooze

Valerie Cohen

Administration should have acted to prevent teacher layoffs

The VALid VoiceMore inspiration needed in projects

While the junior commonplace book assignment was a great step towards creat-ing innovative projects for students, more needs to be done to establish projects that truly capture student interest.

There is no doubt in my mind that the commonplace book was a great idea for students. When I looked at people’s com-monplace books, I learned things about people I had never known before. Just looking at everyone in my grade bringing in posters, papier-mâché hearts, boxes and books made me realize how much thought everyone put into his or her book. When a project is so open-ended that a video game could be made to present it, it becomes clear that the project is a true chance for students to express themselves.

In my experience as student at JDS I have always learned best when something was taught to me in a creative manner. Furthermore, when I am forced to think creatively or address a specific topic that interests me, I challenge myself to think harder and push my mental boundaries more than I would for a project that asks me to simply answer questions teachers set before me. It is projects like writing a fake screenplay for an English novel or creating an imaginary species that spark my interest in learning.

I have heard so many complaints from

my friends about various projects they have been assigned that are boring and time consuming. I personally have spent many hours on projects in which I just have not felt invested. I have been given countless projects that require me to spit out facts and make an attractive poster board. In the end, I can never remember the facts I have written down, and I take very little from the project.

That is not, however, to say that I have not been assigned some really interesting projects in my time at JDS. I have had many teachers who have made efforts to be creative. But to truly make a differ-ence in the education of students, it can-not just be a creative project here or there. Students will benefit very little from a creative project here or there. Teachers need to make a real effort to keep creative learning going between projects.

There are so many ways to make proj-ects more interesting for students. Teach-ers could have students create skits enact-ing what it must have been like to have lived during the American Revolution or have a math project where students have to create some form of a business model using compound interest.

Another option would even to find ways to integrate subjects. At my cousin’s school, Nicolet High School in Milwau-

kee, WI, there was even an integrated project in which the project was a joint history and English research project in-volving a thesis. Perhaps by combining subjects all students are taking into a joint project students will be forced to think in ways they have not before.

Suppose a student hates history but re-ally likes math. Maybe a project looking at some of the mathematical principles in economics will help him or her look at history in a new way. Maybe a student really hates science but loves English. A project where that student has to write a narrative from Rosalind Franklin’s perspective, while writing with scien-tific terminology and perhaps part of her research, will help that student see that English can relate to science.

The job teachers have is not easy. Try-ing to force students who are too tired or too stressed to focus is not an easy task. Integrating more creative projects into the school curriculum when there is already so little time to teach students everything they need is a challenge.

I know, however, how wonderful the teachers at JDS are and I know that they are up for the challenge. More creative projects would enrich student learning and give classes a level of breadth they would otherwise not have.

Courtesy of CESJDS Report 2006

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 Editorial 11

the

lion’stale

Editors-in-ChiefValerie Cohen

David Goldstein

Managing EditorBenjamin Block

Copy EditorJonathan Waksman

News EditorAdam Weinberger

ass’t: Joshua Boxerman

Feature EditorDanny Schwaber

Israel EditorNeville Brodie

In-Depth EditorKyle Hardgrave

Sports EditorsJeremy Lynn

Joshua Walfish

Imaging EditorJoshua Raanan

Web EditorDaniel Liss

ReportersJoshua Boxerman, Samantha Bress-man, Haley Cohen, Emily Dworkin,

Nathan Forman, Daniel Him0.melfarb, Meryl Kravitz, Joshua Lerner, Jessica

Lieberman, Daniel Liss, Isaac Nel-son, Jacob Schaperow, Ryan Strass-man, David Weinberg, Jonah Weisel

PhotographersJoshua Raanan

Shira SingelenbergDavid Herman

Advertising ManagerJoshua Tessler

ass’t: Nathan Forman

Business Task Force ManagersBenjamin Block

Thomas GuttermanEzra Rudman

Business Task ForceDavid Ben-Ami, Ari Blask,

Gabrielle Charnoff, Max Cutler, Jeremy Halpern,

Kyle Hardgrave, Daniel Kolender, Alexander Orenstein, Yaron

Steinfeld, Josh Walfish

Faculty AdviserSamantha Gendler

Adviser EmeritaSusan Zuckerman

Member: Columbia Scholastic Press Association, Maryland Scholastic

Press Association, National Scholastic Press Association, Quill and Scroll

Recipient: CSPA Silver Crown, Gold Medalist Award; MSPA Mary-

lander Award; Quill and Scroll George H. Gallup Award

The Lion’s Tale is a forum for student expression. Its purpose is to inform the

CES/JDS community and to express the views of its staff and readers. The staff has made every effort to ensure

the accuracy and objectivity of its news. Editorials reflect the opinion of a

majority of the LT board. The Lion’s Tale encour ages its readers to write letters to the editor and reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. All letters must be typed and signed. Letters may

be e-mailed to lionstale@cesjds.org.

