HAFTR Sending Six Students to the National Speech, Debate and Model Congress Tournament

HAFTR High School is proud to be sending juniors Maya Karasanti, Michal Mari, Kaitlin Pollack, Dasi Well, sophomore Sophia Feiler and freshman Noa Sharon to compete against over 6,000 students at the National Speech, Debate & Model Congress Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona, from June 12 to June 16, 2023. They will be accompanied by 11 other Shabbat-observant students from New York, New Jersey and Florida representing the Citron Online District.

In fall of 2022, the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) awarded a district charter to Citron Online for students who cannot compete on Fridays or Saturdays. Historically, the National Tournament has been held during the week, but in order to qualify, students were required to compete on the Sabbath. NSDA recognized this problem and agreed to create the national Citron Online District to qualify yeshiva students for the National Tournament.

HAFTR High School was the first ye - shiva high school to join the NSDA and was proud to offer this opportunity to the other yeshiva high schools. HAFTR Coach Mr. Alex Libkind petitioned NSDA for a special, national online district to accommodate Shabbat-observant students.

“I am pleased that NSDA has recognized the need to expand the National Tournament to yeshiva students,” said Alex Libkind, coach of HAFTR Speech, Debate and Model Congress Team and Chair of Citron Online. “To compete effectively in NSDA, students have to evaluate topics from multiple perspectives and argue both for and against the proposed topic. Being able to persuasively speak for a proposition the student does not necessarily agree with makes them appreciate the other side and hopefully reduce polarization in our society.”

Students will be competing in multiple events at the National Tournament.

Kaitlin Pollack and Sophia Feiler will be competing in the Congressional Debate, where students will review and argue for and against over 40 pieces of legislation drafted by students from all over the country. Noa Sharon will be debating the topic “Government employees have a moral obligation to leak classified information to address injustice” in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, which is a style of one-on-one values focused debate. Michal Mari will be competing in Extemporaneous Debate, where she will be given a topic 30 minutes prior to the start of the round and will have to quickly prepare either for or against the resolution.

Dasi Well and Maya Karasanti will be two of the five team members of a hybrid interschool team competing in Worlds

School Debate. They will be joined by Menachem Lotwin from Rambam in New York, Sam Passner from Idea School in New Jersey, and Ben Cohen from Katz Yeshiva in Florida. The team will be coached by Coach Libkind and will debate predefined topics around AI in the workforce, a permanent location for the Olympics, and the value of parliamentary versus presidential elections. They will also be given impromptu topics for which they will have one hour to prepare with just access to an almanac and dictionary. HAFTR would like to wish good luck to the students.