Volume 120, Issue 9

The Record

Horace Mann’s Weekly Newspaper Since 1903

Suzette

Lucy Peck Staff Writer

Sheft

(11) tells family’s Holocaust story in new book

Suzette Sheft (11) published “Running for Shelter: A True Story” last week, a 180-page novel that recounts the experience of her Jewish grandmother, Inge Eisinger, during the Holo caust.

Beginning in the late 1930’s, the book fol lows nine-year-old Inge Eisinger as her family is forced to flee Vienna at the onset of World War II. Eisinger narrowly escapes to Switzer land, then Paris, and finally the South of France.

school, and other background information. To make sure that no information was missed, Sheft asked questions in chronological order, starting with childhood and working her way up to the present day, she said.

Exhilarated by a weeks’ worth of successful interviews, Sheft started writing the first scene of the book. This scene opened with Eisinger on the train to Switzerland, her head resting on the window with her tears staining the glass, Sheft said. She ended up completely reworking this scene later in the writing process because she found it cliché and wanted to start the novel ear lier in her grandmother’s life.

Over the next three years, Sheft wrote the nov el whenever she could, mostly during the sum mer, weekends, and over holiday breaks. When the pandemic hit, Sheft used her free time to write.

Sheft faced numerous challenges while writ ing the novel. A big one was how to balance stay ing true to her grandmother’s story and knowing when to embellish, she said. “99% of this story is completely true,” Sheft said. “But there are mo ments when I had to fictionalize things — like if I didn’t know what the train station my grand mother was in looked like, I would have to do research about that and fictionalize it.”

Sheft also struggled with self-editing and wanted to give up during the process.. “It’s difficult to pick apart your own work,” she said. “But I think as time went on, and I saw how help ful it was to my book, I became more apprecia tive of the editing process.”

Grant Sheft (11) brings back Justice Night after 10 years

Erica Jiang Staff Writer

Last Friday, Grant Sheft (11) hosted Justice Night, an event put on for students, parents, and faculty, featuring “The Defamation Experience.” This experience is created by Canamac Produc tions and explores how the legal system interacts with issues of race, class, religion, and gender, in volving the audience as the jury.

Sheft put on the event as part of his indepen dent study (IS) on the philosophy of hope, in re lation to social justice and ethics.

The night began with a film introduced to the audience by Gina Taliaferro, the Associate Producer and Director of Facilitation at Cana mac Productions. The film was about a Black woman accused of stealing a family heirloom by a wealthy white man, who sues him for defama tion.

After the screening, the audience moved to the Cohen Dining Commons to act as jurors. During dinner, a judge zoomed in to facilitate delibera tion on the case in the film. Each audience mem ber scanned a QR code to participate in a live voting simulation.

One driving question surrounds how institu tions set up expectations for how people should act, Sheft said. “It allows us to realize in what ways we are acting, and more importantly, why we are acting that way.”

see the interaction between the objective facts of a case and how that conflicts with your personal views…you have to find a balance between the two,” Kim said.

The event was attended by 30 faculty, parents, and students who contributed different per spectives to the conversation. Kim was glad to hear from people from different backgrounds throughout the event, she said. “It’s interesting to see the intersection between the younger and older generations and it’s a valuable opportunity for us to exchange ideas from multiple genera tions and diverse backgrounds.”

Students from the Ethics in School & Society class and the Ethics Bowl team helped facilitate discussions at the event. Daniel Pustilnik (11), the Vice President of the Ethics Bowl team, said it is beneficial to see real-world examples of ethical dilemmas and for students of all grades to con sider them. “We read cases for the Ethics Bowl, but it’s easier to conceptualize the stakes when it’s more visual,” he said. “It’s important that it’s school wide because our ethics class is really only available for seniors, so as a student body I don’t think we have that many opportunities to talk about ethics.”

shared her experiences for many years, but she didn’t grasp their importance until her father passed away from pancreatic cancer. He had told her stories each night, but in the months after his passing, she realized that she had forgotten some of them, she said. “I fantasized about recording [his] stories, but I knew I couldn’t anymore be cause I had never taken the time to write them down,” Sheft said. “I wanted to do that with my grandmother’s story, to immortalize her story before it was too late.”

Sheft worked tirelessly on the novel, starting by interviewing her grandmother for a week during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. The interviews started with broad ques tions about Eisinger’s life, family dynamics,

Sheft often consulted her grandmother as she wrote, she said. She conducted in-person inter views, asked questions over the phone, and sent drafts to Eisinger, seeking approval or potential revisions, Sheft said. “When I sent her the drafts, I would ask her ‘is there anything you want to change?’ ‘Is there anything you don’t like?’ ‘Any thing that doesn’t seem accurate?’”

These conversations allowed Sheft to develop newfound empathy for her grandmother. “When I was younger, I really had no idea how hard it was for her, how little she had, and how much she had to work for everything,” she said. Sheft remembers her shock when she learned that, af ter fleeing Vienna, Eisinger was forced to finish school at the age of 12 so that she could provide for her own sick grandmother. “After learning

Morgan Kim (12) is a student in the Ethics in School & Society class who watched the film and attended a portion of the subsequent con versation. “Through this experience you get to

Through hosting Justice Night, Sheft hopes that participants will look beyond their own lived experiences, and find hope through others’ sto ries and perspectives, he said. “When my father had cancer, I lost my sense of hope because I had hoped he would survive the treatments, but he didn’t. I want to not only learn about different opinions on hope, but also to hopefully rediscov er a sense of hope that I’ve lost.”

Editorial: Involve students in parent-advisor conferences

Last Thursday, students sat at home while advisors met with parents and shared comments from each of their teachers. For students, the conferences lie behind a frus trating shroud of secrecy — teachers don’t tell students what they wrote and most advisors don’t share comments with students, so we are left with what filters through our parents.

Here’s the reasoning behind this opaque setup: teachers write comments for each of their students about what they’re doing well and where they can improve. Advisors receive comments for their students’ two days before the conferences.

Parents don’t see these comments. Advisors are instructed not to quote directly from the comments at conferences — they are a private communication between them and teachers, Dean of UD Faculty Dr. Andrew Fippinger said. Rather than reading comments verbatim and class-by-class, the advisor’s role is to notice trends and convey a holistic picture of students for parents, Head of UD Dr. Jessica Levenstein told us.

