“...Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...” —Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The Outbreak of Ebola Causes an Outbreak of Fear By Mariel Priven EBOLA, A HIGHLY contagious, sometimes fatal disease, has caused much tension among people all over the world since its outbreak in West Africa. In Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, the most Ebola-affected countries, there have been over 13,500 cases, however only Roanna Shorofsky and Ariela Dubler
An Interview With Our New Head of School: Ariela Dubler By Carlin Greenfield & Nina Glesby ALTHOUGH WE HAD to say good bye to our wonderful former Head of School, Roanna Shorofsky, we now get to welcome our new Head of School, Ariela Dubler. As most of you know, she is the mother of three, all of whom attend our school, so she has been a part of the Heschel community for a long time. We were excited to get to know her a bit better and look forward to follow up interviews about issues that concern our school. What follows is an interview recently conducted. What did you do before coming to Heschel? I was a law professor at Columbia. I taught Constitutional Law, Family Law and Legal History. How did you get involved in the search for a new head of school? I was working on the search committee,
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Dr. Craig Spencer has tested negative for the Ebola virus and has gone home!
about 7,700 of those cases were laboratory confirmed. With a fatality rate ranging from 25% to 90%, about 4,940 of the Ebola victims in West Africa have died. The disease is spread through bodily fluids only (saliva, blood, mucus, etc.), and can enter through cuts and open wounds. However, despite the fact that the disease is very contagious, anybody infected with the disease is only contagious when showing symptoms. Symptoms include high fever, severe weight loss, nausea, vomiting, internal bleeding, and stomach pain. These symptoms begin to show between 2 to 21 days after being exposed to the disease, which has led to several quarantines.
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NOVEMBER 2014
The People’s Climate March By Abigail Sylvor-Greenberg THE DAYS LEADING up to Sunday, September 21st were like most early fall days. The weather fluctuated between overly-humid summer-like air and brief interludes of chill. Clouds sat sparsely in the sky. Trees stood in their final shade of summer green. Meanwhile, outside of the city, ice was melting in drastic proportions, animals were being robbed of appropriate habitats, and greenhouse gases were being emitted thoughtlessly into the atmosphere. The planet was falling apart. The days following September 21st were the same, maybe with a colder temperature, more clouds, trees beginning to adopt undertones of brown, yellow, and red, but nonetheless with the earth deteriorating, day by day. That being said, something had changed. Something of mass proportion, which some thought could change the course of planet earth entirely.
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Letter from the Editors ! Dear Readers,
2014–2015 Editors Nina Glesby Carlin Greenfield
Fiction Editor Mariel Priven
Staff Writers Eli Buchdahl Leah Namdar-Cohen Anna Dubey Tillie Germain Abigail Sylvor-Greenberg Abby Fisher Sophie Fisher Jacob Fraiman Ayelet Kaminer Talia Kahan Adam Kern Tova Kleiner Noa Levine Maya Lukeman Rachel Mehler Sabina Sternklar-Davis Lexi Wenger Tema Zeldes-Roth
Art Tova Kleiner Tema Zeldes-Roth Maya Lukeman Tillie Germain Rachel Mehler Sabina Sternklar-Davis
Photography Carlin Greenfield Karen Dorr
Faculty Advisor Karen Dorr Judy Katz
Layout & Design Karen Dorr
WE ARE VERY excited to publish this year’s first issue of the Heschel Herald! Our staff has been slogging away, trying to make our first issue fun and informative. October raced by, filled with holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah, and Sukkot. We approach Thanksgiving with this issue that includes a very interesting arts section, numerous sports articles, fascinating fiction pieces, profound poetry, and much more. If you wish to make Heschel Herald history, feel free to write a letter to our editors. We hope you enjoy, and happy reading! Your Eighth Grade Editors, Nina Glesby, Carlin Greenfield, Mariel Priven,
Journalist of the Issue: Adam Liptak By Mariel Priven ADAM LIPTAK, A journalist for the New York Times has covered the Supreme Court, since 2008. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut and attended Yale University, where he was an editor of The Yale Daily News Magazine and received a degree in English. After graduating in the early 80’s, he got a job as a copyboy for the New York Times. A few years later, he went back to Yale to study law. In the years in which he was in Law School, he was a summer clerk at the New York Times Company’s legal department. Additionally, in 1992, after working at a law firm in New York for four years, Liptak joined the Times’ legal department as an advisor and litigator for ten years. In 2002, he joined the news staff and began covering the Supreme Court. Since 2007 he has
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Please send us your opinions and responses to any of the articles or editorials you read in the Heschel Herald. We will print your letters; it’s fun to see your name in print. Try it.
written a c o l u m n , “Sidebar,” on developments in the law and First Amendment issues. Liptak also teaches courses on media law and the Supreme Court at Columbia School of Journalism, Yale Law School, and UCLA Law School. Adam Liptak has added significantly to the New York Times for many years, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Business Week and The American Lawyer. He lives in Washington DC with his wife and two children.
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Editorial “We Prayed With Our Feet,” At The People’s Climate March By Carlin Greenfield THERE WAS A strong faith-based contingent as hundreds of thousands of activists took to the streets of New York for the People’s Climate March. They came to urge the international community that was to gather at the UN, to take stronger actions to protect the environment. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu groups were all represented with prayers, banners, and even a float shaped like Noah’s Ark. Religious participants said addressing climate change is a moral and religious obligation: Rabbi Lawrence Troster, GreenFaith: “All people of faith agree that protecting creation is an essential part of what we believe, that although God created this
wonderful world, it’s not up to us to destroy it, but rather to protect it.” The day started with a subway ride in a packed subway car, and I would say that there were at least as many people on the platform as there were on the train. When I first arrived at the “Faith Section” of the People’s Climate March on West 58th
Street between 10th and 11th Avenues just before 11:00 AM, there were hundreds of people who had gathered in the block. By the time we were ready to march at about 1 PM, I’d say that there were as many as five thousand people representing at least five different faiths, plus about four different sects of Christianity: Quakers, Unitarians, Evangelicals, and Catholics. They brandished signs that said things such as, “We Are All Connected; Save Our Planet,” and “We Have a Duty to Save Our Planet.” Before we left, there was an
interfaith service and an outdoor concert. As mentioned there was a huge float representing Noah’s Ark and an inflatable mosque. The march started two hours late with over three hundred thousand people. We left West 58th Street and made our way to Columbus Circle, there we joined the parade route. During the March, there were many on the sidelines cheering us
pole. People waved signs of support that hung outside their windows. Just before it was scheduled to end, everyone received a text telling us to disperse since there were too many people. The march brought together hundreds of organizations both secular and religious with one single goal: to reduce the use of climate-change-causing, ozonedepleting, carbon dioxide, and to lower our dependence on the fossil fuels that create it. When I arrived at the end of the march, I thought that was the end, but there was much more to come. The next day, I got an email saying that the final count for attendance at the march was over 400,000 people. As soon as I heard, I told everybody who had gone to the climate march about the great news. By far my
favorite part of the day was when several of my classmates informed me of the traffic jam that the march caused. A positive outcome of the march is a Climate Report recently issued by the United Nations that emphatically warns that, unless world governments take action to limit the use of fossil fuels there will be dire consequences. You know, sometimes it is worth it to put into action our First Amendmendment right to march and petition, and as Rabbi Heschel encouraged, “to pray with our feet.”. The fight does not end here.