Published by the students of the Upper School

Charles E. Smith Jewish Day SchoolAnnette M. & Theodore N. Lerner Family

Upper School Campus11710 Hunters Lane

Rockville, MD 20852phone: 301.881.1404 fax: 301.230.1986

www.lionstale.org

We, of the Lion’s Tale staff, agree with the school’s policy of handling each discipline issue on a case-by-case basis. However, as a result of the recent dis-cipline situation in the school, we feel that the administration still needs to be clearer about the consequences of students’ actions.

When judges of legal courts make rulings, they select the degree of the pun-ishment from a canonized list of punishments. They take into account the spe-cific situation, the defendant’s previous record, and any other factors that may relate to the case. Although this is an extreme example, the point still stands that there must be a level of consistency within the punishment system.

Students, especially middle schoolers, may be confused when not everyone who has broken a rule is facing the same repercussions.

JDS does a great job in addressing a student’s personal situation. The fact that it took two weeks to fully assess the situation and decide on a punishment proves that administrators do not act too hastily. We are all still learning and trying to grow from our mistakes. It is comforting to know that if we make a mistake the administration is going to take into account our own personal situ-ation.

Deciding what is an act worthy of expulsion or suspension is a gray area. Truthfully no matter what, everyone is not going to be happy with the punish-ment scenario. The school is wise in deciding to dole out punishments on a case-by-case basis because it will be easier to provide an explanation for fami-lies about the punishments that gives them closure.

In spite of the case-by-case nature of the school’s discipline program, ev-eryone does know there will be a consequence. However, there is a clear dif-ference in level of punishments between detentions and expulsions. We, of the Lion’s Tale staff, do not recall an explanation ever being offered about what the punishments may be for various crimes. While a zero-tolerance policy would be too strict, an understanding of specifically which behaviors will earn which punishments would be greatly beneficial to the student body.

It clearly varies on a case-by-case basis, but that does not mean that guide-lines should not be given. If communication about which offenses provoke which punishments were more transparent, students may think twice before breaking a school rule.

We recall on many occasions in classes and discussions with administrators that there has been an emphasis on the importance of decision making. In order to make proper decisions, students need to be able to weigh their options.

If they do not know what the punishments are, then all the cards are not on the table when students are making decisions.

It is up to the administration to build students decision-making abilities. However, how are they going to accomplish this without giving students all the decisions they can?

The school has truly taken a smart approach to the difficult task of decid-ing the punishments for students. However, the guidelines for students must be clearer if they are ever going to learn how to make good decisions.

Administration must set clearer consequences

Word on the streetDo you think the recent discipline situation is an indicator of a school-wide problem or were these isolated incidents?

stephanie prigal, sophomore

I think there is a problem because I have heard a lot about the eighth grade, and I definitely know that there are some students from my grade stu-dents in the school that have done drugs. But I think that compared to other schools, ours is not much of a big deal...I don’t think it’s a huge problem, but there definitely is a problem.

It is a school wide problem, because I think that a lot more people make bad decisions than the school knows about.

I think that it is just a small group of kids who are just doing bad things and they are all get-ting blamed for it.

danielle masiCa, eighth Grader

I wouldn’t say that it is a completely isolated problem, I definitely think that there are more people who are doing those kinds of things, but it’s not a majority of the school.

sharon kimel, junior

samuel yeroushalmi, Freshman

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009 Opinion 12

Letters

Dear Editor, Of the 10 JDS students who know

where to place commas, it’s a safe bet nine of them took Journalism. In each class, Journalism students continue to learn new writing skills.

As a course, Journalism teaches stu-dents grammar, editing and writing but somehow does not receive an English credit at JDS.

Where is the justice in that?Reading words off a sheet in Public

Speaking, watching films from the 1950s in American Film and journaling feelings in Creative Writing helps students reach the necessary credits to graduate.

While students in Journalism, who are taking AP style quizzes, learning eth-ics, creating balance in stories, and writ-ing and editing simply earn an elective credit.

In order to attain the extra English credit that is dropped senior year because of early graduation, a JDS student must take an extra English class.

The options include Mystery Writing and Detective Fiction, Film and Litera-

ture, American Film, Comedy, Creative Writing, Graphic Novels, Language Study and Public Speaking.

In Journalism, students are taught dif-ferent styles of writing that are not pre-sented in the regular English classes: news, editorial and feature.

Students learn how to write properly by organizing facts, creating clever head-lines and conducting interviews.

English is more than learning how to analyze novels, films and other forms of literature.