Students also cannot read their teachers’ comments. While advisors are encouraged to synthesize key points and share trends, they cannot show the exact words to students,

Fippinger said. If a teacher wants to share comments with students, they can send them as fleshed out, formal academic reports, Levenstein said.

The game of telephone — from teachers to advisors to parents to us — muddles teachers’ messages and takes agency away from us. The communication is one sided: rather than a conversation where we can voice our side of our experience, we get told what other people think without an opportunity to hear the exact feedback, much less respond.

These conferences should treat us like active participants in our education. Teach

ers should offer feedback directly to their students along with mid-sems; students and parents should read them and have the option to meet together with advisors, who can continue to help them interpret the feedback. That doesn’t need to create more work for teachers. The comments can remain blunt and brief. We’re high schoolers, we should be mature enough to handle critiques.

Students are the ones who are supposed to act on teachers’ comments. We should be able to hear them too.

TALKING ETHICS Sheft presents at Justice Night.

Sam Siegel/Photo Director

Sarah Aaron/Staff Artist

Understanding the danger of Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks

We all saw Kanye West’s horrifying tweet on October 9: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” While West is no stranger to antisem itism, his agenda has increased expo nentially in recent months. Antisem itism has always existed, but, in the course of my lifetime, it has never pre sented itself at this lighting speed and magnitude. It would not be wrong to

call this an antisemitism epidemic. You might think, “it’s just one tweet. It can’t actually do harm to the Jewish community.” In reality, this could not be further from the truth. West has 18.4 million Instagram followers, a half-bil lion dollar shoe line, and a presidential bid. West has promoted stereotypes about ‘Jewish power’ in the music in dustry, business, and politics, a rhetoric that fuels doubt about Jewish people in power. In a recent Fox News inter view with Tucker Harris, West stated that he wished his children learned about Hannukah instead of Kwanzaa because Hannukah would “come with some financial engineering,” perpetu ating the antisemetic claim that Jewish people control the economy. On Revolt TV’s “Drink Champs” October 15 ep isode, he said “the Jewish communi ty, especially in the music industry… they’ll take us and milk us till we die.” This dangerous statement sustains the conspiracy theory that Jewish people have an “in” with the music industry, and sets an unwarranted feud between Black and Jewish people.

You may not understand the weight of West’s words if you never witnessed

antisemitism in your community. Growing up in an environment with a large Jewish population, it wasn’t until I got on social media and made friends outside of New York City that I realized antisemitism is widespread. No matter how distant antisemites like West may seem to us, they exist in casual, hidden forms. More people will think it is OK to express antisemitism when they see a popular public figure — Kanye West — doing so.

In the second part of West’s tweet, he wrote, “The funny thing is I actual ly can’t be AntiSemitic because black people are actually Jew also.” Nothing is funny about this.

West’s claim that all Black people are the true descendants of the biblical Israelites aligns with extremist sects of the Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) move ment and the Nation of Islam (NOI). BHI adherents refer to themselves as the “true Jews” and reject Judaism; they are not the same as Black Jews or Jews of Color. They promote antisemitism by claiming that Jewish people today stole the religious heritage of Black peo ple and are engaged in a global conspir acy to oppress non-Jewish people.

After West’s recent outbursts of an ti-semitism, conspiracy groups and extremists have leveraged his words.

NOI Executive Council Member and Student Minister Wesley Muhammad said on the Hip Hop News Uncesored podcast, “Kanye West is speaking a lot of truth right now and he’s triggering a very dangerous enemy… I see him — with good reason — threatening to go DEFCON 3 on Jewish execs of Hol lywood.” Again, this craziness seems so distant to us that it is almost like a joke, but there are people out there that see West’s remarks and think “oh, that makes sense.”

West’s words have sparked action across the country. Last month, a hate group hung banners over a Los Angeles freeway that read “Kanye is right about the Jews” and gave Nazi salutes. I even saw a TikTok recently where a woman went into a Hasidic neighborhood and took videos of Jewish men wearing a shtreimel, asking “why are so many people wearing these wigs?” The prob lem with this video, which received 3.5 million views, is that she decided to vid eo people who were dressed differently without their consent.

This casual antisemitism often goes under the radar. This is dangerous be cause it becomes part of mainstream culture. When the antisemitism is not overt enough to provoke cancelling someone, it simply exists as an unprob lematic opinion.

Shortly after West’s tweet, Adidas ended their partnership with him, In stagram and Twitter suspended him (though he is now back on both plat forms). “Cancel culture” is one of best tools at our disposal to stop the rise of antisemitism. By withdrawing support from celebrities, we can pressure com panies to remove partnerships.

This is not the first example of West’s anti-semitic rhetoric, nor will it be the last. Apart from antisemitic remarks, West has a longstanding history of anti-Black, false, and conspiratorial statements, and we always need to take West, or, any non-credited source with many grains of salt. We need to remain vigilant against antisemitism around us, from both famous and ordinary people. Keep calling out your peers and unfollowing public figures on social media to keep them accountable for their actions.

A conservative take: How the Republicans failed the midterms

Republicans anticipated a ‘red wave’ that would sweep the nation, flood ing Congress with Republican offi cials who could block Biden’s foolish proposals. Instead, the country saw a ‘red droplet.’ The Senate will remain in Democratic hands, and several more gubernatorial and House results leaned more Democratic than expect ed. How did this happen? Why wasn’t there a red wave if Biden and the Democratic Party have had a negative impact on the nation?

life position, Republicans are promot ing an unpopular idea that loses them more votes than it gains them. About 61% of Americans believe some kind of abortion should be legal. That num ber crosses party lines. I believe if Re publicans lessen their pro-life stance, they will win more elections.

President Biden’s two years in of fice have been disastrous, bringing record-high inflation, an influx of undocumented immigration at the southern border, an abysmal evacu ation from Afghanistan, a failure to prevent the war in Ukraine, and con stant gaffes that make America look like a joke.

For the 2022 midterm elections,

Seeing these disappointing elec tion results made me realize there are many fundamental, fatal flaws in the Republican Party, more than I had initially noticed. I outline the two most important ones in this article: abortion stances and Donald Trump’s influence.

The first fundamental flaw in the party that prevents conservatives and Republicans from winning seats is their general “pro-life” stance on abortion. Many Americans see the Republicans’ pro-life, anti-abortion stance in opposition to a woman’s right to choose. With a steadfast pro-

Volume 120 Editorial Board

The second fundamental flaw in the Republican Party is a continued reverence to former President Donald Trump. Regardless of one’s opinions on Trump, it is undeniable that he was extremely polarizing and contro versial. Moreover, he didn’t fare well among independent and moderate voters. This was reflected in last week’s midterms; a large majority of Repub lican candidates endorsed by Trump didn’t win their respective political races.