on, including a man hanging from a lamp
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Interview: Ariela Dubler as a member of the board of trustees, and then someone suggested to me that maybe I should think about applying for the job, and so I started thinking about it. I talked it over with Jesse, my husband, and I decided that I would apply for the job. Was it hard to change careers? You know, it has been great to change careers. It has really taught me a lot of lessons about being able to reinvent yourself, and how important it is to follow your passions. It was hard to imagine, in advance, changing careers but it has actually been an amazing experience. I loved being a law professor. However, the more time I spent at Heschel, the more I started to feel like I was getting my students too late in their intellectual evolutions. It was exciting to think about working with students who were still, evolving as thinkers, and as people; working in a way that you can't really do with older students at a law school. I definitely think that my number one advice from my experience of changing careers, is that you should follow your dreams, and realize you can have different chapters in your professional life at different times. When did you tell your children and what was their reaction? I told my children right before the announcement went out to the community, so after I decided to take the job. I would say that they were excited, and supportive - my children are wonderful and supportive of the fact that my hours are much longer now than they were as a law professor. What was your reaction when you got the job offer? Honestly, to me, it felt like the biggest privilege, to have a community like this put its trust in me; it was extremely humbling - to think that this amazing school would entrust itself to have me as
its head. I was very excited. What are your future plans for the [Heschel] School? In general, my plan is to spend at least this year, listening, watching, looking, and talking to as many people as I can, before I arrive at any real judgements on where we go next. I think that when you come into a new place, it's extremely important to settle in and acclimate and integrate yourself before you make any quick changes. I feel very lucky to come into a school that is so strong already and obviously there are always ways to grow and build. I am truly looking forward to working with everyone here.
What is your favorite part of the job? My favorite part of the job is working with the teachers and the students. I enjoy visiting classrooms and going to tefillah, so I may engage in conversation with the teachers and students. What is the most stressful part of the job? The most stressful part is also the most interesting part, just the range of things I get to deal with every single day. When I oversaw my first fire drill, it wasn't stressful, but it did make me think of the multiple responsibilities of running a school. How has your role in the Heschel community changed since you took the job? I think more people engage with me as a
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professional, and that’s a wonderful new experience. And I am still a friend, a mom, and a friend’s mom; it's a wonderfully rich experience to wear these different hats. Do you think that student teacher conferences [with your children's teachers] are going to be different? I’m not worried about it, I think my kids have wonderful relationships with their teachers and I have wonderful professional relationships with their teachers, and the teachers and Jesse and I are all grown-ups and I think we’ll do fine. This is, happily, a community where there are a lot of people who are both members of the community and work at Heschel. What, if anything, do you think Heschel could improve on the most? Every ten years Heschel does a huge self study that's part of a process that involves our accreditation by a network of independent schools in New York City. We are right now in the year where every single person who works at Heschel is involved in this self study. We look at everything we do, and we look at our mission. We then examine even further: which practices fulfill our mission and which practices do not. At the end of that process, we all collectively think about, “okay, here we are, and we've just spent a year evaluating ourselves, what can we be doing better?” Thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure.
Happy Thanksgiving “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” ― John F. Kennedy
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temperature twice daily and at first showed no symptoms, but out of great Ebola and Fear caution when he developed a low People in the United States have temperature of 100.3, he checked himself become especially worried since Eric into Bellevue Hospital to be tested for the Duncan, tested positive for Ebola in virus. He tested positive for Ebola. Dallas, Texas. Duncan went to a Dallas Mayor De Blasio immediately went hospital emergency room with a fever into action, assuring New Yorkers that and reported having severe stomach pain, Spencer had “been in contact with very but was sent home, although a nurse few people,” and that those who had been reported that he had recently been in in contact with him were being Guinea. Duncan returned to the hospital quarantined and checked for symptoms. in severe pain and only then, was he He assured people not to worry. However, tested for the Ebola virus; he tested many began to worry when it was positive on September 30th, 2014, and revealed that the day he began having died only days later, on October 8th. symptoms, Spencer took the subway, used Two nurses were infected, but both have a car service, went jogging in Central recovered from the disease. All of the 48 Park, walked the High Line, visited a people in direct contact with Duncan, as coffee shop, a sandwich bar, and a bowling alley in Brooklyn. Nonetheless, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have repeatedly reassured the New Yorkers, explaining that the disease is only spread through bodily fluids, and quickly evaporates off of objects such as a subway poles. Furthermore, in their statement, the Health Department said, “The chances of the average New Yorker well as 77 health workers, and the 132 contracting Ebola are extremely slim.” passengers on Duncan’s plane have all Spencer was placed in the special, been checked for Ebola symptoms. All of isolated unit at Bellevue Hospital, one of Duncan’s family in Dallas who were in the eight hospitals statewide designated close contact with him have tested by Governor Cuomo as part of the Ebola negative for the virus. preparedness plan. In New York City, Bellevue Hospital Craig Spencer’s case led to New York prepared a special Ebola virus unit in the State and New Jersey’s governors to hold event anyone returning from West Africa a press conference, where they announced tested positive for the virus. Both nurses a more stringent, mandatory 21-day and doctors were trained, according to quarantine for anyone arriving from West protocols developed by Doctors Without Africa into Newark International Airport Borders and the US Health Department to or Kennedy International Airport. Several use protective gear to mitigate the spread other states soon did the same. However, of the disease. Governor Cuomo has since modified the Craig Spencer, 33, a doctor who quarantine to a person’s home, if there are voluntarily went to West Africa to help no symptoms or fever present in the Ebola patients through the volunteer person. He has offered to compensate international organization, Doctors anyone who may lose income due to Without Borders, returned to New York quarantine. City in late October. He checked his
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Unfortunately, as often happens, fears cause people to become overly cautious and immigrant populations from East Africa, who have businesses in the city, have reported that people have cancelled appointments or are no longer frequenting their businesses. Recently two brothers from Senegal were beaten up in their elementary school in the Bronx, when a student started calling them, “Ebola.” Fear can create distrust and cruelty. One must remember that, as the Health Department stated, the chances of getting Ebola are very slim. Practice sensible hygiene: wash hands after traveling on public transport and before eating. Most i m p o r t a n t l y, stay compassionate, and appreciate the nurses and doctors who put themselves in harm’s way to treat others in West Africa and in the U.S. ***News Update: Sadly, Dr. Marin Salia, a surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone, died Nov. 17th. He arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center in extremely critical condition and according to Hospital spokesperson, “despite best efforts, we weren’t able to save him.”
Update: Construction Across West End Avenue According to The New York Times the two new high-rises that are going up across the street will consist of a building with 362-unit condominiums, while a second building will house 616 rental apartments. There will also be a public school, stores, and possibly a Europeanstyle food market with food stalls and a restaurant.