Students who take Journalism have the challenge of learning the basics of writ-ing. We learn how to get our ideas across in a concise way, which is a skill that is extremely helpful in analysis and essay writing in the standard English classes.

Unlike the “JDS credit acceptable” English classes, students actually learn grammar.

Rather than just analyzing someone else’s words, Journalism students are taught to write words of their own.

Daniele MarxClass Of 2011

Students should receive English credit for journalism

After reading your article about the se-niors transition from PVAC to NCAA I was disappointed that you failed to mention my son, Ethan Litman also a recruited athlete, in your article.

I suppose he wasn’t mentioned in the ar-ticle as his sport, swimming, is not a team sport at JDS, but that does not diminish his accomplishments as a swimmer in the PVAC Swim League.

Ethan, like the other three students men-tioned in your article was recruited by nu-merous Division III schools & universities last summer and early fall. Bowdoin, Tufts, Wesleyan, Amherst, Dartmouth, Claremont Mckenna, Colby....just to name a few- and decided to attend Middlebury College where he will also be swimming in the

NCAA, or more specifically the NESCAC league.

During his high school years Ethan tried to form a JDS swim club/team but for countless reasons never was able to form a team.

Maybe if you had mentioned Ethan in your article it would have encouraged other swimmers, whom there are many at JDS to strive to swim at the collegiate level.

It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get the recognition that he deserved from your paper for his hard work and com-mitment to his sport of swimming. Margie Litman

Parent

Swim accomplishments missing from PVAC article

Short Fridays should be a year-round tradition to encourage students to prepare for Shabbat

Dear Editor,On March 13 we had our first regular

Friday since early October. Short Fridays, which end at 2:18 p.m., were created to allow time to prepare before Shabbat be-gins during the winter months. In addition to the original intention for short Fridays, they are beneficial for other reasons. They give us more time to relax after a long week, take a deep breath and prepare mentally as well as physically for Shab-bat. Most students can’t focus in the last hour and a half of school on Fridays any-way. Short Fridays can enhance the tradi-tion of preparing for Shabbat, making it more extensive and meaningful. It makes the end of the week before Shabbat some-thing special to look forward to. I believe short Friday’s should not be limited to the daylight savings times, but instead be all year round.

Every week at JDS is intense and dif-ficult. Short Fridays are a great reward because they give us something to look forward to and give us motivation to get through the week. In addition to short

Fridays being a reward to the students, it also makes logical sense in terms of learn-ing; at the very end of the day on Fridays, students are already checked out and our minds are on break. It is a waste of time to teach us at this point because it will just have to be re-taught. If we have short Fridays and cut off the end of the day we have the energy and the stamina to stay focused and really learn until the end of the week.

Most importantly, one of the reasons families pay to send their children to JDS is because the school is supposed to respect our traditions. Our traditions continue all year long, but short Fridays do not. Short Fridays all year allow stu-dents and families to welcome Shabbat in a calmer, more pleasant manner, feeling treated more special after a long week of hard work. Short Fridays are important to have all year round and it will create a more productive, relaxed and respectful atmosphere in the school.

Eitan SayagClass of 2011

Visit the new and improved

Lion’s Tale! www.lionstale.org

STUDENT COUNCIL REPORT CARD

The Lion’s Tale editorial board, as it has done in past years, has rated the overall performance of the Student Council. We assessed their success in organizing activities, involvement with tzedakah projects, and communication with and repre-sentation of the student body. Each grade represents the most frequent letter grade given by individual members of the edito-rial board.

Communication: Student Body Representation: Activities:Color War: Tzedakah:

Overall Grade:

BA-B-AB+

B+

Dear Editor,

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 Feature 13

They say that the name tells all. Well, that could not be farther from the truth when it comes to the 11th grade com-monplace book project.

These projects went beyond the everyday English proj-ect. The project is designed to push students to see how lan-guage shapes the world around them by taking quotes from movies, TV or anywhere else and then determining how the quotes connect to them.

Students then made a creative project that connected the quotes they chose to a common theme. Students made a va-riety of different projects.

“It’s a little bit dif-ferent for every per-son,” English teacher Caroline Fitzpatrick said. “The idea is that the students are taking language, language that has influenced them in some way, quotes from their friends, quotes from their favorite movies, quotes from books that they’ve read, just little pieces of lan-guage and spending a lot of time thinking about how to sort them in ways that create new meaning,” she said.

Junior Ryan Strassman created a menu that included a meat section with the important and “meaty” quotes and a dessert section that included romantic quotes.

Another junior, Sharon Kimel created a fairy tale book which began with a common fairytale and then moved on to produce a new fairytale with personal quotes.

Whether it was a scrapbook, menu or a book of fairy tales, the 11th grade students explored their creative side in a variety of different ways.

