ALUMNI E-NEWS #3 • DECEMBER 2013
This is our third alumni e-newsletter and we made it just for you. (Pretty nice of us, really.) Our goal is to make this monthly email the best thing in your life for at least three minutes. A LITTLE BIT OF TALENT, A WHOLE LOT OF SHOW Come to the Talent Show, everybody (and by “everybody” we mean RSS alumni). It’s this Friday, December 20, from 1:10 - 2:40 p.m. in the gym, and it’s sure to be excellent, as usual. RSVP to Mr. Palmer at bpalmer@rssnyc.org so he can put you on the list. #talentshow #scarybear IF YOU ARE IN COLLEGE, WE WANT TO FEED YOU Members of the RSS Classes of 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009: If you’re home from college and in town on Thursday, January 2, 2014, join us at Gazala’s (380 Columbus Ave. at 78th St.) for food and merriment, our treat. We’ll send further details via a separate email; be sure to RSVP if you can make it! #RSVPsareimportantsometimes SEND US YOUR PARENTS! Not this week, because we’re about to leave for winter break. But on February 24, 2014, we’re hosting a reunion and cocktail party for parents of RSS alumni. Paper invitations will be mailed in January, but feel free to forward this notice to your parental-type figures and tell them basically that they have to attend or you’ll be, like, really disappointed and everything. #okaythanks HEY THERE, ALUMNI (Everybody in town knows RSS alumni are fantastic. Here are some examples of that. We’ll put together another list like this for a spring e-newsletter, and would love to include you (yes, you!). Send news to bpalmer@rssnyc.org!) Mazal tov to Noah Zachary ‘99 (third from left), who married his love Gillian in November, with fellow RSS alumni Ben Kaplan, Zach Cherney, and Adam Federer as groomsmen and the beloved Rabbi Matt Gewirtz as officiant.
HEY THERE, ALUMNI, continued Entrepreneur and law student Josh Rittenberg ‘01 has been super-busy working as the co-founder and CEO of Aqualibrium, particularly after the company’s Kickstarter campaign raised $150K to produce a unique and beautiful indoor ecosystem that’s a fish tank and a garden. Here’s Fast Company’s take on the growing start-up. If we gave an award for RSS alum living farthest away from NYC it might go to Becky Chanis ‘01, who’s spent the past several years living and working in Botswana. That’s so awesome we had to know more, so we interviewed Becky about her experiences in the Peace Corps. Superstar musician Daniel Bailen ‘04 is currently performing in the offBroadway hit “What’s It All About? Bacharach Reimagined” at the New York Theatre Workshop, lauded by the New York Times, among others. (Mr. Palmer and Mrs. Borenstein are going to see the show on December 23. Come join us!) Andrew Beaton ‘06 is well on his way to a career in sports journalism, evident in his broadcasting work for The Chronicle at Duke and articles in the Wall Street Journal. Well done, Beaton. University of Michigan student Jacob Abudaram ‘07 spoke on a panel at the United Nations (the actual United Nations!) in January 2013 in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He was selected due to the work he did during a gap year in Jerusalem through Kivunim. Jacob’s presentation starts at 36:30 in this video.
HEY THERE, ALUMNI, continued again (woot woot) Basically we can all go on vacation with RSS alum Leo Sepkowitz ‘07 and his big brother/former student Eli via a terrific essay their mom wrote for the New York Times. Former RSS Student Council President Jay Rappaport ‘10 is spending this school year as co-president of the student body at Horace Mann. Mr. Carlson shared a message from Jay with our middle schoolers during this fall’s Student Council elections at RSS. (Speaking of Student Council elections, congrats to future alumni Daniel Wrocherinsky ‘14, who was elected president, and Shade Mazer ‘15, who was elected vice-president.) Martha Epstein ‘10 wrote and directed a lovely short film called “After the Beep,” which you can watch here. And her classmate Andres Vaamonde ‘10 created some slam poetry this summer, which you can watch here. Gigantical enormous congrats to the many members of the Class of 2010 who have received early admission acceptances from colleges in the past week. We are proud and impressed. We will share specific results once we’re further along in the admissions process. We know every member of that spectacular class will end up at the right college on their way to ruling the world. Big congrats also to Jeremy Robbins ‘11 and Jonathan Bleiberg ‘11, who cofounded Voyager, a travel magazine with a global perspective at Horace Mann and just celebrated the release of their third (and most impressive) issue. Props also to Matthew Oshrin ‘11, who works as the magazine’s managing editor, and Sabrina Lautin ‘12, who’s a staff member and writer. Come visit Mr. Palmer and he’ll show you a copy.
Tikkun olam in action: Evan Parness ‘13 has spent part of this year working with his family’s New York Says Thank You Foundation to rebuild 84 homes for NYC firefighters, cops, and sanitation workers destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. The rambunctious and spirited Class of 2013 broke a High School Night attendance record in late November, when 32 of our 38 most recent graduates returned to RSS to speak on a panel for current eighth graders and their parents and eat a cake with a #hashtag on it. (For a photo of the #hashtag cake, follow us on Instagram.)
Two of our newest alums were interviewed somewhat randomly by Channel One News about bullying in, um, Wisconsin. Eitan Darwish ‘13 appears at 0:19 and Jacob Rose ‘13 appears at 1:41 in this video.
HOW DO WE LOVE THEE? Let us count the ways... Our Facebook page and our growing and awesome Instagram account are two of the ways we show alumni love and keep you in the know about goings on at and inspired by RSS. There’s also our alumni page on the RSS website.
We’re making plans for in-person events for every single graduating class since 2001, plus we’re hoping for a pre-2001 reunion in 2014. We’re always eager to hear more about what you want out of a robust and rockin’ alumni program, so send any ideas you may have to Mr. Palmer at bpalmer@rssnyc.org.
The RSS alumni program is run out of our Development Office, which works on community engagement and fundraising at RSS. If you’d like to join our growing list of alumni supporters with a gift of $5 or $10, or any amount that’s good for you, then by all means, please do that here. If you want to know why even the smallest donation matters to us, contact Mr. Palmer and he’ll gladly explain. (He may even do a cartwheel, though doing a cartwheel while talking on the phone sounds like a dangerous plan.)
Oh hey there, Instagram:
Rodeph Sholom School Office of Development Bryant Palmer Director of Alumni Relations 646.438.8657 www.rodephsholomschool.org