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Sports
innings. Bumgarner, after hurling 21 innings of one run ball, was named World Series MVP. The Giants had a long and difficult road to the 2014 championship. They
Dynasty? The Giants Win For The Third Time In Five Years! By Eli Buchdahl ALEX GORDON, THE Royals’ leftfielder, stood 90 feet away from tying the game. There were two outs and there were two strikes and two balls. Every one of the 40,000 fans at Kauffman Stadium were on their feet cheering, hoping beyond hope for a miracle. Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ ace, faced Salvador Perez who had hit well in the World Series. The pitch came and Perez lofted a high fly to third base. Pablo Sandoval stood under it, and eventually the ball came down to earth. Sandoval caught it, and immediately dropped to the ground with his hands in the air. The World Series began with two straight blowouts, with the Giants winning Game One 7-1 and the Royals winning Game Two 7-2. Game Three was much closer. The Royals were up 3-0, but the Giants scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth to make it 3-2. Then the Royals’ lights-out bullpen came in and finished off the game. The fourth game was a blowout again, delivered by the Giants in the form of a 11-4 win, and the series was tied at three. Game 5 was another incredible performance by Bumgarner, and the Giants won 5-0. The Giants now had to go back to Kansas City for two straight road games. The Royals delivered in game 6, with seven shutout innings from their starter Yordano Ventura, and rolled 10-0. Game 7 was next. Both starters did not make it through four innings of pitching. For the Giants, they went up 3-2 in the fourth inning, then heroically Bumgarner on two days of rest (the average is 4) came in for five shutout
were the last team in the National League to clinch the postseason, securing their spot after winning in the 159th game of the year in a 162 game season. They had to go into a Pittsburgh Pirates stadium filled to the brim with screaming fans clad in black and gold. They proceeded to silence them backed by a gem of a performance by Bumgarner and a grand
slam by their shortstop Brandon Crawford. Next, in the National League Division Series, the Giants faced the intimidating Washington Nationals who held the best record in the National League. They won three games to one in a five game series. In the National League Championship Series, they faced the reigning National League champions in the St. Louis Cardinals. They won three out of the first four games, and then came one of the most dramatic moments of the postseason. In the bottom of the ninth, tie game, with men on first and second, Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha stared down the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa. Ishikawa worked a 2-0 count and then, on
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the next pitch, crushed a ball to right center. The right fielder went back, looked up, and watched the ball sail into the stands and the Giants punch their ticket to the World Series for the third time in twelve years. On the other side, the Royals had a similarly difficult road. They faced a door-die game against the Oakland Athletics and their ace, Jon Lester. The Athletics fought valiantly, with slugger Brandon Moss launching a pair of home runs. In fact, the Royals were losing 7-3 going into the bottom of the 8th. Then they fought back, scoring three runs in the 8th and a run in the 9th to tie the game. Fast forward to the bottom of the twelfth, and the Royals were down, 8-7. Eric Hosmer, the Royal’s first baseman, hit a one-out
triple and then scored on Christian Colon’s single. Colon stole second and then the next batter, Salvador Perez, laced a single down the left-field line past the Oakland third baseman Josh Donaldson and the Royals advanced. Next, the Royals faced the Los Angeles Angels, who carried the best regular-season record in baseball. They won three straight games, dispatching a team many people thought would win it all, with ease. In the American League Championship Series, they faced the intimidating Baltimore Orioles, who had just swept the Detroit Tigers. Behind spectacular outfield defense and some timely hitting, they won four straight games to move on to the World Series. They set a record, winning eight consecutive games to start the postseason.
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Sports Heschel Heat Girl’s Volleyball Makes A Strong Run By Sabina Sternklar-Davis & Rachel Mehler IT HAS BEEN an exciting and eventful season for the Heschel Heat Girl’s Volleyball Team. We won five of the seven games we played, and came close to winning a challenging scrimmage, a practice game, against the Heschel High School Girl’s Volleyball Team. Shortly after the start of the season, we were fortunate to get new uniforms, which boosted our confidence and helped us during the games. We have had so much fun together, both by improving our
volleyball skills, and also by bonding as a team and getting to know each other. Unfortunately, we lost to Cathedral in the semi-finals so we weren’t able to compete in the championships. Although we didn’t get the big win, we are extremely grateful for an amazing season and wonderful
team. We especially want to thank Shevon and Ethan, our incredibly skilled and dedicated coach and assistant coach for constantly working to help us improve our skills, and also guiding us throughout the season. Go Heschel Heat!
converted and Heschel had a 1-0 lead. Minutes later Cathedral scored a goal, and the game was tied. Moments after Cathedral’s first goal, the received a free By Eduardo Szajman kick, about 40 yards out. The free kick ON TUESDAY NOVEMBER 3, was taken and ended up rolling in to Heschel and Cathedral battled for the American International Private School League (AIPSL) 2014 soccer championship. Up until the final game, Heschel had only lost one game throughout the whole season. Previously Heschel had played Cathedral and won, 2-1, during the regular season match. The championship game started at around three o'clock. Heschel was the favorite since they had won the previous match against Cathedral. Just a few minutes into the first half Heschel’s goal, at the far post. The game there was a handball in the Cathedral box, score was 2-1 and Cathedral was a penalty kick for Heschel, the kick was winning, minutes later the first half was
over. Heschel came out aggressively and scored within the first few minutes of the second half. The score was 2-2. Heschel pretty much dominated the second half, and had many scoring opportunities, the ball stayed on Cathedral’s side of the field for most of the second half. With just a few minutes left of the match Cathedral had a breakaway and a shot was taken from just outside of the eighteenyard box. The ball flew over the goalie’s head, and went in, it was a nice shot made by the Cathedral attacker. The game was nearly over and Heschel did not have time to come back and score. Cathedral won the match, 3-2.
Valiant Effort By Heschel Heat For the Soccer Championship
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People’s Climate March According to The Huffington Post, 400,000 people listened in New York City, as did demonstrators across the globe, from Paris to Papua New Guinea, sounded the alarm for climate change. And then, 800,000 feet hit concrete, and the people marched. The organizations behind the march, though not accredited by name, orchestrated the march to correspond to a meeting of 120 world leaders at the United Nations who were to gather to discuss the global threat of carbon pollution the following Tuesday. Some say the objective of the march was to bring the issue of climate change into the mainstream, an omnipresent issue in daily life, and out of the abyss of inaction into which the whole world had slipped. “ We need to act now” said enthusiastic marcher Kathy Jetnil-Kijner, from the Marshall Islands. Stanley Sturgill, another marcher, and retired coal miner from Kentucky said “ Today I march because I want to behold a brighter future. We have destroyed ourselves. We have destroyed our health, and our political leaders have failed us. We know together we can build our bright future.” The question then was: what does this bright future hold? Whether this be positive, or negative, this question was met with a range of answers, wider than the stretch of city streets the march filled. Was it a matter of making citizens aware of the deterioration of their homes?
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Asking that they take actions in their daily lives as simple as using non-disposable water bottles, and thinking about how their behaviors, their treatment of immediate surroundings, affect places far away from them? Did more radical changes have to be made: Carbon tax? An end for fossil fuels? Would that future be found through religion? Through science? Through politics? The march seemed to be a movement with a simple message on paper. What it was was a very full melting pot of issues relevant to respective demographics. People young and old, politicians and concerned citizens, environmentalists and people who simply wanted to be a part of such a big movement all marched, simply agreeing that climate change could not be ignored, and that it was their collective responsibility to take action. 400,000 people coursing through the city, from the Upper West Side to Columbus Circle to Times Square, in and of itself does not alter the frightening changes the natural world is undergoing. The march did not prompt an immediate new global policy on climate change. That being said, the march was certainly the backbone of the argument for a changing environmental approach, at the UN two days after. "Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call." Said President Barack Obama. The march was a powerful example of the power of the people. Those who marched made a demand, and those in power listened. The physical effect will not be instantaneous, however the international attitude towards the world we live in is evolving to meet the environmental reality. While the solution to the issue of climate change is not clear, the sense of passion attached to finding one has never been stronger. That, in and of itself is a victory for the People’s Climate March. Because of it, the earth will never be the same.
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It’s The Hard Knock Life, Annie, Jr. A Preview By Talia Kahan & Tillie Germain REHEARSALS FOR The Heschel School musical Annie Jr, are well underway and into rehearsals. Auditions have ended, and casting is complete. Annie Jr, will be presented on January 21st in the Roanna Shorofsky Theater, for both day and evening performances. Ness Krell will play the role of Annie, Adam Kern the role of Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, the wealthy businessman who opens his home to Annie, and Abigail Sylvor-Greenberg
the role of Miss Agatha Hannigan, the head of the orphanage, who despises even the thought of little girls. It is a “Hard Knock Life” for Annie an eleven year old orphan, who lives in New York City during the Great Depression. To make matters worse she is under the care of Miss Hannigan, who makes all her orphans work all day as expressed in the song, “It’s A Hard Knock Life”. Annie is the only child left in the orphanage who still has the hope of finding her parents. One lucky millionaire is looking for an
orphan, and one lucky dog will be accompanying that lucky orphan on her trip to a mansion. Guess who the fortunate one will be, Annie! After Grace Farrell, Mr. Warbucks’ assistant, disagreeing with Agatha for what feels like a century Annie is allowed to accompany Miss Ferrell to O l i v e r Wa r b u c k s ’ house, one of the grandest houses in Manhattan. Will Annie be able to keep her dream of finally finding her real parents? Anna Savant, the director of Annie Jr. chose this play to be Heschel’s first musical because it is one of a few full length Jr. shows available. Lori Skopp, the Middle School Head has wanted to Heschel students to participate in performing a musical for a long time. She explained, “I knew that when we moved into the new building, we could now do more performances. Anna and I brainstormed and decided last year to start small. We wrote our own play based on The Stinky Cheese stories. This was fun and very successful, but I wanted a musical and
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also something more well known. Anna told me about Junior Broadway plays. They are shortened versions of popular musicals and come with a CD that provides the orchestral accompaniment so that we do not need a live band or pianist. this makes it simpler and easier to do. Anna suggested a few options but Annie really appealed to me because I have always loved the play. I personally have nostalgia for the play because it was one of the first Broadway musicals that I saw and it was wildly popular when I was in middle school.”