Many Republicans no longer sup port Trump due to his recent attacks aimed towards successful Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Trump’s re cent bid to run for president in 2024 is worrisome for the Republican Party because he can single-handedly di vide the party in a way that prevents

Staff

it from taking control of the White House. The Democrats’ and Indepen dents’ vitriol towards Trump has not changed, and facing more criticism from within the Republican party, Trump will never win the 2024 elec tion. The former president’s selfish behaviors and failed endorsements in key battleground states show that it’s time to move on from Trumpism. The 2022 midterms were not all dark for the Republicans, though. They won the majority in the House, which means much of Biden’s policy agenda will not move forward. Still, the Republicans’ results in the Senate were far worse than anticipated. How ever, it’s important to look at the num bers of the popular vote, which point to future success. Since the House is broken up into a series of represen tatives from each district, looking at the party support numbers for the House of Representatives shows spe cifically where Americans support certain candidates. According to RealClearPolitics.com, during these 2022 midterm elections, the Repub lican generic national vote exceeded

Staff Writers Ariella Frommer, Ava Lipsky, Clara Stevanovic, Erica Jiang, Etta Singer, Hanzhang Swen, Harper Rosenberg, Isabella Ciriello, Jorge Orvananos, Joshua Shuster, Kate Beckler, Lucy Peck, Maeve Gold man, Mira Bansal, Naomi Yaeger, Neeva Patel, Saman tha Matays, Sofia Kim, Sophia Paley, Sophie Rukin, Spencer Kolker, Audrey O’Mary, Brody Grossman, Emily Wang, Jacqueline Shih, James Zaidman, Malachai Ab bott, Nikita Pande, Oliver Konopko, Rena Salsberg

Staff Photographers Nicole Au, Jorge Orvañanos, Trish Tran, Aanya Gupta, Jiwan Kim, James Zaidman, Emily Wang, David Aaron, Harper Rosenberg, Evan Contant

Staff Artists Sam Stern, Dylan Leftt, Sammi Strasser, Kristy Xie, Addy Steinberg, Ishaan Iyengar, Sophie Li, Serena Bai, Kayden Hansong, Aashna Hari, Karla Morei ra, Isabelle Kim, Christain Connor, Sam Gordon, Dani Brooks, Aimee Yang

the Democratic generic national vote by nearly 5,000,000 votes. This was an astonishing swing of 10,000,000 votes from the 2020 House elections where Democrats had slightly under 5,000,000 more votes than Republi cans.

While red states remain red in most Congressional districts, certain Democratic sanctuaries like New York saw an increase in Republican voting. Additionally, turnouts in midterms are usually smaller than those during presidential elections, so the Repub licans’ large popular generic vote in a smaller turnout might point to an even greater popular vote during the 2024 presidential election, which could give Republicans an electoral college advantage in states like Wis consin, Georgia and Nevada, the three closest states in the 2020 elections.

Republicans may have lost this small battle, but there’s a good chance that they’ll win the greater 2024 elec tion. That is, so long as they switch up their political strategies and alight from the “Trump Train.”

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Ariella Frommer

Josh Shushter

that, I have a new understanding of my grandmother and how incredibly strong and amazing and resilient she is.”

Going into the writing process, Sheft knew about World War II be cause she felt a connection to it as a Jew with family who survived the Holocaust, she said. To expand her knowledge base, she researched spe cific places and events in the war, such as Germany’s surrender and Kristallnacht at the start to make the book as accurate as possible. “I also researched details, like what the cit ies looked like and what people were wearing in the 1930s and 1940s in Eu rope,” Sheft said.

By the start of ninth grade, Sheft had completed her first draft and began sending query letters to pub lishers, where she asked publishers if they would be interested in working with her, she said. Sheft ultimately chose Amsterdam Publishers because

of their frequent work with literature on the Holocaust, she said. After settling on her publisher, Sheft worked with Liesbeth Heenk to edit the draft she had completed, pointing out places where she could show in stead of tell.

Around this time, Sheft submitted multiple excerpts of her novel to the Scholastic Writing Awards. She won a regional silver key award for one scene where Eisinger played a game with her peers at boarding school in which they chose one “queen,” who everyone else would protect, and one “torturer,” whose job was to fight the others. The kids selected Eisinger to be the torturer since she looked dif ferent from them, with vibrant red hair and green eyes. Sheft then drew a comparison between the behavior of the students and that of the Nazis, as both groups placed people who appeared differently from themselves into dehumanizing roles, she said.

The award motivated Sheft to keep

writing because it showed her that others found her work to be mean ingful, she said. “The external praise gave me a boost of confidence when releasing it to the world because at first, I was scared about how it would be perceived,” she said. “I was worried that my writing wasn’t good or that it wouldn’t be as good as other profes sional authors’ books.”

Once Sheft had a polished draft, Amsterdam Publishers assigned her an editor to fact check everything ref erenced, she said. Sheft then selected some photos of her grandmother to be featured at the end of the book, the cover image, the synopsis on the back cover, and her author’s bio.

Finally, on November 9, Sheft re leased her novel to the public on Am azon. “It’s very surreal. I don’t think that I’ve fully processed it yet,” she said. “I’m really happy that my grand mother’s story is out in the world, and I’m very proud that she had enough bravery to share that story with me

because it is very personal.”

Sheft’s novel immediately received large amounts of traction at the Middle Division (MD) library, MD Library Department Chair Rachael Ricker, said. “I ordered 40 copies of the book and by the time I walked from Gross Theater to the reading room, there was a huge swarm of students,” she said. “They grabbed all of the copies of the book. I already have a list of 100 students who want a copy.”

Freya Riebling (8) just finished reading Sheft’s novel and finds the book accessible for young adult au diences, she said. Featuring a young protagonist makes the book an op timal resource for teaching young adults about the Holocaust, Riebling said. “You can really relate to the main character because she’s our age, so the reader can feel her emotions.”

Reflecting on the process, Sheft said her motivation to continue writ ing came from the disturbing amount

of antisemitism present in the world today. “I kept thinking about how other young teens reading it will want to work more actively to make our world a place where hatred and prej udice against all sorts of people are vanquished.”

