Oren Rimmon, 18
High School: YULA Boys High School
College: University of Maryland
Oren Rimmon spent his high school career balancing school and work, prepping for ACT tests and rushing through college applications.
However, he also found time to captain the flag football and varsity baseball teams, and volunteer as division head at his local synagogue. Still, he said, he’s just a “regular kid in high school.”
But Rimmon’s schoolmates, community and friends consider him to be a leader, and he takes that responsibility seriously.
“Being a leader means that when [a person] identifies a problem, no matter what that problem is, they get up and they fix it. They try to solve it,” Rimmon told the Journal. “There’s a sense of pride because I felt I was really helping.”
In return, the community was there for him during his junior year when he was injured in a car accident. Rimmon was delivering skakh for Sukkot when a car struck him as he was crossing the street, YULA Principal Rabbi Joseph Schreiber told the Journal. He suffered five broken bones and was in a wheelchair for six weeks.
“But one day I woke up and I decided that Judaism is such a core part of my life and I should get to know it as much as possible.”
“I got through it with a lot of support from my school and my family and my community,” Rimmon said. “They gave us a lot of love and encouragement.”
He will spend a gap year at Yeshivat Lev HaTorah in Israel next year and then study at the University of Maryland.
“I hope to grow spiritually and emotionally, and I hope that I can come out of Israel with a solid Jewish identity,” he said. “When I was younger, I kind of took it for granted. But one day I woke up and I decided that Judaism is such a core part of my life and I should get to know it as much as possible.”
Rimmon said his actions and core values come from his parents, who taught him how to grow as a person. He hopes he can continue to help others and study aerospace engineering so he can potentially build spacecraft and airplanes, something he has wanted to do since a counselor “randomly mentioned it” at school.
Rimmon said it’s “so crazy” that his high school journey is coming to an end because it feels like it was just yesterday when he was in ninth grade. He hopes those still in school take the time to appreciate the experience.
“When you’re in high school, you want it to go by as fast as possible,” he said. “By the time you’re a senior, you have three months left and you missed all of it. Step back and take a breath and live in the moment. Don’t try to rush through everything.”
Keep on reading about our 2019 Outstanding Seniors here.