Adam Kern & Ness Krell
Save the Date:
Annie, Jr January 21, 2015 Roanna Shorofsky Theater
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Cubism At the Metropolitan Museum An Art Review By Tova Kleiner THE CUBIST MOVEMENT began in the early 20th century and has impacted artists up to this day. Cubism changed the way artists represented their subjects, whether ordinary objects, or people, and planted the seeds of what grew to become abstract art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently showing an exhibit on Cubism, open until February 16, that presents the Cubist Movement and its different stages of development. The works in the exhibit were from the personal collection of Leonard A. Lauder. Mr. Lauder amassed an amazing collection of Cubist paintings which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum and, because of his generosity and his desire that art be accessible, made this exhibit possible. The exhibit begins with works by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, two of the earliest cubists. Braque’s early work took his subjects and reduced them to simple geometric shapes, It was remarked
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A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder A Theatre Review By Maya Lukeman WHEN PEOPLE WALK through Times Square they are often spellbound by an array of signs and screens full of advertisements for shows and products. While the sign for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder wouldn’t catch your eye, it is a theatre experience, which even without the flashy Times Square billboard, dazzles. A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder follows a penniless young man named Monty Navarro (portrayed by Bryce Pinkham), who learns from a friend of his newly deceased mother, a gossipy Miss Shingle, that his poor mother was in fact a highborn D’Ysquith. She had been cut off from the family fortune because she had married against their wishes. “And by my estimation,” Miss Shingle casually tells Monty, “only eight other relations stand between you and the current Earl of Highhurst, Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith himself.”
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Jefferson Mays This new information gets stuck in Monty’s mind - that he has a chance to inherit great wealth and win the attention his love interest. He has nine “relatives” ahead of him (all played by Jefferson Mays) that he manages to help to their “accidental” death. This may sound dark, but Monty is motivated by love and the murders are staged for laughs and are slap-stick funny. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love And Murder is highly recommended to all lovers of both musical comedy and drama. The plot is intriguing and will leave you gasping to catch your breath from laughter and suspense. The play and lyrics are by Robert L. Freedman; music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak; based on a novel by Roy Horniman; directed by Darko Tresnjak; choreography by Peggy Hickey; sets by Alexander Dodge; and costumes by Linda Cho.
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Fiction The Runaway Soul And The Remaining Love Part I By Tema Zeldes Roth I SEE HEADLIGHTS coming, faster and faster. It’s uncontrollable. Someone screams, voicing the agony trapped inside of me. A screeching noise as loud as death fills my ears. “I’m going to explode, I’m going to explode,” I think, for surely there is a limit to how much pain my body can hold. A swarm of darkness hovers over me, as if trying to put out the light inside of me. Has the light already gone out? I open my mouth and shriek. No noise comes out. My sorrow and anger boil inside of me, threatening to overflow. Yet, my body is made of smoke. I cannot tell where I begin and end. Death must be something like this. Dying must be like this. A pool of blood swims in front of my eyes, its harsh crimson stains my vision. Is it my blood? I wonder. Quiet. That’s the first thing I notice when I awake. At least, I think I’m awake. But I thought I was dead. “Am I in heaven?” I can’t help but wonder. Yet I can feel. Yes, there is definitely a sharp pain where I think my foot is. As I become conscious of the pain, it spreads slowly up my leg, into my stomach, onto my chest, poisoning me. I open my mouth. My scream pierces the silence, breaking it into thousands of shards of glass. There’s a loud rushing noise. A siren shrieks persistently. Where am I? Who am I? My eye is forced open and a harsh light shines into it. “She’s awake,” a deep, gravelly voice says brusquely. I wonder vaguely who he’s talking about. The solid object upon which I lay jerks abruptly. Fear shoots into my body, overpowering the pain. I am surrounded by harsh whispers as they
usher me away, to the unknown. I realize that I must be alive. My senses are so sharp, and there are other people here too. “This can’t be what heaven is like,” I think. “No, I am definitely alive,” I conclude finally. I suddenly remember the light I saw just minutes earlier. Can I see? What does it feel like to have vision? I’m sure I had it once. There is something that tells me that indeed, I once had vision. But why can’t I remember it? My bed screeches to a halt. Bed? That word just slipped out. But now, as I think about it, I realize I must be lying on a bed. Why is my brain surrounded by fog? I can no longer see where to go, how to navigate. “There’s something wrong,” says a soft voice edged with panic. I feel my heart lift in hope. There is somebody here. “Please,” I think, “please, somebody realize that I’m here. That something is not right.” “It’s her brain.” says the same gravelly voice as before. “Her hippocampus is damaged.” “How-” “Severely. She might not remember anything at all.” As I jolt into consciousness I realize that the fog in my brain is gone. I open my eyes. My vision swims before me. I shriek. Footsteps pound in my ears. “Easy now.” Says a familiar, deep voice.
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I recognize it as the same one from earlier. “It’s going to hurt.” I ease my eyes open to find a man with close cropped hair and a rugged beard standing before me. “Get her parents,” he calls out the door. I wonder who he thinks is going to hear him. “I’m Dr. Herald,” he says, turning back towards me. To my surprise, a woman covered in mint green cloth walks in followed by a man and a woman. “Here they are,” says the mint green women, her high voice
echoing around the room.” “Thank you, Valerie. You can go.” “Zoë” Says the man. “Zoë, are you okay?” I wonder who he’s talking to. I wonder why he’s looking at me. “Zoë!” He yells desperately, shaking my shoulders. “Who are you talking to?” I ask. He crumples. It is as if the life is sucked out of him. “You.” he says, his voice shaking. “You.” Continued on page 12
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Fiction Continued from page 11
puts her arms around me and hugs me tight. I feel something inside of me melt. The Runaway Soul And the “We’ll figure this out.” she whispers Remaining Love, Part I into my hair. Her voice is kind, and soft. It “Who are you?” I refrain from asking makes me think of plum colored velvet. the question that I really want to know. Who am I? His hands shake as he “We’ll figure this out together.” looks up. “I’m your father.” He says, his voice Story To be Continued In The Next cracking. Issue... “So,” I glance over at the women. Her hand is pressed to her mouth, and tears drip silently down her face. “so, Quotation of the Issue: does that mean, you’re my-” “She’s your mother.” My father looks at the floor longingly, as if wishing it would swallow him up and take this horrible burden off his shoulders. The burden of being a parent of a child who no longer knows who you are. “Who am I?” I finally ask “Who, who was I-” I can’t take it anymore. I break. The Heschel Herald would like to print Tears flood down my face and I shake your favorite quotation in our next issue. uncontrollably. The woman, my mother, Please submit to the editors.
