National Wins for Local Jewish Schools

Two local Orthodox high schools took top honors at recent national competitions.

Representing issues such as the H1N1 flu pandemic and international labor laws, the team from YULA High School was named best delegation at the Yeshiva University Model United Nations, which brings together 40 Jewish day schools from across the continent for a day of simulation of a United Nations session. This is the eighth time in 11 years that YULA, a Modern Orthodox high school with separate boys’ and girls’ schools, took top honors at the event. The 18-member team represented Colombia, Finland and Iran and were responsible for researching the position of those countries on a variety of international issues. Delegates spent months reviewing statements made by their country before the United Nations and other forums and honed their public speaking skills at weekly meetings after school.

Shalhevet School beat out a range of elite Eastern seaboard schools in its victory at the Penn Model Congress, despite the fact that the Shalhevet delegation missed three-eighths of the sessions as they observed Shabbat and celebrated Purim. Shalhevet brought home 24 awards, earning the title of Best Large Delegation and edging out St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, the prep school that has won the competition for the last several years and that the Wall Street Journal named the No. 1 college prep school in 2004. All of the 11 Shalhevet seniors who competed brought home individual awards.

Shalhevet was the only Jewish day school to enter the competition, where 600 delegates penned their own legislation and brought bills before committee. Some bills were passed through for committee debate and then debated in full session.

—Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer