To succeed at Torah Bowl, each team member needs three things: determination, dedication, and an abundance of free time. Despite possessing only the first two of the three required traits, as no MTA student has that much spare time on his hands, the MTA Torah Bowl team managed to pull off another championship - the third in four years. 

After beating SAR, Ramaz, Magen David, and TABC to become division champions, the MTA Torah bowl team went down to Brooklyn on Monday to play against Frisch, DRS, and North Shore in the championships. MTA came out strong in the first quarter, but during the second, both North Shore and Frisch had strong comebacks and by the end of the first half they had cut MTA's lead to a mere two points. 

During halftime, the MTA team decided that they were ready to show the other teams just whom they were playing against - a team that had won the league championship two out of the past three years, a team that included elementary school Torah Bowl Olympians, a team that was ready to win. 

And win they did. Lead by Captain Yitzi Lindenbaum ('14), Captain Aryeh Klein ('14), and freshman sensation Yair Caplan ('17), MTA ended up winning by a score of 61-48(Frisch)-46(North Shore)-27 (DRS). The retiring seniors of the team are Yitzi Lindenbaum, Aryeh Klein, and Gabi Rosenthal. 

Congratulations to the entire team and to their devoted coach, Rabbi Pearl!

This year's Names, Not Numbers class was a tremendous and meaningful success, capped off by an amazing and moving evening, featuring a dinner and the screening of the class film. The class gives students the special opportunity to meet and interview Holocaust survivors, and to record and film the interviews for posterity. Created and spearheaded by MTA's own Mrs. Tova Rosenberg, the Names Not Numbers program, now marking its tenth year, seeks to inform and empower the younger generation and to give students the opportunity to gain a unique understanding of our people's most tragic time.

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This week, the MTA debate team had the pleasure of hosting the final debate of the year. This debate included various formats other than classical debate, including competitions such as extemporaneous speaking and a scenario debate. "Extemp" is a form of public speaking in which the speaker is given a topic and must almost immediately speak about it for 5 minutes, in an interesting, well organized manner. 

In a similar vein, the captains and seniors from Ezra, Rambam, and MTA organized a scenario debate. In this form of debate, the debaters are given a scenario at the debate and must  then debate the topic using only the information given in the scenario. 

Both of these competitions proved to be interesting, educational, and an all around great experience. Thank you again to Mrs. Levitt for organizing this event and for all she does for the debate team  

Noam Josse, winner of "Best Presentation

On Tuesday evening, a number of MTA LEAD students who spent the past few months preparing their business ideas had the opportunity to present them to several of the MTA LEAD Executive Council members, including Michael Strauss, Associate Dean and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Sy Syms School of

Business, Dr. Tamar Avnet, Chair of Marketing and Management at Syms, Moshe Kinderlehrer ('92), Publisher & Co-Founder of the Bergen Jewish Link, and Shuey Jacoby ('02), Manager of Marketing Partnership Sales Operations at The Madison Square Garden Company (and Marketing & Recruitment Advisor at MTA). Over the past few months, the students were able to attend various workshops led by members of the Syms faculty, and worked with Syms

 students who were provided as project mentors.

Yaakov Kurlantzick Winner of "Best Business Idea"