For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
---Elie Wiesel
The Heschel Herald Public Art Puzzler: Where In NYC Is This Art Located? By Heschel Herald Editors
CAN YOU IDENTIFY WHERE THIS PUBLIC ART IS LOCATED IN OUR FAIR CITY? SEND IN YOUR ENTRIES TO WIN AN UNDISCLOSED PRIZE AND CHANCE TO ENTER A NEW PUBLIC ART PUZZLER.
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Fiction Bella, A Story Part I by Anna Dubey “ALL RIGHT, IT’S time to give back your math tests!” Sam, my math teacher, announces in his deep voice. Nervous whispers crowd the room as everyone worries about their score. My best friend, Sunny, gulps. I give her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she smiles gratefully at me. She shouldn’t be nervous. She always gets good grades. I’m not really nervous. I know it’s just a little math test. Okay, I’m terrified. My parents always get mad when I don’t get everything right in math, even when it’s just some homework that doesn’t get graded. My mom always gives long speeches about how I need to try my hardest in my school work, and I’m lucky that I can even go to school, while my dad always just stands there with his arms folded, looking disappointed in me. I haven’t been doing so well in math lately, so I need to have done well on this test. Sam clears his throat, and we all fall silent. He strides to the other side of the room and drops a test paper, face down, on Gabe’s desk. Gabe lifts the corner of the page tentatively and peeks underneath it, then smiles broadly. An A, no doubt. Sam’s pile of corrected tests grows slimmer and slimmer as he distributes them among us. I hear squeals of happiness and very few sighs of disappointment. Finally, he puts one of the last packets on my desk. I flip it over, holding my breath. The letter grade swims before my eyes. I close my eyes, and then open them again, but the paper still says the same thing. D, Bella-See me after class. I got a D, well that is a first. I can’t have gotten a D! I’ve never gotten below a B- in any other subject. Even in math, I usually get a C or C+. How could I have gotten a D?
Sunny glances at her test and smiles victoriously, her brown eyes wide with relief. I know we aren’t supposed to look at other people’s grades, but I casually glance at Sunny’s sheet, tucking my blond hair behind my little star earrings I inherited from my grandmother. On her paper is a big, beautiful, green A+, great job Sunny. If you keep doing this well you will be moved to Jennifer’s math group. She got an A. Why couldn’t I have gotten an A? I tried to study hard for the test, but the numbers just kept switching around and confusing me. Sam tells us, “Put your tests in your folder, and have them signed by your parents tonight. Or else!” He waggles a threatening finger at us. I really like having Sam as my math teacher. Even if he can’t help math make sense in my head, at least he can push a little of the fog away with humor. I shove the test into my overcrowded math folder and slump into my seat, ready for thirty minutes of trying to learn about area and perimeter. It’s even harder to focus while worrying about what Sam is going to talk with me about later. Finally, the bell rings and the lesson ends. As I jot down the math homework that I know will take me an hour to complete, Sunny waits for me. I tell Sunny go ahead, but to save me a seat next to her at lunch. She nods and leaves, her footsteps echoing in the nearly empty classroom. Looking around to make sure everyone else has left, Sam motions for me to sit in the chair in front of his desk. I do. He clasps his hands together and says, “Bella, we both know that you haven’t been doing so well in math lately.” I acknowledge that sheepishly. Sam continues. “I think we should consider switching you to a different math group, where maybe you’d be able to understand more.” I’m stunned. I can’t move to a different math group! I can’t! This is the only class
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I have with Sunny, and we sit next to each other. Also, what teacher would I have? I’m sure I wouldn’t like them as much as I like Sam. Sam notices my reaction. He tells me, “I know it might be hard, but that would be what’s best for you. You need to go at your own pace, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I’m going to switch you into Allie’s math group, starting tomorrow. Okay?” I sense that there’s nothing I can do to change his mind, so I nod mutely. Sam grins widely. “Great,” he says. “You can go on down to lunch now.” I thank him tonelessly, grab my bag, and run down the stairs, fighting back tears. How can I tell Sunny that I have to switch to a different math group and we won’t be in any classes together? Another thought stops me in my tracks. How am I going to tell my parents that I’ve been put into a different math group because I’m doing badly? I can just see their faces. Suddenly no longer hungry, I turn abruptly and run back up the staircase, waving halfheartedly at the teacher who always waves at me. I’ll spend lunch in the art room. I love to do art, especially painting. Painting always helps to let some of my stress out. When I’m painting, I don’t have to worry about anything. My art teacher, Florence (even though she doesn’t live there, she lives on the floor up from me), smiles at me as I stomp through the doorway. Then she bends over the
Continued on page 18
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Doctor Who A Review By Ayelet Kaminer AFTER MONTHS OF filming, the new season of the series, Doctor Who, was broadcast on BBC America on August 23rd, 2014. With a season premiere lasting over an hour long, it was the longest episode of the show since 2005. The twelfth and current doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, kicked off the eighth season of the long running show (since 1963) with an episode taking place in Victorian London. With guest stars Neve Mcintosh, Dan Starkey, Catrin Stewart and a dinosaur, it was a fresh and unique episode that made fans of the show count the days until the next Saturday. The show
is about the Doctor, an immortal time traveling genius, and his companion who travel through time and space in what is called the T.A.R.D.I.S. or Time And Relative Dimension In Space. In the episode, a new Doctor (played by Peter Capaldi) and his companion, Clara Oswald (played by Jenna Coleman) land
Extreme Pumpkin Art By Nina Glesby WHEN YOU THINK of pumpkin carving, you probably think of cutting different shapes out of a pumpkin to make it look like a simple face for display in October. For many families, it’s a tradition to pick out pumpkins from a farm or a market, carve out scary faces, put a light inside, and leave them outside their doorway or in a window facing the street. Ray Villafane, an American sculptor, takes pumpkin carving, among other things, to a whole other level. He specializes in sculpting faces. Unlike some other pumpkin carvers, Villafane doesn’t hollow the pumpkin before carving. He actually uses the “flesh” to add texture and detail to his designs. The intricacy of his designs, let alone how he exhibits them, is
The Alan B. Slifka Middle School!
in London in the 1800’s. They soon realize that a dinosaur has somehow arrived and is roaming the city. Now it is up to The Doctor and Clara to figure out how to get the dinosaur out of London and to find out how it got there in the first place. This episode is a must-watch for fans of the show or anyone interested in science fiction. Watch season eight of Doctor Who Saturdays on BBC America at 8 P.M. Eastern time, or catch up on episodes on Amazon Instant Video.
incredible. Most people have trouble cutting triangles out to represent eyes, which makes his sculptures even more intriguing. He is also known for creating sand sculptures as meticulous as his pumpkin art.
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If you have pictures of your own pumpkin carvings, send them to the Heschel Herald. (It’s okay, they don’t have to be ‘Villafane material.’)
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Poetry Why Is It Me By Maya Lukeman Why is it me That one lone tree Blowing in the wind, Separated from its kin. Why is it me A small buzzing bee left without a stinger, But yet I still linger. But why is it me? I don’t understand, always singled out For being unique. That isn’t me I am not that kind of tree that’s who I don’t want to be, that kind of tree. A future of doom chock full of gloom will befall those, if that is what they propose.
New Technologies ReWalk Exoskeleton Revolutionizes People With Spinal Cord Injuries by Jacob Fraiman THE REWALK IS a 23 pound exoskeleton designed by an Israeli inventor, Dr. Amit Gofer who was paralyzed in 1997 in a car accident. It was through his own personal experience in utilizing mobility devices for people with spinal cord injury that Dr. Goffer developed the ReWalk. He wanted to make something that would bring control back to the injured. The exoskeleton weighs 23 pounds but can support it's own weight and includes its own computer.
The Alan B. Slifka Middle School!
