At the end of Danny Hirsch’s first week at New Community Jewish High School (NCJHS), a fellow freshman tapped him on the shoulder as he sat eating lunch, alone. Showing genuine concern, the student wanted to know if Danny was mute, since he had yet to speak to another student. Having his voice heard is no longer a problem for Hirsch.
To become an Eagle Scout, a boy needs to earn at least 21 merit badges. Harel Rush, 18, is the first Eagle Scout to come out of the Beverly Hills-based, Orthodox-run Boy Scout Troop 360. He earned 24 badges — “the two hardest were ‘family life’ and ‘personal management,’ ” he said. But when Rush showed up for this interview, he was sporting a different piece of material: the standard-issue yellow-and-black kippah worn by many YULA boys.
On the Web site for The Boiling Point, Shalhevet High School’s student newspaper, Jaclyn Kellner’s biography says she spends more time at school than most of the teachers do. That’s because Kellner, who will spend five months working with Eco-Israel, an agricultural program in Modi’in, next year before attending Brandeis University in fall 2012, is involved with more extracurricular activities than seems possible for any 18-year-old.
It took Judith Greenbaum 40 long minutes before she finally signed the form to decline acceptance at Harvard. “Yeah, that was a tough one,” Greenbaum, who is graduating from YULA Girls School, said as she laughed, “but it just wasn’t the right choice for my life’s big picture.” Her future hopes center around being an involved mother, leading an active Jewish life and pursuing a career in business. With New York’s Jewish community at her doorstep, Greenbaum believes Columbia University will offer better preparation for the life she envisions, after studying at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim.
Heschel West Day School in Agoura Hills is changing its name to honor Israel’s first astronaut. During a Kabbalat Shabbat filled with song and dance on June 3, school leaders announced that the entity will be known as Ilan Ramon Day School beginning in September. As such, it becomes the first known school in the country to make its namesake the astronaut killed during the space shuttle Columbia’s fatal 2003 mission, according to Yuri Hronsky, head of school.
When Barbara Schloss joined the robotics team at Milken Community High School as a sophomore, she knew she had found her passion. “It’s so fun,” said Schloss, whose father and grandfather, both of whom work in the aeronautics industry, encouraged her interest in math and science from a young age.
On a Friday last March, before Sophie Trauberman left home for her first class at 9:45 a.m., she got a call from a friend at Hamilton High School, where she’s a student in the music magnet. Twenty-two Hamilton teachers were being pink-slipped, the friend told her, and some positions — including those of much-loved advisers at Hamilton’s music and humanities magnets — were being eliminated altogether, because of proposed state budget cuts.
In the course of becoming valedictorian this year at the boys division of Valley Torah High School in Valley Village, Michael Farnoosh faced many difficult tests, but the toughest came outside the classroom. Diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 4, he had to undergo chemotherapy and was hospitalized 15 times before being declared cancer-free in 2001.
What if you were able to check in at a top Israeli hotel this summer, wave goodbye to the kids at the front desk and then, minutes later, find yourself nursing a fruity Mediterranean cocktail by the sun-kissed pool?
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