Sheft hopes to influence readers to seek out stories from marginalized people or from people with different backgrounds than them, she said. “It’s important that we consider all people who are being discriminated against in our communities and take steps to support them and to record their sto ries and to share them widely.”

Recording Holocaust stories is par ticularly important now because of the dwindling number of living Holo caust survivors, she said. “I hope that more people seek steps to record the stories of Holocaust survivors in our community and also just to listen to Holocaust survivors speak,” she said. “We are one of the last generations who have the opportunity to do that.”

Weber (11) hosts workshop to combat antisemitism

Lourenco and Matthew Puruzan Contributing Writers

Ariela Weber (11) helped host a workshop on Jewish history with around 40 participants at the Moise Safra Center last Sunday.

Weber is an intern at StandWithUs (SWU), a non-profit organization that educates people about Israel to counter antisemitism, and invit ed Charlotte Korchak, Director of International Student Programs at SWU, to speak at the event. Korchak unpacked the complexities of Jewish history, explaining how to engage in conversa tions with anti-zionists, and called youth to ac tion against antisemitism.

Ciriello (11) plays music for New York Presbyterian hospital

Kurtz and Lily Sussman Contributing Writers

In honor of World Prematurity Day, Isabella Ciriello (11) played guitar at the Neonatal In tensive Care Unit (NICU) of New York Pres byterian Hospital for parents and doctors this Thursday. The NICU is a hospital unit that treats babies with health issues born before the usual 40 weeks.

Ciriello was born prematurely at just 24 weeks old and lived in the NICU for 88 days, she said. Doctors in the NICU often played classical music for the babies in their isolettes to promote brain development, she said.

The classical music she listened to as a baby in the NICU may have contributed to her in terest in music, she said. She has played piano, classical, and acoustic guitar from a young age, and is currently a member of the school’s Con cert Glee Club and the Music Outreach Club.

Ciriello first visited the NICU four years ago and played classical music to the babies. This time, she played “Suite for Solo Cello No. 1” by Johann Sebastian Bach and inspiring pop songs like “Vienna” by Billy Joel and “Yester

day” by The Beatles on the guitar.

Ciriello chose well-known songs so that the audience could easily connect with her, she said. “[The NICU] is kind of a dark place — parents don’t have much hope and it can be kind of scary,” Ciriello said. “It’s just a good thing to show parents that the doctors and nurses truly make miracles happen every day.”

When she was around 12 or 13 years old, Ciriello decided to learn about her past in the NICU. She read the blog that her mother wrote to update friends and family about her prog ress, milestones, and surgeries while she was housed in the care facility, she said. As Ciriel lo learned more about that part of her life, she met her neonatologist, the doctor who looked after her. He gave her the opportunity to play music at the NICU, she said.

She empathized with the parents in her au dience by thinking back to what her parents went through when she was in the NICU, Ciri ello said. “Hopefully, they will see that things might be okay for them and that even though it might not seem possible now, their child could grow up to be capable of doing such things.”

As the head planner, Weber contacted Korchak after hearing her statements on zi onism — which Korchak defined as the belief in the Jewish state and the land of Israel — at a convention in California she attended with SWU. “We were told her talk [at the convention] was going to go for 45 minutes, and it went for two hours.”

Those two hours flew by, similar to Sunday’s event, Weber said. Korchak covered the past 2,000 years of Jewish history in the hour-long talk, clarifying misconceptions about how the Jews settled in British Mandate Palestine, now Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.In spired by Korchak’s childhood memories about political turbulence in Israel, Weber gained per spective about the gravity of the Palestinian vi olence towards Jews living in Israel at the time, she said.

“[The event] gave people the tools they need to be able to combat and approach those diffi cult conversations [about Jewish history],” We ber said. They now have the necessary facts to defend their stance against antisemitism to peo ple who have different opinions, she said.

To inform people about the event, Weber and five other SWU marketing interns reached out to teenagers and parents who might be interest ed in attending, she said.

Korchak informed Chloe Ludwig (9) about techniques she can use to confront antisemi tism, she said. “If the time comes where I need to respond to or stand up for myself or Israel, now I know how.”

Korchak also spoke about the importance of Jewish pride in the face of antisemitism.

“[Korchak] gave the example of the Jewish star necklace. Since she’s been wearing it proudly, no one has ever come up to her, but if you walk with your head down low, there is a threat of be ing attacked,” Ludwig said.

Vivan Coraci (11) learned everyone can take action to help fight the rise of antisemitism, no matter their background, she said. “I’m not Jew ish, but I went because a lot of my friends are Jewish and I think it’s important to learn about antisemitism.”

In order to educate people about antisem itism, the school must cover more topics than just the Holocaust in history classrooms, Weber said. Most anti-zionist beliefs stem from a lack of education on the topic, and the school should be working actively to fix this issue, she said.

Sydney

ROCKIN’ THE NICU Ciriello plays guitar for parents and doctors.

COMBATING HATE Korchak speaks at SWU event.

Julia

Courtesy of Zachary Kurtz

Courtesy of Isabella Ciriello

Separating art from the artist: possible or not?

Sofia Kim Staff Writer

Kanye West. Michael Jackson. Paul Gauguin. These are just a few names that come to mind around the recent media debate over whether or not it is possible to separate the art from the artist. While some can enjoy art from artists whose actions they disagree with, others cannot experience art without feeling guilt.

The question heavily depends on how much an artist’s actions influence their work, Michelle Orloff (11) said. For example, West’s music does not directly derive from his problematic actions, making it possible to separate his music from his persona, she said. “If someone is talented, you should re spect their talent and appreciate their work. But you should also be aware that you’re subscribing to someone who has done specific things and not

be blind towards it,” she said.

It is possible to separate the art from the artist as long as the viewer has an objective mindset, Gabe Jaffe (11) said. “What does the art physically look like when it is disconnected from the art ist?” he said. Depending on the person and how they experience art, it is pos sible to achieve a complete separation of art and artist, he said.

Major artists have people watching their every move, so they are vulner able to cancel culture, or a mass with drawal of support because of a social ly unacceptable action. Usually, this means removing the public figure’s platform and abandoning support for their work. But when artists have heavily influenced a particular field, can people forget their work? Take Michael Jackson, “King of Pop,” who has repeated sexual abuse allegations. While many artists today look up to him, is it ethical to idolize someone

with a problematic past?

