Chaburos with Rav Schachter and Rav Twersky meet after davening in the Beis Medrash 

Bnai Aliyah - 9th and 10th grade meeting - during lunch

12th grade trip to see The Winslow Boy - bus leaves at 12:45

Bergen County Night Seder - 9:00-10:00 - Beth Abraham

This past Monday, the Names, Not Numbers oral history class had the privilege of going to the Jewish Heritage Museum. Leaving school at 9:15, we began our journey at the museum by traveling back though time to the era of World War II. This beautiful museum, overlooking the Statue of Liberty, is a testament to the vitality of the Jewish people.

The large group of students was split into six smaller ones, each one having their own wonderful guide. The smaller groups enabled us to enrich the experience, as we were all able to get more involved in the tour.

After a hearty lunch of wrap sandwiches, several recovered "ethical wills" from Holocaust victims were handed out. An ethical will is what these people wrote when they saw their own demise looming on the horizon. These ethical wills were varied --from last words to loved ones, to a call for vengeance on behalf of the Jewish people.  Over the next hour, with the insights of our rebbeim Rabbi Cohen and Rabbi Kerner, we had a deep and meaningful discussion about ethical wills. Thank you Mrs. Rosenberg and Dr. Cahn for this exceptional experience.

Later in the week, the Names, Not Numbers students listened to a tutorial on interview techniques given by Jeanette Friedman, the editor of the Jewish Link of Bergen County. She is also a freelance editor and writer, and president of The Wordsmithy, a small publishing company specializing in Holocaust survivor memoirs. She has worked on more than 60 Holocaust survivor memoirs and published a number of them. She was also the editor of Lifestyles, which profiled Jewish people of distinction, including Steven Speilberg, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and even Robin Williams, who is not Jewish but made a Holocaust movie called Jacob the Liar.

All the students gained a great deal from both of these experiences.

Speed. Reflexes. Hand-eye coordination. Sweat. Tears. Intelligence. Can you guess which sport I am thinking about when referring to these things?

That's right: college bowl. Three times a year, we, the MTA college bowl team venture out of our own fortress, aka the MTA building, and into the academic battlefield known as Yeshiva League College Bowl. Thursday, November 7 marked the first of our intellectual gladiator bouts this season.

In college bowl, four players on from each team are each given a buzzer. An intellectual question is read by a highly trained professional teacher. The object is to buzz in as quickly as possible to give the answer. Buzz in too early and get the question wrong, your team loses a point. Buzz in too late and the other team might just beat you too it.

The long day began at 9:50 am as we took the subway to Heschel. There, the varsity team played three schools. First came our mortal enemies, Ramaz. Although the contest was hard fought and close the whole way through, we came up just shy of a victory. The next match pitted us against the mighty Westchester team. Buzzer after bloodcurdling buzzer could be heard throughout the match as the battle raged on. Westchester came within a point with less than a minute left, but in the end could not defeat the Lions. With our newly found confidence, we easily defeated the Flatbush team by doubling their score. In the end, we came out 2-1, a respectable and competitive record, worthy of both the praise and glory of a well-earned Starbucks visit after the horrors of the combat had ceased.