When his late grandmother was first diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago, Jason Aftalion was moved by the volunteers who visited her at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. \”I was so touched by how they talked to her and spent time with her, so she wouldn\’t be lonely,\” said Aftalion, a Persian-American senior at Milken Community High School.
Having recently attended the college graduation of our middle child, I could not stop thinking what I might have said if given the opportunity to offer the commencement address. Here are five thoughts.
Each year, we profile a group of “outstanding high school seniors” culled from the many nominations sent in by you, our readers. And each year, we find it almost impossible to decide between the many extraordinary leaders, givers and enormously talented graduating teens.
When Michael Turkell was 8, he embarked upon a mission to find his father’s old violin, which he discovered in a battered alligator-skin case on a top shelf in a bedroom closet. After a loud crash, his mother found him sitting in a heap of fallen items, triumphantly holding up the violin.
Rachel Sapire’s story begins in Africa: first in Egypt, where her maternal grandmother was forced to flee because of anti-Semitism and then, farther south, in Zimbabwe, where she forged a new life and gave birth to Sapire’s mother. Sapire\’s father was born and raised in South Africa, so Sapire spent her formative years traveling to that exotic land, where AIDS and animals and enormous inflation colored her youth.
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.
The idea for Fashion With Compassion, a student-run fashion show where models don’t just show off stylish clothes but also offer help for Israel, came to Celine Yousefzadeh after she attended a charity fashion show at another school. She thought: Why not bring it to Milken?
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