While some artists might set a bad example, people cannot ignore the influence some artists have on their industry, Pietro Arcoria (10) said. “Of tentimes, people who are really talent ed and significantly impact our culture have some sort of faults because they are human,” he said. Even without sup porting the artist, people should not try to erase their impact.

Based on the degree of extremi ty, it is possible to respect someone’s work while still disagreeing with their views, Naomi Gelfer (11) said. “When someone creates art I can’t create, I can respect and enjoy their work without sympathizing with their actions.” Gel fer has been a fan of comedian John Mulaney for several years and while she does not condone some of his ac tions, such as being unfaithful to his wife, she still appreciates his jokes, she said.

For others, separation between an artist and their art is unimaginable. Brianna Wells (10) finds it impossible to completely bifurcate an artist’s po litical views from their work because they profit from consumer atten tion, she said. J.K. Rowling wrote the best-selling series of all time, “Harry Potter,” but also sent a series of trans phobic tweets and has been accused of cultural appropriation. “Every time you buy a “Harry Potter” book, you are supporting J.K. Rowling and her prob lematic views,” Wells said. “When you listen to Kanye’s songs, the economic support is still going towards him. In that sense, there is no way to enjoy their art without supporting their ac tions.”

When an artist crosses the line into hate speech and discrimination, it becomes impossible to support an artist without connecting it to their hatred — depending on how political the artwork is, Malcolm Furman (12) said. “J.K. Rowling writes in a fictional world that is disconnected from our

society and today’s political climate. However, Kanye writes about his own experiences and his perceptions of the world which is tainted by hate,” he said.

With today’s technology, we know more about modern artists’ personal

Hetherington also emphasizes that the context behind art is always sig nificant. Otto Dix, a German painter during World War I, created works influenced by the brutality of war. Without experiencing the war, his art

lives than we did of the artists from years ago, visual arts teacher Ron Lo gan, said. “When you know people in a deeper way, you understand their work differently.” Because he studies art that is centuries old, Logan recognizes that artists who lived during culturally dif ferent times had a different standard of what was acceptable, he said. “We might think what we’re doing now is okay but no one knows how people will think of it 500 years in the future.”

Visual Arts Department Chair Dr. Anna Hetherington agrees that time can alter what is deemed culturally acceptable. Artists who create in the present have immediate consequenc es on the way people perceive our culture, she said. “But if Vincent van Gogh made a painting with a certain context 150 years ago, the cultural con sequences are not the same.”

There are nuances to the debate, and each case is different depending on the art’s purpose and context, Het herington said. While Paul Gauguin, a French artist, had a highly problematic biography, many historians believe his art was historically significant enough to continue teaching, she said. “How ever, others feel his biography is so abhorrent that they won’t teach him.”

- Brianna Wells (10)

would be significantly different, she said. “What’s crucial is that works of art impact both responses to culture and shape it, and artists are not just mere illustrators of their time,” she said. This idea shows the relationship between the art and the artist is more complicated than simply a person cre ating art.

While a seemingly simple question, there is no single correct answer. There are many factors that play into creating artwork, including the context of the art, the circumstances around which it was made, and how much the artist’s views influence its creation. A prob lematic person could one day inspire someone else to create their own art. Additionally, each individual views art differently, as some can simply enjoy the art’s physical aspects, while others cannot experience the art without con necting it back to the artist. Although every individual has faults, do we sup port their impact in the industry out of pleasure, or is it unethical to keep someone in power who has problem atic influences?

Taylor Swift ticket-frenzy takes over community

Patel Staff Writer

The night before tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour went on sale, Head of Upper Divi sion Dr. Jessica Levenstein P ‘23 ’26 did not sleep — she stayed up thinking about her strategy.

The next morning, Levenstein logged onto Ticketmaster at 9:30 a.m. in hopes of buy ing tickets for her daughters and got stuck in the queue, with 2000 people in front of her. “I had advisory and I told my advisees they could come in as long as they don’t go on their phones because it was going to mess with my bandwidth for the website,” she said. After waiting for four hours, the queue opened up and Levenstein got six tickets for her family.

Last Tuesday at 10 a.m., presale tickets for Swift’s tour were released. Panic and anxiety among both students and teachers ensued.

A small number of people who had signed up for the Verified Fan presale received codes last Monday night, which allowed them to se

cure tickets for the tour three days before the general public could. However, due to unprec edented numbers, Ticketmaster canceled the general sale and left hopeful fans in the dust.

Amelia Resnick (12) joined the queue at 9:30 a.m. and was not able to get tickets un til 12:45 p.m. “The whole process was very stressful. In those few hours that I did not have tickets, I was very anxious,” she said.

Others were not that lucky. Rizaa Fazal (11) depended on her friend, who had a code, to get tickets for her. Her dad even moved his doctor’s appointment to get tickets, but he was kicked out of the queue and the code was useless. Later in the day, the line reopened — but no luck. “We tried clicking for seats, ev erything said sold out,” she said.

Assistant Director of Admissions Emily Perelman also did not secure tickets during the Verified Fan sale, but decided to make use of her sister’s Capital One card for the Capital One presale. Perelman’s queue had 2,000 peo ple in front of her. Only after two hours did the numbers begin to descend. “It went from

831, to 29, to 1,” she said. “Then my screen said error, and everything went away.”

Because Perelman runs the Student Am bassador Program, she could not wait by her laptop for another queue, she said. That day, she saw students coming to ask if they could tour families with their laptops open so they could track their spot in the queue. Although she still does not have tickets, Perelman is staying positive and hopes that Ticketmaster comes around soon.

History teacher Dr. Alicia DeMaio also ex perienced glitches while trying to get seats, and when she was finally able to pick her seats, they disappeared in front of her eyes within seconds. After continuous failed at tempts to secure the May 13 show in Phila delphia, DeMaio eventually got tickets for the show in Metlife Stadium with the help of another teacher.

While she was able to get tickets for one show, Ryan Nikitiadis (11) is trying to get tickets for another day as well, she said. “As of now I only have tickets for one day and it’s

Neeva

Amira Dossani and Vivian Coraci/Art Directors

Vivian Coraci/Art Director

“Every time you buy a “Harry Potter” book, you are supporting J.K. Rowling and her problematic views. When you listen to Kanye’s songs, the economic support is still going towards him. In that sense, there is no way to enjoy their art without support ing their actions.”

Dr. Osdany Morales: Author and teacher

Neeva Patel Staff Writer

Spanish teacher Dr. Osdany Morales has published five books, won many lit erary awards, earned a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Liter ature, an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, and created a Studies in Span ish curriculum in his second year at the school.