“I created an hourglass which I surrounded with the quotes that I used,” junior Alon Krifcher said. The hour-glass represented time which he felt was connected to the

quotes he had chosen. He, along with other students, chose to loosely interpret the word ‘book’.

“I created a Box of Chocolates, aka Chocothoughts,” junior Amalia Cowan said. This entailed placing quotes in cupcake holders, then putting pieces of chocolate that relat-ed to the topic of the quotes, inside those cupcake holders.

Junior Jake Klein created a video game for his common-place book project.

“In short, I made a video game. More specifically, a type of video game called an RPG,” Klein said.

It was split into multiple “levels” where in each a cat-egory of quotes were shown and you fought the people who said those quotes.

Also the game had a storyline which was my trying to do the project,” Klein said.

Students had their own personal reasons for choosing which project to make.

“I thought that the quotes that I chose which I grouped into different groups, I thought they repre-sented time and mak-ing an hourglass is a good way to show how time elapses, the past, the present and the future,” Krifcher said.

“I choose to do the project this way because I had so many different categories, and had to have someway to link it all, and I for one am a huge chocoholic, and after all, this project was supposed to be a way to show who I am, and I already had the quotes to express who I was, I wanted a different aspect of my life, so I chose chocolate,” Cowan said.

The English department hoped that the project would en-able students to think outside of the box.

“I hope they [the students] gain a better awareness of how language shapes our world, their worlds specifically. A

better awareness of how we exist and understand each other through language. It should also be something that they en-joy, it is really personal and it’s supposed to be rigorous, it’s supposed to be challenging but it is also supposed to be fun,” Fitzpatrick said.

Krifcher thought the project accomplished its goals.“I thought it was a pretty cool way to incorporate ev-

eryday life, incorporating things you hear off the street, in movies, in music and then incorporating them in an analytical way and a creative way,” Krifcher said. “I learned that anything has value and if you just look for the value in something you’ll be able to find it. Everything has something worth seeing,” junior Alexander Orenstein said. “Everything has something interesting to it and if you just put it down and look at it later you’ll find it has rel-evance to really almost everything.”

This project was a fun way for students to push their ar-tistic, analytical and creative minds. They created these “books” to reflect on them-selves.

The commonplace proj-ect helps students understand how language is not present only in the classroom but also in the world around them.

“One of the things that make it special is that I think that it doesn’t end. You write a paper you turn it in and you say “phew” I never have to look at that again, of course as an English teacher we all hope that you don’t do that but we know that when your done with it you say, ‘that assignment is finished and I never have to go back to it,” Fitzpatrick said. “This is a little bit different be-cause it’s about you and so

it’s never finished. Sure you turn something in, you get a grade but it’s something you’re going to keep thinking about and that’s pretty cool. To use a fancy English teacher word, cool.”

The not-so-commonplace book by Danny Schwaber

a in the of...

Note: I am writing this day in the life because I won it in the Purim raffle, not because I was sought out for my liter-ary talent. I actually must confess, I cheated the lottery in order to win this prize. I took all the raffle tickets out of the “day in the life” box, and transferred them into the empty “Mrs. Heller will bake you a cake” box.

6:55 a.m. Wake up, stumble around my room trying to figure out what to do.

7:04 a.m. Decide on the blue argyle sweater, as the hood can be bunched up into a very comfortable pillow.

7:58 a.m. Arrive in orthodox minyan. We are actually quite progressive there. We believe that everyone deserves a role, including women, so they get the job of taking at-tendance.

7:59 a.m. Rabbi Bienenstock gives me the “I want you to lead,” signal. Ya, not after that passive participant grade I received.

8:00 a.m. Leave for middle school minyan.8:34 a.m. Arrive at Parshanut class.8:35 a.m. Wait! It’s a C day. Rush to the front desk to get

a hall pass, but instead Mrs. Martin gives me a late pass; the U is circled…in pen.

8:41 a.m. Spend 10 minutes trying to erase the circle. No luck. Trudge to Mrs. Lakein’s class.

9:47 a.m. Ms. Michelson surveys the class on how I look in a hat. Answers range from young to devilishly hand-some.

10:52 a.m. Mr. Silberman, “Michael, you’re smiling un-usually widely today.”

12:45 p.m. Sit down at lunch table.12:47 p.m. Israelis arrive. Try to avoid the barrage of

spilled drinks and flying coleslaw which surrounds me.1:18 p.m. Flee the cafeteria. 1:33 p.m. Mindlessly fill out a worksheet in Journalism

class. Hand it in.1:37 p.m. Wait, that was a quiz?2:47 p.m. Peacefully fall asleep in class. Hopefully none

of the other six kids in the class noticed.2:48 p.m. It is beginning to seem that this class will go

on forever and that I am not getting any closer to the bell.3:17 p.m. Arrive at Hadash.3:18 p.m. Leave Hadash.3:22 p.m. Put on my “Saftey-whistle” to ensure my safe-

ty. This way, if someone begins hurting me on the Rock Creek Trail, I will be able to blow it so loud that they will leave immediately, because they can’t stand the deafening high-pitched screech that the whistle makes when blown at full volume.

