A Student Publication of the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School • 1609 Avenue J, Brooklyn, New York • Vol 55, Issue 4 • January 2021 / 5781
Students still behind on chesed hours despite more lenient system By Natalie Ryba Fun & Games Editor
Students are missing chesed hours at roughly the same rate as any other year, even after Flatbush made significant changes to the school’s community service requirements to accommodate for the pandemic, Ms. Ovadia confirmed. In a regular academic year, students are required to complete and log a minimum 15 hours of community service per semester. It is customary for students to visit the elderly at Ahi Ezer, interact with mentally challenged adults through Yachad, and cook for the hungry at SBH, among many other activities. While most students usually complete their hours, some fail to meet the required 15 per semester and face at least a five-hour penalty and possibly suspension. This school year, in light of the pandemic, Ms. Ovadia, Community Service Coordinator, changed the policy by adding the concept of “acts of chesed.” Students are allowed to log good deeds they’ve done at home, and are required to complete a “minimum of 15 Chesed hours or 15 Acts of Chesed or any combination of both.” This change in policy has the potential to give students an easier way to complete their community service requirements, as they can be fulfilled with-
out the hassle of leaving the comfort of their homes to visit the elderly or cook in a soup kitchen. However, the loosening of the usual requirements has not had a noticeable effect on the number of students scrambling to make up hours as the semester ends, Ms. Ovadia said. “The kids who always run and do are running and doing,” she said, adding that the students who tend to earn a failing mark on the report card seem to be in the same position as usual. Students like Solomon Cohen say the pandemic has made doing chesed more difficult. Cohen, who is usually active in school and community chesed, said he is behind on his hours this year because “there are less opportunities and less dip into real life chesed.” Senior Yigal Laham, on the other hand, typically finds himself falling behind the deadline for his community service hours; he thinks the new system makes his job easier. “All I have to do is take out the garbage and I get an hour,” he said. Junior Jacob Cohen, who is typically very active in community chesed, also likes the new policy. He believes “The new system is definitely an upgrade from the previous system because chesed shouldn’t be measured on how long it took; it should be based off of what you did.”
Crawford’s hoping to reopen in February By Elie Esses Junior Editor
The Crawford’s location inside the school building that has been shut down most of the school year could reopen next semester, but that reopening is contingent on various factors including the school going to a full schedule of all four grades in the building each day, owner Eddie Antar said. “School just isn’t the same without Crawford’s,” said junior Evelyn Lincer, and she isn’t alone in her sentiment. Walk past the bare café counter where Crawford’s used to be, and murmurs can be heard of students describing how much they miss it, how good the paninis were, how they crave an acai bowl. Crawford’s has been a beloved Flatbush staple ever since its opening in 2018, but due to complications regarding Covid-19, they were forced to shut down early in the 2020 school year. Antar, the owner of Crawford’s, explained that the café remains closed for a number of reasons. First, it’s difficult to justify their opening from a financial standpoint when there are only three
grades in the building at a time and there’s no breakfast, which under normal circumstances accounts for a significant portion of sales. Further, “the restrictions and uncertainty the virus poses make it hard to reopen.” He also clarified that the brief period in which they were open earlier this year was nothing more than a temporary experiment to test the waters and see how feasible it really is to open during these trying times. But depending on every individual’s commitment to socially responsible behavior., it seems that things may change. In regard to a future reopening, Antar stated, “There is a chance I am able to reopen next semester if the school reopens fully and returns to the previous schedule.” As to exactly how they will operate, much is to be decided, but it seems that ordering will be taking place on the Crawford's app that was unveiled in the beginning of the school year. Junior Yvette Dayon speaks on behalf of many students and teachers alike: “I really, really, hope they reopen. I get so hangry without a snack.”
Students embrace surprising upside of masks By Jenna Ashkenazie Junior Editor
It is difficult to find people who enjoy wearing a mask all day. Students often complain that they may feel confining, fog up their glasses, and feel hot and sweaty. But some students have found a surprising upside to wearing a mask: increased self-confidence. The senior director for healthcare innovations at the American Psychological Association claimed that wearing a mask may reduce anxiety that comes from people feeling like they are on display all the time. Many Flatbush students have similar feelings, reporting that they feel more
In This Issue People: Page 2 D’var Torah: Page 4 Fun and Games: Page 6
confident wearing their masks, including an anonymous junior who claimed that she likes wearing a face mask because it covers her braces. An anonymous senior feels that masks help boost self-esteem because “half of people’s faces are being covered by a mask. And everyone is wearing a mask so almost everyone looks the same when it comes to the bottom half of their face. It’s less to worry about if you care about appearance and compare yourself to others.” Others feel that the main benefit is that nobody can see any sort of blemish behind the mask, so they don’t have to worry about pimples, or acne scars, or
anything else that so many people spend hours each day trying to cover up. “I think that most students are less self-conscious because half of their faces are being covered so they don’t have to worry too much about what they look like,” freshman Shirley Jajati explained. “If your face is being covered then you don’t need to worry about any pimples on your chin or food stuck in your teeth because no one will see it. Even though I don’t really worry too much about what I look like, I can see how others are more confident when they know no one sees their face.” Junior Sabrina Zami agreed, saying that although her acne has gotten worse
this year, it doesn’t really matter, because nobody can see it. She also states that she doesn’t feel the need to wear makeup anymore, because the mask covers up anything she might feel self-conscious about. She added that she no longer finds herself comparing her skin to other people with perfect skin, because she can’t see what anybody looks like under the mask, so there is nothing to compare herself to. She also realized that because of the masks, she knows that most people no longer have perfect skin, so it evens the playing field a little bit, and that even when her skin can be seen, she doesn’t
Entertainment: Rewatching shows brings comfort Page 5
Food: Easy almond cookies Page 7
Sports: Chess team enjoying sudden boom Page 8
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