Just last June, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the company’s ReWalk Personal System for use at home and in the community. ReWalk is a wearable robotic exoskeleton that provides powered hip and knee motion to enable individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) to stand upright and walk. “The person walks the system, the system does not walk them. The users are in control — when they want to sit, they sit, when then want to stand and walk, they do so,” said ReWalk inventor Dr. Goffer. “ReWalking is much more than walking,” says Jeff Dykan, ReWalk’s Chairman of the Board. “ReWalk provides paralyzed individuals with the ability to stand and walk, to look someone in the eye, to hug and be hugged.”
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Fashion
Trend Alert: Color & Faux Fur By Sophie Fisher AS WE ARE drifting into the fall and winter season, many trends will be coming our way. One trend that we know will be big this season is
Fashion At the Rome Film Festival By Ayelet Kaminer RED CARPETS, BEAUTIFUL gowns in one of the most beautiful cities on earth, Rome. What more would anyone want? I’m going to be honest, I had never heard about the Rome Film Festival before this week, but when I saw the amazing fashion that appeared on the red carpet on October 16th, I realized it was worth writing about. The dress that caught everyone’s eye was a flowy, Elie Saab designed dress, worn by Lily Collins. It was, in a word, magnificent. It is an elegantly cut black dress that fades to lilac that complemented Lily Collin’s fair skin.
with the same pattern, which some might say clashed, but he managed to pull it off. Rooney Mara wore a totally fabulous combination of a black crop top and an ankle-length sheer skirt. She added a pair of heels and created a trendy outfit that complemented her long hair and made her eyes pop. Nathalie Rapti Gomez wore one the more outstanding outfits; she rocked in a maroon, long-sleeved dress and, the most shocking part, strappy high heels with socks. Yes, you read that correctly, socks and strappy heels, and it looked a-mazing. It was effortless, comfortable and all around awesome. That’s all the best looks from this year, but mark your calendars for next year’s Rome Film Festival for some great films and fashion.
really bright, vibrant, colors. These colors are fantastic, especially in the winter, because it makes the dreary season much less dull. Also, fur and faux fur have not been in for quite a while, but many celebrities such as Beyonce, Kanye West, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen have been bringing it back. Fur and faux fur jackets are now considered very chic and fashion forward. Fur has been used on shoes too this year. So break away from basic black and try on some color this winter.
One of the most surprising looks was Scarlett Johansson, who won best actress for her performance in the Spike Jonz film, Her. She wore a sleeveless, white mini dress with Roman coins printed on it, perfectly reflecting the history of the city she was in. The dress, designed by Dolce & Gabbana, definitely turned heads on the red carpet and was a nice contrast from the gowns and suits that everyone else wore. Sam Claflin appeared for his new film, Love, Rosie, in a jacket, vest and pants all
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Continued from page 10
Cubism At The Met that his art was full of “little cubes,” hence the name Cubism. Braque’s paintings are very different than the paintings that preceded him, because artists before him painted what the subject looked like, but Braque painted bodies using geometric shapes, his “cubist” style. His work also plays with tone and perspective; it doesn’t seem that the viewer is looking into the painting, but rather that the painting is pushing outwards. Picasso’s work focused around the human figure in the early stage of Cubism. He divided the figure, changed it, and enhanced features by using more and more geometric shapes in
Cinderella A Theatre Review By Abigail Fisher RECENTLY I WENT to see Rodgers’ and Hammersteins’ Cinderella. I was expecting magical musical numbers, fabulous dancing, and poetic dialogue. Instead, as directed by Mark Brokaw, with a new book (script) by Douglas Carter Beane, the production is very disappointing. The downfall of this production is its direction and the anticlimactic plot. In order to make the audience feel and have empathy, the characters must have clear wishes. The task of the director is to help the actors portray these goals. The plot itself was fine, but the way it was carried out was subpar. The actors in this play, although amazingly talented, seemed confused about what they wanted to achieve, and,
his art. While rendering the figure almost unrecognizable, Picasso captured its essence. Later, he and Braque began experimenting with painting objects, such as: bottles, instruments, and tables. Braque also experimented with textures; for example, he gave his paint the appearance of wood, by scratching on it with metal combs, a skill he learned while working as a house-painter. Both Braque and Picasso added text to their work, including that of the newspapers and media of their day. The exhibit also includes the work of Juan Gris and Fernand Léger. Gris
since this was unclear, they were unable to make the audience feel anything. Additionally, because the stepsisters and stepmother weren’t portrayed by the actors as evil, there was no conflict; this eliminated the sense of empathy from the audience for the characters. The costuming by William Ivey Long and the scenic design by Anna Louizos were stunning, however I felt their only purpose was to distract from the insubstantial plot. My knowledge of theater and high expectations has somewhat soured my ability to innocently enjoy a piece of theater without a critical eye. However, it also makes me a tremendous fan of Broadway, and I always enter the theater with the anticipation that I will be transported by the enchantment that live theater can provide. This one hundred dollar ticket
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experimented with themes and motifs in his work, as well as the perspective in which he painted. He too divided his subjects into their simplest shapes and moved them around repeating them. His work however was more colorful than the monochrome palette of Picasso and Braque. Léger was a later cubist who experimented with painting, including a more “purist aesthetic.” He was greatly affected by WW I, and went back to more classic subjects, like the figure. However, he did not paint realistically, he kept the modern style. His work included many cylindrical forms, and bright bold shapes that made up his subject and covered his canvas. This exhibit is an amazing history of the Cubist Movement, from its beginning, to how it has influenced later art movements.
completely lacked the Broadway magic that puts a smile on my face. I am amazed that this show is still running and welcome letters from readers who have also seen Cinderella, who may have felt differently. I do recommend that you save your money for something else.
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Fiction Continued from page 13
Bella, Part I metal table and goes back to shading in her drawing. I like Florence, because she always lets us be creative and come up with our own ideas of what to make. I pull the painting I’m working on now off of the drying rack and study it. I like how the green of the grass in the background makes the giraffe’s yellowish shade stand out, but the sky looks too light to be real. I get busy immediately, choosing the exact colors I need and adding wisps of cloud to the painting. I’m so focused, I barely notice the bell ring. Florence does, though. “Bella, lunch is over,” she announces gently but firmly. “I have a class now.” I mumble a thank you, leave my painting on the drying rack, and head to Humanities. I’m still so worried about my new math group that I forget my backpack and have to double back for it. Finally, I reach Humanities, arriving a second before the bell chimes. Even though I love Humanities, I just can’t concentrate. Will Allie, my new math teacher, be nice? None of my friends are in her math group, so I’ve never heard about her. Oh! None of my friends are in her math group! I’ll be all alone. Now I’m about to cry. I can’t start crying in the middle of Humanities, so I raise my hand. Lisa, the teacher, calls on me. “May I go to the nurse?” I ask desperately. “I really don’t feel good.” Lisa makes a face, maybe thinking about vomit, and waves her hand, gesturing that I can go. I slip out of the room and shuffle down the stairway with tears sliding down my face, feeling so sorry for myself that I nearly trip several times. When I reach the pristine white nurse’s office, I sit down in one of the plastic chairs. I know it’s stupid, but I
can’t help thinking, The whole world is against me. First I have to switch math groups, and then I have to sit in this super uncomfortable chair. I can’t help noticing, as I watch Nurse Debbie put a Band-Aid on a little boy’s knee, that the nurses all have fluffy, cushioned chairs. “Well, what happened to you?” Nurse Debbie asks me briskly. I blink, startled. I hadn’t noticed that she finished with the little boy. “My stomach is really hurting,” I lie. I try to grimace. Nurse Debbie takes one look at my twisted face, then picks up her phone. “If your stomach hurts that badly, you’d better go home,” she informs me. “What’s your mom’s phone number?” No, I can’t go home! I really don’t want to face my parents now. I send Nurse Debbie a bright smile. “Actually, I feel a lot better all of a sudden. I should probably go up to class now. But thank you anyway!” I say. She shakes her head. “The stomach virus is going around. If you have it, I can’t risk you giving it to someone else.” So I’m forced to sit in the Nurse Debbie’s office for an hour until my mom can get out of her work in New Jersey and come to pick me up. When she finally arrives, she gives Nurse Debbie a huge false smile and whisks me into her black convertible. The color of the car matches my mood. It isn’t until we reach Seventy-First Street that my mom says anything to me. “You’re not sick,” she says. “What’s going on?” I swallow. I forgot that Mom can read me so well. If I lie, she’ll know, so I decide to just tell her the truth. “Mom,” I say, taking a deep breath, “Sam, my math teacher, decided to switch me into a
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different math group.” I cringe, waiting for the fireworks. Instead, Mom turns round for a second and smiles at me. Her voice is light and friendly as she says, “Honey, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you no matter what math group you’re in. I know you like Sam, and I know it’ll be hard adjusting to a higher math group, but I’m sure you’ll figure everything out.” I sink back in my chair, relieved. I can’t believe she’s taking this so well. Until I realize exactly what she said. “Wait, Mom, that’s not what I mean.” She looks at me expectantly in the rearview mirror. “I’m not being switched into a higher math group,” I begin. “I’m being switched into a lower one.” She looks confused for a second, then she arches her eyebrows smoothly. “I see,” she says curtly. And that’s all she says to me for the rest of the car ride. Story To Be Continued In the Next Issue...