Despite his expansive literary reper toire, Morales did not study writing as an undergraduate; his Bachelor’s de gree from University City José Antonio Echeverría in Havana, Cuba, his home country, is in architecture. Architecture had a creativity similar to writing, he said. “I was doing something close to fiction in the sense that I was creating a project within blank space.”

In college, Morales began to write se riously. His love for syntax came from his experiences reading as a child. “I re member reading a lot of stories by Lat in American authors, but I was more so interested in the words and style of language than the plots,” Morales said. He now teaches works from some of his favorite authors, Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, and Alejo Carpentier, to his students.

Morales’ advice for people who are interested in writing is to read. “You read and read and one day, you realize that you want to do something different with your experience and you want to try to emulate the works you are reading,” he said. Morales has read all of the books he teaches to students in Ficciones del Sur, fictions of the south. “Fiction is an important part of my life as a writer, and as a human being.”

During his last years in undergrad, Morales started publishing fiction sto ries in magazines. By the time he grad uated in 2006, he had written his first book — a collection of short stories called “Minuciosas Puertas Estrechas,” “Thoroughly Stretched Doors.” The collection explored the implications of fiction and how the public perceives storytelling, he said. “It was a collection of short stories that questioned the col lection of nature and what time is, who the narrator is, and who the characters are and their effects.”

The story collection won The David

at the NYU program were great nov elists like Sergio Chejfec, Diamela El tit, Sylvia Molloy, and Antonio Muñoz Molina, and poets like Mariela Dreyfus and Lila Zemborain,” Morales said. “It was an exceptional opportunity to read and write among them and to be ex posed to their suggestions.”

At NYU, Morales wrote his second book, “Papyrus,” or “The Last Librari an” in English. “The novel accumulates small elements from stories to focus on the figure of the writer and reader,” Morales said. “It redefines those spaces for the 21st century specifically, a time where we have so much information around us.”

“Papyrus” won the Alejo Carpentier Award in 2012, one of the most import ant literary awards for Cuban authors. “This win was big — I grew up reading [Alejo] Carpentier’s stories, so I was happy to connect one of my books to an author I knew from my youth.”

A year later, Morales published his third book, “Antes de Los Aviones” or “Before the Planes,” a fictionalization of Morales’ time outside of his home country, Cuba. Two years after that, he experimented with a foreign literary genre: poetry. “El Pasado es un Pueb lo Solitario,” “The Past is a Lonesome Town,” is a book of poems about Mo rales’ experiences immigrating to the US, he said.

When Morales first moved to the US, he had to make many profiles on line for his new life. “I had to create pro files and answer questions that had to be protected by security questions that connected to my past — things only I would know,” he said. As an immigrant, Morales often found himself in front of questions without an answer. Inspired by those interrogations, Morales’ book takes the structure of a set of security questions that he answers with poems.

Morales’ fifth and favorite book in his collection, published in 2018, con tinues his meditations on fiction. He chose “Zozobra” for the title because it has two meanings: an emotional state connected to sadness or a shipwreck. “This is the story of someone who is lost in the Atlantic Ocean and the po lice investigation behind it,” Morales said. “But it is also an excuse to talk about distance, longing, and identity.”

Alongside his creative endeavors, Morales received a Ph.D. in 2019 from NYU that connected his two spheres of knowledge — architecture, and Latin American fic tion — and introduced him to teaching. In pursuit of his degree, he taught a wide range of Spanish language courses — from “Spanish for Begin ners” to “Critical Approaches to Text and Cul tural Analy sis,” “Cul ture and Con texts: Latin Amer ica,” and

“Iberian Atlantic.”

“These courses taught me to create interactive student-centered environ ments,” he said. “[My students] would come in with a very advanced knowl edge of Spanish, so I was curious as to what was happening in schools like ours, where we learn Spanish from the beginning.” It was then that Morales realized he wanted to teach at a high school and he entered the Upper Division in the fall of 2020.

When creating his course, Morales gravitated to fiction as a way to teach Spanish because it contains small worlds that people can inhabit for a few days, like “foreign dreams in a foreign language,” he said. “Fiction covers the target language and also a univer sal one that includes feel ings, history, desires, and imag ination,” he said. Morales also shares book suggestions with his students so they can further explore the texts. “The experience of reading a good book is so mysterious that I find it difficult to forget the person who recommended it to me,” he said.“I will be in some sort of debt that is partially paid by passing on the secret to other readers.”

Morales is always enthusiastic when discussing the books the students read in class, Ella Shaham (11), a student in Ficciones del Sur, said. Shaham values having a teacher who is an author teach about short stories since he brings his own personal experiences with liter ature to the table, she said. Through Morales, she has been able to learn about Latin American fiction from the author’s point of view, as well as from the readers’.

Morales was one of the nicest and most supportive teachers Ariela Shuch man (12), a student in last year’s Stud ies in Spanish: Canciones, Cantantes, y Poetas, has ever had, she said. “In a lan guage class, it is easy to feel very vulner able because you never know if what you are saying makes sense to a native speaker,” she said. “But he is extremely supportive with verbal cues that make you feel heard.”

Shuchman also appreciates how Morales can share inside jokes with his class — her favorite memory from last year was teaching him millennial slang. “One time, we were all joking around before class and explaining to Señor Morales what the millennial phrase, ‘valid links’ meant,” she said. “In Spanish, it translates to ‘eslabones resistentes,’ so we started saying that a lot.” Even now, Shuchman says “eslab ones resistentes” when she sees Morales in the halls.

Similarly, Shaham’s class with Mo rales in ninth grade began drawing di nosaurs on the board before class, she said. Now, two years later, the class still enjoys their ‘dinosaurios’ each day.

When he came to the school in 2020, Morales’ current students were study ing basic grammar. “Now, in Ficciones del Sur, these same students are reading works by established Latin American authors,” he said. “I am very happy to see that evolution.”