3:55 p.m. Arrive at blacktop for track practice.4:16 p.m. Leave for a distance run in the park.5:23 p.m. Get back from the run.5:37 p.m. Pack my shoes, lunchbox and running clothes

in my reusable earth-justice bag (100% organic, made from recycled cotton)

6:23 p.m. Set the table for dinner. Yonatan has this weird thing that no one is allowed to sit in Sam’s seat, so we leave that place empty.

7:24 p.m. Begin my homework, usually done on my

bedroom floor because the desk is cluttered. 10:17 p.m. Time for cookies and milk, or in my case,

whole wheat prune and date filled candy cigars and orange juice.

11:21 p.m. Time for bed, “good night everyone.”

Freshman Michael Greenberg lives through a crazy day

living it up Freshman Michael Greenberg dressed as a porcupine for Purim. He made his costume from a beach ball and toothpicks.

photo by David Herman

Fun in the sun Junior Michelle Koblenz’s proj-ect created a guide to the perfect vacation.

photo by Danny Schwaber

in the game Junior Jake Klein created a video game with him starring as the main character.

thelion’stale

May 22, 2009 Sports14

The girls varsity tennis team’s fight for the PVAC title ended abruptly with its tournament championship loss on May 13. The team played its final match, a match which could have won them the championship. This defining game was against the Washington Inter-national School Red Devils.

“Though we did not win collectively, every one of us played the best tennis of the season, and I’m really proud of what we have accomplished,” sophomore Galit Krifcher said.

Despite the loss, eighth grader Shira Becker and the doubles team of sophomores Miriam Thorne and Krifcher won the championships this year at the tour-nament. Becker entered the tournament as the number one seed as did the team of Krifcher and Thorne.

This year’s season was tough due to a number of different reasons. The season itself was especially short because numerous games and practices were canceled due to rain. The team itself had also fallen short because of lack of returning players from last year’s team. The team was led by sophomore Mi-chelle Shevin-Coetzee who played the number one spot in the Championship tournament.

“Because most of the juniors on the team this year were not on the team last year, there was not a strong sense of leadership. Our team lost five out of the sev-en players on the ladder so we were very young and inexperienced,” Krifcher said.

Because the team was smaller than past years, the players were able to get more one on one time with the coach and it was easier for the girls to get to know each other and for them to form one solid and unified team.

Even though the team was small, there were two coaches, Lower School PE teacher Raymond Istas and boys varsity tennis coach Harris Rosenblatt. Istas helped a lot by giving coaching advice while Rosenb-latt kept the team organized.

“While we did not get enough time as we would liked to be coached individually, the best coaching we got was from matches,” Krifcher said.

“We definitely got better as the season got going. I think everyone was surprised on how far we went because of the challenges we had to overcome. I be-lieve we will be able to go even further next season,” sophomore Abigail Litman said.

As the spring sports move into the second half of their seasons, the boys middle school baseball team won its first playoff championship title since 2006.

The team was led by Coach Greg Weller and eighth graders Yaacov Adler, Michael Gould, Brain Morris and Michael Paretzky.

The team of seventh and eighth grade boys got off to a successful start by winning its first two games over the Grace Brethren Eagles, 15-5 in four in-nings, and the St. Anselm’s Panthers, 9-5.

The team then lost its next two games against the Covenant Life Cou-gars, 5-1, and the Heights School Cav-aliers, 16-0 in four innings.

The game against the Heights School was an out of conference game. The Lions were overmatched from the beginning when the Cavaliers sent out a strong left-handed pitcher.

The team rebounded strongly though, defeating archrival Hebrew Academy Cougars 11-1 on April 26.

In the playoffs, the team earned the top overall seed and once again defeat-ed Hebrew Academy, 12-0 on May 12.

Despite losing twice in a row ear-lier in the season, the team stayed uni-fied and was optimistic and motivated about its future.

This was put to the test in the May 13 championship game against Covenant Life. The Lions fell behind 5-0 af-ter the first inning.

The Lions scored two runs in the second inning to cut the lead to 5-2. In the fifth inning the Lions scored three runs to tie the game at five.

After Adler pitched his way out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the sixth with a groundout to the short-stop, the Lions won the game 6-5 in the bottom of the sixth when eighth grader Ethan Walfish got a two out base hit between the first and second baseman. It was Walfish’s only hit on the day.

Following the game, the team dumped the water cool-er on Walfish. The team also presented Middle School Director Joan Vander Walde with a game ball signed by the whole team.