“Breaking” News by Carlin Greenfield THE HESCHEL MIDDLE School library glass door, after it shattered over a year ago, was replaced last week, creating a sonic barrier between the middle and lower school libraries.
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
New Teacher At Heschel: Eliot Safier By Eli Buchdahl ELIOT SAFIER IS a new math teacher at Heschel. Heschel Herald: Where did you teach before you came to Heschel? Eliot: I taught at the Stephen Gaynor School. HH: Did you teach math at the Stephen Gaynor School? Eliot: I did, and other subjects as well. HH: What other subjects? Eliot: In addition to math, I taught writing, literature, current events, social studies. I also coached basketball as well as, track and field. HH: You teach sixth, seventh, and eighth grades here. Did you teach the same grades there? Eliot:. My first year there I taught seventh and eighth grades, and during my second year, I taught fifth and sixth grades. HH: How did you get into teaching? Eliot: Good question. My first career was in finance for a couple of years; then I read a book called, Walking With The Wind, by John Lewis. It was a book on the Civil Rights Movement. I was so moved by his story that I ultimately made the decision to “do the right thing,” and I felt the right thing for me -- was to become a teacher. HH: Where are you from? Eliot: I am from the Holy Land… HH: Israel? Eliot: Memphis, Tennessee. (laughs) I threw a little monkey wrench in there. HH: Did you grow up there your whole life? Eliot: Yes, until I went to college. HH: Where did you go to college? Eliot: I did a gap year in Israel; I did a program there. I then went to Yeshiva University for my undergraduate degree
in finance, and then I did my master’s at St. Johns University. HH: How did you end up at Heschel? Eliot: The actual process was I went online to the New York City private school website and there was a posting for it. That’s how I found out about the job opening for the math department. I was familiar with the school because I had coached against Heschel for basketball and track. That’s how I ultimately found the school and knew that it existed. HH: There are some Heschel teachers who learned about the school because they sat next to Linda at a dinner... Eliot: Oh, I’ll tell you a crazy story though. I actually heard about Heschel before all of this happened. Remember
packed in a church. John Lewis is sitting there, watching as a friend. And in walks this gentleman, with big white hair and a big white beard. And in the book John Lewis describes that it felt like G-d just walked in the church.. And who was this individual that attended the funeral? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. That was the first I had ever heard of his name, is in this book, Walking With The Wind. And I always laughed, like hey, here’s this Jewish guy, down in the South to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. That was the first time I heard the name Heschel. And then, I met one of the founders of the school Peter Geffen, and I have a mutual friend with his daughter. And when I first thought about going into
t h e book I told you about, Walking With The Wind? I read this book in 2011. In the book, there is a story about John Lewis, who is a Congressional representative for Georgia. He was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement when he was about 18 years old. There had been quite a few people killed in the course of the Civil Rights movement, and the book describes a funeral that John Lewis attended at the time.. So he’s in this big church, and the reverend is in front, giving his sermon. Imagine this scene. Hundreds of people,
education, I asked to talk to him, Peter Geffen. I wanted to hear his story with the Civil Rights Movement and how it connected with Heschel. So before I even finished my master’s I met with Peter Geffen at his home and we talked about the Civil Rights Movement. We spoke about education, this was before I was even a teacher. And then fast forward three to four years, and it’s all come full circle. I’m now teaching at Heschel, whose namesake was mentioned in the book that inspired me to teach in the first place.
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Food For Foodies Challah Dressing For Thanksgiving from: Cooking For The King Cookbook Ingredients: 4 cups chicken broth 4 ounces dried mushrooms 2 medium onions, chopped 4 large stalks celery, chopped 2 bell peppers, chopped 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon kosher salt, or 1 teaspoon table salt 6 cups of challah, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1 cup unsweetened dried cherries or chopped apricots, Craisins, golden raisins ...
Layered Pumpkin Streusel Cake By Alexandra Wenger Ingredients: 1 ½ cups firmly packed light brown sugar 1 cup all purpose flour 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 ½ sticks softened margarine 1 ½ cups chopped walnuts 1 package yellow cake mix 1 can solid pack pumpkin 3 beaten eggs powdered sugar
Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a Bundt pan and set aside. Combine brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl.
2 eggs, beaten 2 teaspoons dried thyme 1 teaspoon pepper Preparation: 1. Heat the chicken broth and place mushrooms in a separate bowl. Pour heated broth over mushrooms. Cover and set aside. 2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl toss the onion, celery, and bell pepper with the oil and salt. Place the vegetables on a large baking pan and roast for 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven, stir vegetables, then spread the cubed bread over the vegetables and return to the oven, for 10 minutes until the bread is golden brown. 3. Remove bread and vegetables to the large mixing bowl. Lower oven to 350 degrees F. Drain mushrooms, reserving 2 cups of liquid. Chop the mushrooms and add to the bowl with dried fruit, eggs and seasonings. Toss and add chicken broth a half a cup at a time, tossing and stirring the challah dressing mixture to combine
ingredients and break up pieces of challah. The challah stuffing should hold together, but should not be mushy. 4. Spray a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with vegetable cooking spray. Spread challah dressing in the pan and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and continue baking another 10-15 minutes until the top is golden. Active time: 20 minutes ~ Cooking time: 1 1/2 hours Serves: 10-15 ~ Can Freeze
Cut in ½ cup margarine with pastry blender or 2 knives. Stir in walnuts; set streusel topping aside. Mix together cake mix, pumpkin, eggs, and remaining ¼ cup margarine in a large mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed with electric mixer about 3 minutes or until well blended and fluffy. Crumble ⅓ of the streusel topping across the bottom on the prepared pan. Spoon ⅓ of the batter over the streusel, spreading evenly with a rubber spatula. 10. Repeat layers twice more, ending with batter. Bake in a preheated oven for 350 degrees for 45 mins or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 mins; remove
from pan and invert onto a wire rack. Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar.