WHAT IS THE LICENSE PLATE (REGISTRATION) OF YOUR DAD’S FIRST CAR?

al final cuando cambiamos asientos y él recuperó el timón, el carro no arrancaba; luego arrancó pero no caían las VELOCIDADES fue peleando conmigo todo el viaje de vuelta

lo único práctico que sobrevive es esa claridad de sábado en el parabrisas del chevrolet BEL AIR ancho como pantalla de cine la luz quebrándose allí y yo con la mirada fija en el desierto del CAMINO CUATRO

sus amigos nos preguntaban por qué yo no sabía manejar a los CATORCE AÑOS él respondía que a mí no me gustaba

el único espacio de intimidad destinado a los hijos de padres con carro son los centímetros oscuros bajo el chasis

de niño debía acompañarlo en el garaje, veía sus piernas saliendo por fuera como una tabla de clavados odiaba esas HORAS desperdiciadas dibujaba estrategias que me harían patear el gato y cortar a mi padre en dos

BÚSCAME UNA TUERCA jamás la encontraba

SUJÉTAME

ESTO se me caía de la mano

siempre he sido quien no lo piensa dos veces a la hora de servirse de un pie para alcanzar un martillo

al final nos pasábamos el mismo TRAPO CON GASOLINA que arracaba la grasa cáusticamente; creo que lo que exasperaba a mi padre era que yo asignara a cada una de las piezas de su mundo otro significado

Sophia Liu/Art Director

going to be hard to get them for anoth er day because I want floor, which are the seats right in front of Taylor,” she said. But

the struggle was worth it. “The tickets I got were amazing and I’ve been waiting years for this concert, so I am very happy with the result.”

Rasiwala (8) makes history as first female football player on MD team

Clara Meridios and Blake Bennett Staff Writers

The Middle Division football team welcomed its first female play er this season: Arshia Rasiwala (8).

“When I saw that they (the school) had football as an option for boys and girls I was really excited to finally get a chance to play a sport I never had the opportunity to,” Rasi wala said.

Rasiwala’s interest in football began in sixth grade. She enjoyed watching it on TV, so when she saw the school offered football, she took that opportunity to try the sport, she said. She initially thought it would be a co-ed team, but when tryouts began, she was surprised she was the only girl there.

Rasiwala wasn’t the first one to try out for the team, though she is

the first to play on it, Head Coach of JV and MD football Ron Beller said. “She showed a lot of courage,” he said. “Arshia was able to not only get on the team, she was able to start many games. She was able to have a significant role on the team, and that’s a testament to her hard work, her determination, her resolve and really just her being a good football player.”

To get on the team, girls must pass a fitness test so the school can see that they are physically able to play among the boys, Rasiwala said. The coaches tested her how fast she could run a mile, how many pushups she could do, and how flexible she was. “While I was excited to measure my fitness ability through the tests, I feel like all students should be tested too.”

Looking back at her experiences with her teammates, she noticed the different treatment she received. “It

was hard to build a connection with the rest of the team,” Rasiwala said. “I felt like that there was always a barrier because I was a girl, and I also felt like they wouldn’t defend as hard with me.”

Although Rasiwala felt discon nected from her teammates, she enjoyed learning from her coaches, who gave her advice whenever she was doing something wrong. “The team always tried to be inclusive and they gave me many opportu nities to play. They were honestly really nice and I learned a lot from them,” she said.

Beller enjoyed having the oppor tunity to coach Rasiwala and send a message to doubters about female participation in predominantly men’s sports, he said. He sees Rasi wala as a great example of how nec essary inclusion in sports is. “The beauty of sports is, it doesn’t mat ter what gender, creed, religion or

Sophie’s Sudokus

DIFFICULT

can just watch a YouTube video of online?”

by Sophie Pietrzak GOOD LUCK, LOL

Lions’ Den

Football wins MIFL finals against Riverdale

Emily Wang Staff Writer

The Varsity Football Team triumphed against Riverdale in the Metropolitan Independent Football League (MIFL) finals last Sunday, earn ing the title of MIFL Champions and ending the season on a three-game winning streak.

“The whole season came full circle,” team member Jack Chasen (11) said. The Lions lost their first game of the season to Riverdale by two points but beat them in their final game by the same amount. The team also lost to Mont clair-Kimberley Academy (MKA) at Homecom ing before beating them later in the semifinals.

At the game on Sunday, the Lions maintained a sizable lead over Riverdale until the end, when Riverdale scored a touchdown with two minutes left and brought the score to 30-28. “The game wasn’t as close as the score [made it seem],” Varsity Football Coach Ron Beller said. “It was 24-nothing with two minutes to go in the sec ond quarter.” Since Riverdale scored right before halftime, it gave them momentum going into the third quarter, he said.

A highlight from the game was a turnover by Sam Spector (11), Beller said. “He was able to blitz off the edge on the blindside,” he said. “The Riverdale quarterback didn’t see it coming and he was able to make a strip sack, jarring the ball loose. Then one of our best players, Nate Wild man [(12)], was able to recover it just before it got out of bounds.”

The stands at the Brunswick School were packed with onlookers, and Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly brought the enthusiasm with food trucks, hot chocolate, and hats. “[There was] a lot of energy in the stands and the sidelines,” Bel ler said.

When the Lions won, the crowd went crazy, Goodman said. The players, with mud staining their uniforms and smiles painting their faces, huddled around the coaches and one another.

“A lot of the kids came up to us and were hug ging us and saying, ‘I love you coach, I love you coach, I love you coach,’” Beller said. “That’s a really good feeling — you were able to make a connection where teenagers can come up to you and say, ‘hey, I love you.’”

Leading up to the final game against River dale, the team met six days in a row to strategize. The seniors helped the team focus during prac tice and during games, Goodman said. “We had a week to prepare, so we were watching film on Riverdale, going over game plans, and drawing up new plays,” Chasen said.

They devised plans that would poke holes through Riverdale’s defense and offense, Spec tor said. “Coach Beller decided to run a more man-coverage-based system, we also played a bunch of zone coverage.”

The team’s bond was what really defined the team, Zachary Goodman (12) said. “We’re a close-knit family and we’ve known each other for so long,” he said.

The Lions’ final season record was 5-4. “We did have an incredibly difficult schedule,” Bel ler said. “[But] in the end, it helped us win the championship because we were battle-tested.”

Photos courtesy of Barry Mason

Emily Grant (11) and Allison Markman (12) win NYSAIS

Clara Stevanovic Staff Writer

Last weekend, doubles pair Allison Mark man (12) and Emily Grant (11) on the Girls Varsity Tennis team (GVT) won the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) tournament.

The tournament lasted three days. On Friday November 11, Markman and Grant advanced after their first match against Poly Prep. That Sunday, they beat Dalton, then won their final match against Hackley last Monday.

GVT was one of eight teams from New York that qualified for NYSAIS. Twelve teams from the NYSAIS league applied for the tourna ment in total. The eight teams that qualified were chosen to participate in NYSAIS based on their rankings in the league.