“I think our team has good chemistry and plays well, we just need to learn the signs the coach gives,” seventh-grader Michael Green-berg said.

The team is specifically working on learning in-game hand signals from the coach. These signals help to direct

them during real game situations. “We have spent a lot of time work-

ing on small details of the game that are important, but that means we can’t get much practice on the actual game,” seventh-grader Ethan Steinberg said.

by Emily Dworkin

A championship game for the ages

So close, yet so far

by David Weinberg

we are Champs Eighth grader Yaacov Adler pitches in a game against the Hebrew Acdemy Cougars on April 26. The Lions won 11-1 in four innings on the PVAC mercy rule.

photo by David Herman

game set matCh Eighth-grader Hannah Becker returns a shot in a tennis match at JDS against the Field School this season.

photo by David Herman

Extra inning heroics for BVB

The varsity baseball team was an underdog going into the playoffs. They ended the regular season with a record of 6-3, a re-cord that the team felt did not rep-resent the team’s full potential.

“Our hard work didn’t show much in the regular season, we weren’t all playing our best base-ball,” junior Samuel Krosnick said.

“I think that we were trying to feel ourselves out during the regu-lar season, and we were also try-ing to make sure that we were well rested. We were ready to hit our stride in the playoffs,” junior Ryan Strassman said.

The Lions definitely hit their stride going into the playoffs. They battled their way through the first two rounds, beating the St. Anselems Panthers in a nail-biter in order to make the championship game. Strassman pitched all seven innings of the game, only letting up one earned run. The Lions won the game with a final score of 2-1.

“Ryan pitched a fantastic game [in the semifinals], he carried us through to bring us to the champi-onship. He exemplified the tough-ness and heart that our team val-ues so greatly,” sophomore Adam Goldfarb said.

After the victory, the Lions ad-vanced to the championship game on May 14 against the Sandy Spring Wildebeests. Junior Ari Melinger-Cohen started at pitcher, letting up two runs through four innings. At the end of the fourth inning, the Lions led the Wildebeests 3-2.

At the end of the sixth inning the Wildebeests took a 5-3 lead.

“At that point I was so scared that we had come so far for nothing. We knew that we needed to win the game,” junior

Ezra Rudman said. With two outs the Lions scored a run on an RBI double

by Melinger-Cohen, who also scored the tying run after an error by the Wildebeests. The game went into three extra in-

nings. In the bottom of the 10th inning Krosnick singled. He then stole two bases to get onto third base. With one out, freshman Joshua Singer hit a grounder that drove in Krosnick for the win-ning run in the champi-onship and made a final score of 7-6.

The team credits its championship season to its coach, PE teacher Steve Forestieri.

“Coach [Forestieri] brings a relaxed atmo-sphere in which we feel structured, but we don’t feel the need to perform well. He relates really well to the players and tries to make everyone feel important on the team,” Strassman said.

Forestieri believes that the team grew up throughout the season and turned into a true unit.

“Our team grew to-gether at the end of the season and continually became a stronger team

unit as the season progressed. All of the players do a great job adjusting to the fact that we don’t have seniors on the team. The juniors have really taken the role as the leaders on the team this year and the underclassmen stepped up as well to make it a successful season,” Forsetieri said. “Winning the PVAC tournament championship this year was definitely a culmination of smart hard work, dedication, and focus from the entire team. I hope they take these lessons with them when they graduate from JDS.”

by Jonah Weisel

what a play Junior Ezra Rudman converts the force out at first base during a game earlier this season. The team beat Sandy Spring 7-6 in 10 innings to win the PVAC championship. The team finished 9-3 overall and 8-3 in conference. The team was led by junior pitcher Ryan Strassman and coach Steve Forestieri.

photo by Davud Herman

thelion’staleMay 22, 2009 Sports 15

The girls middle school softball team fell this year in the semifinals of the PVAC tour-nament. The team, led by first year coach Jay Matula, earned the second seed in the tournament. The team beat the Montrose Christian Mustangs in the quarterfinals be-fore losing to the Grace Bretheren Eagles 20-13 in the semifinals at home.

The team did improve on last year’s re-cord of 2-4 and a quarterfina defeat at the hands of the Kendall School Wildcats.

4x100 race is number one

It is 10:00 on a Sunday morning, and the JDS varsity track and field team is already running around the track at Walt Whit-man High School in Bethesda. While many of their friends are asleep or just waking up, the mem-bers of the track team are getting in an extra day of sprints, relays and long-distance running.

Varsity track and field has an extra practice on Sunday, in addition to its reg-ular weekday prac-tices held after school in order to give the students more experi-ence on a track-like surface. This track-like surface is nonex-istent at JDS.

The extra practice has paid off, as the team came in second place at its first meet this season.