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Pareve
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
We Are What We Eat, But What Are We Eating? By Leah Amy Namdar-Cohen ONE OUT OF every three American children is obese or overweight, and the incidence of children’s diabetes has increased dramatically, mostly because of poor eating habits--habits that are encouraged by supermarkets and advertisers that make processed foods look colorful and appetizing. Do you know what you are eating when you consume multiple bags, boxes, and bottles of mass produced food day and night without even a second thought? So let us zoom in onto the sides of the boxes, wrappers, bottles, and bags that we do not pay enough attention to- the side with all of those jumbled up words and numbers that are too time-consuming and boring to read or even care about: the deadly nutrition facts and ingredients. Those of us who even do care enough to read those jumbled up letters and numbers have no idea what they even mean, because they seem to be in a different dialect of English, so we will start to begin the journey of decoding some of the mysteries found on the wrappers of the foods we eat. You may think that the order of the ingredients list is just a random order, but actually, the order of the ingredients list starts with the ingredient that the product contains the most of, and ends with the one that it contains the least of. This is a helpful tip to know. However, the chemicals at the very end, although it may appear that the amount isn’t nearly enough of to be harmful, but may be enough to be harmful. You might think that the nutrition facts and the ingredients are the same thing, but they are not. The ingredients state the separate ingredients like Galactose (*see fact 3) and wheat, but they do not state the amount. The nutrition facts don’t state the amount of each ingredient, but rather the amount of
the different types of categories, like sugars, and calories. In order to fully understand the amount of sugar in a product based on the nutrition facts, you need to understand this basic math: every four grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon. For instance, in a can of Coke, there are 39 grams of sugar, which means that there are almost ten teaspoons of sugar in a single can of Coke. When you look at the ingredients, you will notice that there are a lot of words that you won’t know, like Galactose, and Sucrose. These are actually different words for sugar and other chemicals. A trick for identifying sugars is this: if it rhymes with gross, it’s a sugar. Some of the names of other ingredients are so long that you cannot pronounce them, which is always a bad sign, because it usually means that they are chemicals. These names are made so long and complicated that we don’t know what they are. The food companies make these names so long and complicated so that people won’t know the especially bad ingredients and their potential health risks, so that people will continue to buy it. The longer the name, the more toxic it probably is. The following fact is not really a fact, but more of a trick for you to have when you are looking at the ingredients: when you look at the ingredients list on a box, or whatever it is you are eating/drinking from, you will notice that with the especially unhealthy foods, the ingredients lists are especially long. Try to avoid the snacks with the longer
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ingredients lists because the more ingredients there are the more chemicals and nasty ingredients there are- the same rule that applies to the names of the ingredients. I hope that this article has made you more aware of what you are eating,
particularly the sugar content of most foods. The next time that you open a bag or a bottle, take note of the grams of sugar contained in your cereals, snacks, and even the ketchup you use, so you may begin to understand what you are about to put into your mouth. Next time, I will take a closer look at some more of the ingredients found in foods that many of us eat. In the meantime, read the labels of the foods you snack on, and write to the Heschel Herald if you’d like to know more about a particularly mysterious ingredient you find.
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
#Reason4Vegan
male chicks are ground up alive in industrial hatcheries because they are of By Carlin Greenfield no use to the egg industry, and female AS SOME OF you may know, I am chicks have the tip of their beaks burnt vegan. Not eating any animal products off. This video led me to immediately may seem difficult, but I strongly believe stop eating eggs, but didn’t stop eating in veganism and encourage others to try it dairy at that point because I thought I out, even temporarily. It may not be as wouldn’t get enough calcium. I gave up hard as one may think. Being one of the dairy altogether when I realized that there only vegans in the Heschel Middle is calcium in many other foods we eat School, I am asked a lot of questions everyday food such as: broccoli, almond about what it means to be vegan. Instead milk, soy milk. Finally I became a full of answering each question individually, I vegan when, after doing some research, I decided to write a short column in the dropped honey too. form of a Question and Answer on life as Q: But how are animals hurt in the a vegan in a society full of omnivores. production of milk and honey? Q: Why are you vegan, and how long A: Most female cows in industrial have you been vegan? size dairy operations are artificially A: I became a vegetarian in second inseminated every year so they will grade. I can't point to a single incident and produce milk constantly for five years. say, "This is when I stopped eating meat,” They are also given hormones to produce but I remained a vegetarian until the four times the amount of milk they would beginning of seventh grade. I became normally produce -- hormones which vegan over the course of last year, after make their way into the milk people discovering an organization called Sea drink. After the cows can no longer Shepherd, and another organization, produce milk, they are butchered for dog Mercy For Animals. Sea Shepherd is an food. Calves are taken away from their environmental organization that seeks to mothers when they are less than a day old prevent the over-fishing of our oceans and and sold to veal farms where they will the brutal killing of whales. Mercy For spend their short, three month lives Animals pulled the curtain away from the confined in crates too small for them to hidden horrors of animal factory farming move. As for honey, big commercial in the U.S. I viewed a video of a poultry beekeepers will often rip off a queen bee's factory where chickens were cramped in wing in order to keep her from leaving the hive. The beekeepers also take all of the honey, leaving sugar water instead of the 60 pounds of honey the bees will need to survive the winter, which is not fortifying. In northern climates, where it is too expensive to keep the bees alive, the hives will be doused with gasoline and set on fire. Q: But not all farmers are cruel... A: Unfortunately most “farms,” and I their cages and never saw natural use the word lightly, are more factories daylight. Egg laying was artificially then the pastoral scene that usually comes induced with mechanized lights that fool to mind. Meat production also impacts the the chickens into short day and night cycles. Even worse, I discovered that
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environment, human rights, and human health. Q: What environmental and human rights impacts does meat production have? A: Most modern cows eat corn, rather than grass, which is grown in areas that could be used to grow human crops like wheat, because most of the corn fed to animals is “wasted” in bones, muscle etc. if the whole planet was vegan there would be enough food to feed every human on this planet. Q: What about Kosher meat? A: Kosher laws don't have any effect on how animals live, only how they are killed. And they don't have any effect whatsoever on animals raised for things other than meat. Q: Where do you get your protein and how do you maintain your health? What do you eat? A: Beans! but in all seriousness, there is protein in a lot of foods, such as tofu, and there are many varieties of beans that are rich in protein. Q: What about “Cage free” eggs and “free range” chickens? A: “Cage free” hens are often crammed as tightly as their caged counterparts, the only difference is that it is several thousand to a warehouse instead of ten to a cage. although there are some small farms that produce “cruelty free” eggs the chickens are still sent to slaughter when they no longer lay eggs. Q: But don’t farms protect animals? A: Yes same as slave owners “protected” their slaves on their plantations. If you have a question about veganism, vegetarianism, or animal rights, email me at carlingr@heschel.org and I will answer it in the next edition of the Heschel Herald.
November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Calling all students who enjoy satire*: we need you to contribute to the Bunion Section of the Heschel Herald!
*satire |ˈsaˌtīr| noun the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's follies or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Clubs at Heschel: MS Theater AV Club This club trains students to run the light and sound boards in the Roanna Shorofsky Theater. Every issue will feature a club. Please send a photo featuring your club to
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Shira Oz and Jacob Hess
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Sukkot 2014 At the Middle School By Abigail Sylvor-Greenberg ON OCTOBER 13TH, Heschel Middle School students gathered together on the roof for a Sukkot celebration, in a sukkah adorned with hanging laminated fruit and vibrant signage created by the Lower School. The Middle School Faculty Band led the student body in song and prayer. The entire community rejoiced, as is commanded by Jewish law for this harvest holiday. Festivities were orchestrated by sixth grade TSBP teacher, Shoshana Jedwab, who guided a meaningful service, including the reading of sixths graders’ original poetry and prayers (excerpt included below). It was a lovely celebration that brought the entire middle school together, and made the holiday of Sukkot 2014 one to remember.
...may the rain fall so trees can grow tall enough to allow us to pick fruit, and to produce shade for us to lay under and read. The trees are so important to us, and we barely ever stop and thank them for keeping us alive, by allowing us to breathe. May the rain fall so that everything that is green can grow in this new, upcoming year.
By Jacob Hess
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1
Happy Thanksgiving ! We at the Heschel Herald wish to express our gratitude to all members of the Heschel community and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! The Alan B. Slifka Middle School!
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November, 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1