Markman and Grant were the only doubles pair from the school that volunteered to play at NYSAIS. “At the beginning of the season,

Emily and I definitely wanted to win, so we had every intention of going to the tourna ment,” Markman said. The other athletes that they played were just as competitive and seri ous about winning, she said.

To prepare for NYSAIS, Markman and Grant practiced with other players on the team and worked on drills, Troop said.

At their match against Poly Prep, Markman and Grant were initially nervous because they lost to them the week before. “They’re really well coached, and had some very interesting strategies,” Grant said.

Markman attributes their success in the match to strong communication and a posi tive attitude, she said.

Beating Poly Prep and Dalton were major highlights for the pair because they had lost to those exact teams earlier in the season, Mark man said. “Getting to replay those matches was really nice,” she said.

Only the athletes playing at NYSAIS, not the entire team, went to the first two rounds of

the tournament, which made the atmosphere at Markman and Grant’s first two matches quieter than usual. “Usually, our entire team is there cheering everyone on,” Markman said.

While it helps to hear the encouragement of her teammates, Markman was able to better concentrate on playing during the pair’s first two NYSAIS matches. “[NYSAIS] is an indi vidual competition, and your results aren’t de pendent on the rest of your team. Normally, if we lost, we knew that we would be hurting the team, but during NYSAIS we were able to be looser and less stressed,” Markman said.

At the tournament finals against Hackley, the rest of GVT came to support Markman and Grant. “Their cheering definitely kept us motivated throughout that last match, espe cially because it was so close,” Markman said.

The score of the final match was 7-6, 7-6, meaning that Markman and Grant won by a tiebreak during each set. “The games real ly came down to what the opposing doubles pair’s strengths and weaknesses were, and our strategies,” Markman said.

“Even when [Markman and Grant] tied 6-6 and the match went into a seven point tiebreaker, they never lost their cool,” Troop said. “They played brilliantly.”

Markman and Grant’s final match against Hackley was challenging for them, but they strategized well, Grant said. “We tried to at tack them with volleys because we knew that would help us win,” she said. “Even when we weren’t playing our best tennis, we just had to adapt in order to win.”

After Markman and Grant won the final, their teammates rushed to congratulate them, Markman said. “They all stormed onto the court and gave us a big hug,” she said.

“Seeing Coach Troop after we won was amazing, because he was so excited,” Grant said. “Before the match, Coach Troop told us

that he wouldn’t miss it for the world, and it was so sweet.”

For seniors on the team, NYSAIS was their last match. “It was really upsetting, but obvi ously, I was also very happy because we won,” Markman said.

“I’m very proud of the kids this year,” Troop said.

Varsity Water Polo wins Invitational against Fieldston

Pande Staff Writer

After beating every team in the Ivy Preparatory League, Varsity Water Polo took home the trophy at the Horace Mann Invitational on October 28.

The Invitational solidifies the winner of the Ivy League between the different schools in the league. It took place over two days –– October 26 and 28. On the first day, the Lions, with the best record, played against the team with the worst record, Riverdale; Fieldston and Trinity played each other as well. On the sec ond day, the Lions competed against Fieldston for first place, while Trinity and Riverdale played for third.

The team’s final game against Field ston was a nailbiter compared to their

previous matches, Elise Kang (11) said. Usually, the Lions start off strong and gain an early lead, which allows them to relax for the rest of the game. The Fieldston game was close after the first quarter, possibly because Lions had let their guard down after a successful sea son, Kang said.

That said, the team didn’t stay be hind for long. They regained their lead in the second quarter and widened the gap during the third and fourth, Kang said. “There was no buzzer beater or winning shot. We were always a few steps ahead.”

The Lions won 21-12 against Field ston — a comfortable margin they fre quently earned in league games, Varsity Water Polo Coach Michael Duffy said.

“I can’t say it stands out.” Leading his squad, Captain Max Chasin (12) scored

13 goals against Fieldston, and Noah Castillo (10) contributed several goals as well.

Teams entered the Invitational with a heightened drive to win since it was their final chance to clinch the league title, team member Camila Florencio (11) said. “The other teams, since they were already losing, were willing to do anything in order to get back on top,” she said. “Even though we secured our spot at the top, we still wanted to make sure that we held it down and that we did not get too sloppy.”

The win was especially gratifying be cause it was a culmination of the team’s progress, Duffy said. One specific area of improvement was the team’s de fense; they transitioned from one play er defending each opponent to dou ble-teaming the players on the other team, he said. Players also stepped out of their comfort zone as well: “at the be ginning of the year, we had people who weren’t too comfortable taking shots, and I saw that confidence grow.”

The Lions’ excitement reached its highest point in their last few games, team member Rain Li (10) said. As the season progressed and the team’s winning streak increased, more people attended the games — there was a visi bly larger crowd at the Invitational than at their first game of the season, which led to a better match. “Hearing the fans

cheer after every goal, or trying to sup port us no matter if we’re on offense or defense, brings out the energy,” Li said.

In addition to the exhilaration of capping off a well-played season, the Invitational held emotional signifi cance because it was the seniors’ last game, Florencio said.

There was a sense of camarade rie and cooperation within the team, mainly stemming from the seniors’ efforts to maintain a positive environ ment, Duffy said. Their encouragement helped the team perform better. They played without fear of messing up, so if they did happen to make a wrong move, they went into it confidently, he said. “They made aggressive mistakes rather than passive mistakes.”

Duffy made sure to include every

player in each game, Li said. Even though it was Li’s first year on the Varsi ty team, he had the opportunity to play and score goals in every match. “Coach Duffy did a really good job trying to give everyone adequate playing time and giving us the chance to show our skills.”

Looking back over his final season, Max Chasin feels upset that he will nev er play for the school again, but appre ciates the team for an incredible season.

“The close-knit bond of the team was unlike any experience on an HM team I’ve ever had,” Chasin said. “I’m going to miss the coaches and my teammates and I look forward to coming back and watching them win in the coming years.”

Nikita

SAY CHEESE! Girls Varsity Tennis smiles after winning NYSAIS

DOUBLE TROUBLE Posing after their big win

NOPE! Zach Montbach (11) rejects the shot

SPLISH SPLASH Waterpolo defends their home turf

Sam Siegel/Photo Director

Sam Siegel/Photo Director

Courtesy of Allison Markman

Courtesy of Allison Markman