The team is coached by Jason Belinkie and has cap-tains from both the sophomore and junior classes.

“Our job is to set an example for the younger kids by go-ing out and running our hardest every practice,” junior cap-tain Jared Lese said.

The Sunday prac-tices have been benefi-cial for getting experience with being in a match-like environment.

“Instead of pavement around the school, this [Whitman’s track] actually gives us the feel of a real track. Other PVAC schools have tracks, so that gives them an advantage that the Sunday practices help make up for,” Lese said.

Sunday practices have also been a good way of progressing the skills and techniques of the team.

“Although Sunday practices are a lot harder they help my running, and they’re really important to go to,” freshman Ari

Schoenburg said. “Sunday practices are by far the most

rigorous practices and are by far the most beneficial,” sophomore Alex Gilden said.

“There is a station set up for shot-put, and we’re all able to practice our own events,”

he said.“We don’t have the luxury of a track

that we can practice on every day, but if we could, that would be great for all of us,” he said.

In the championship meet, the team took home a gold medal with the 4x100 relay team of juniors Michael Beckerman, Jared Lese, Andrew Lewis, and sophomore Greg-ory Weiss.

Lese also qualified for the 100 meter as the third seed and the 200 meter as the eighth seed. He finished fourth and seventh respectivly.

by Daniel Himmelfarb

run like Crazy Junior Jared Lese runs in a meet on April 30 at Magruder High School. Lese won gold in the 4x100.

Safety before competition

The boys varsity volleyball team will not have a competitive season this year due to lack of interest.

Coach Patrick Dudash said he had mid-dle school students who were interested, but in the end decided against playing in the competitive Independent Schools Boys Vol-leyball League, a league that was created because the PVAC does not have a boys volleyball league.

“We just felt that with five seventh grad-ers out of eight guys, that it wouldn’t be safe and it wouldn’t be productive for them to continue on in volleyball,” Dudash said.

Instead, Dudash holds weekly clinics for interested students to improve their vol-leyball skills. He feels as though the clinics have been very successful.

“The first few weeks we only had a cou-

ple of guys show up, but as word got around and we had a few games, it got a little more popular,” Dudash said.

Members of the girls varsity volleyball team assist Dudash in running these clinics.

“It gives them a chance to learn how to teach someone else,” Dudash said.

The girls varsity softball team also can-celled its competitive season.

“I had been looking forward to playing a sport that I liked for the school,” junior Michelle Singer said.

The team had seven players try out for the team, two short of the normal nine play-er lineup. The team’s lack of players could also be attributed to a lack of interest.

“A lot of them didn’t want to come back and went and did other sports,” Singer said.

The team lost in the quarterfinals last year to the Grace Bretheren Eagles. The team was asked to help the middle school team for credit.

by Joshua Walfish

photo by David Herman

by Joshua Walfish

Early Exit for GMS Golf team places fourth by Valerie Cohen

PVAC all-conference selections:

Boys varsity baseball:First team - Ryan Strassman and Ari Melinger-Cohen

Second team - Matthew Goulette

Boys varsitytennis:First Team - Ariel Blask, Benjamin Block, Neville

Brodie, Zachary Cytryn, Alon Krifcher, Jonathan Kader and Yaron Steinfeld

Girls varsity tennis:First Team- Shira Becker, Galit Krifcher and Miriam Thorne.

Second Team- Hannah Becker, Danielle Clemons, Abigail Litman and Michelle Shevin-Coetzee

Varsity track: First Team: Michael Beckerman, Jared Lese, Andrew Lewis and Gregory Weiss.

On May 7th, the coed varsity golf team placed fourth in the PVAC Varsity Golf Championships with a season record of 2-2.

The team was led by number one spot, sophomore Joshua Lerner and number two spot, junior Jacob Akman. The team also had issues with practice time.

“Our biggest challenge was getting to practices. A lot of our practices were can-celled because of rain,” junior Thomas Gutterman said.

thelion’stale

16

Sp o r t SMay 22, 2009

The middle school program is meant to feed athletes into the varsity program in their sport. Yet, in a year dominated by middle school students who compete at the varsity level, two JDS teams cancelled their competitive seasons, despite the existence of middle school teams.

What is the current purpose of the middle school athletic program?

This year, three middle school students success-fully made it onto varsity teams and excelled at the varsity level when middle school teams were an op-tion. Eighth graders Jacob Mintz, Nathaniel Phillips and Shira Racoosin all played important roles on their teams during their seasons.

Phillips started at midfield for the boys varsity soc-

cer team on many occasions during its regular season. Racoosin played crucial minutes in the girls varsity basketball games and Mintz started most games in the infield for the boys varsity baseball team. These three athletes proved that middle school students can compete at the varsity level.

However, students have mixed reaction to the idea of middle school students playing on varsity teams. Freshman Max Ungar argued that there is a grave disconnect between the middle school and high school. However, if they can make the team then let them play. It is up to the coach to determine whether or not it is safe for the student to play. If the coach decides that the player is capable of playing without getting hurt then there should be no reason not to let them play.

Having been on the varsity soccer team, I saw Phillips play on a day-to-day basis. He fit very well into the team chemistry and in a way united the team. Phillips also played a crucial role in a very successful season without actually scoring a goal.

Similarly, Mintz fits in very well with the laid back attitude the varsity baseball team takes during practice. Mintz gets along well with all of his team-mates and they constantly joke and play pranks on one another.

There are high school students who only play one sport and therefore only have one chance to represent their school. The cancellation of the volleyball and softball seasons denied these students their chance to represent JDS on the field of play.

This seems wrong for a school whose values promote everyone giving back to their community in their own way. The cancellation does not allow these students to give back to the JDS community athleti-cally. It is a shame this is the case. These students have the right to participate in athletics at JDS, now that right has been taken away from them.

Dominating the PVACThis season, the boys varsity tennis team got off to a

strong start and finished the same way. The team won all five championships that could be won and all were PVAC first team members.

Juniors Benjamin Block and Alon Krifcher went unde-feated as a doubles team and were the best doubles team players in their PVAC divi-sion.

“Our team’s goals this sea-son were to go undefeated at every single spot, to go unde-feated in every single match, to win the regular season championship, and to win the tournament championship. To this point, having not lost a spot, I’d say we’re headed in the right direction,” junior Ari Blask said.

The tennis team’s success can be partially credited to its experience on the varsity level.

“Our team is made up of kids who have been on the team for [several] years. We

have two players who have been on the team for the past four years, and our entire starting lineup has played varsity tennis for at least two years. Jonathan Kader (’12) and my-self have won two championships, and both [junior] Yaron Steinfeld and [sophomore] Neville Brodie have been in the championships for the past three years in a row,” Krifcher said.

According to junior Zachary Cytryn, a vital role in the team’s run to the championship was its chemistry.

“Our team’s biggest strength this year is our chemistry. We really like having a good time together, and you can see that in our play and on the courts. When we have fun and play relaxed, we get results,” Cytryn said.

The team’s chemistry also enabled the many players of

the team to come together and focus on the tasks that lay ahead of them before each match.

“We come together and have a great pep talk. We discuss our strengths and our weaknesses as a team and really get ourselves excited for the match,” sophomore Andy Siegel

said. “After that we can go out

on to the court and play as strong as possible,” he said.

One of the building blocks of the team’s ability to work together is a clinic, run by the team’s coach, Harris Rosenblatt, which players attend year round.

“Throughout the year we go to a tennis clinic taught by our coach, and that really keeps us together as play-ers and as a team. The clinic really helps make sure that we remain strong as a team throughout the off season,” Siegel said.

While competition wasn’t as good as in years past, the team realized that they had to play one match at a time

“We knew that we had the ability to win the season banner and every spot’s cham-pionship. The only thing in our way was making sure we didn’t get too far ahead of ourselves. We knew that we can win every spot we play, but if we got overconfident we may have lost to a team we know we deserved to beat,” Krifcher said.

“The only thing that can stop us now is losing sight of what our goals are. If we lose focus during a match, or even a spot, we may lose sight of our goals,” Blask said.

The team certainly kept these principles in mind while they cruised to their undefeated record. The team never lost focus on their goals and in the end that helped them capture the banners they so desparatly coveted this season.

by Ryan Strassman

The Lions Tale would like to congratulate all of our spring sports teams on their championship years: Congratulations to the boys middle school baseball, boys varsity tennis and boys varsity baseball teams.

undisputed pvaC Champions The entire boys varsity tennis team rallies around their two championship banners after their tournament victory on May 13 at Carter Baron Tennis Center in Washington D.C. The playing team consisted of number one spot junior Yaron Steinfeld, number two spot sophomore Neville Brodie, num-ber three spot freshman Jonathan Kader and the doubles teams of juniors Ariel Blask and Zachary Cytryn and juniors Benjamin Block and Alon Krifcher.

photo courtesy of Danny Krifcher

photo by Danny Krifcherbeating the Champ Junior Zachary Cytryn sets up for a shot during his championship match at the Carter Baron Tennis Center in Washington D.C. Cytryn won the champi-onship with doubles partner junior Ariel Blask on May 13, 10 games to two.

photo by Joshua Walfishbump set spike Seventh graders Jacob Borenstein and Andrew Siegal learn volleyball skills from coach Patrick Dudash at a clinic on May 18.

Josh Walfish

When do varsity athletics take precedence?