A MESSAGE FROM OUR ROSH YESHIVA
Rabbi Michael Taubes ('76)
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 The Torah teaches that when a Levi reaches a certain age, he is no longer eligible to perform certain services. He is not, however, excluded from all the responsibilities associated with his tribe and is indeed welcome to remain involved and to contribute in other ways (Bamidbar 8:25-26). The same is true of one who has graduated from any institution such as ours. From one perspective, he is no longer involved in its activities, but from another perspective, he remains part of it forever. We are proud to launch the first edition of our A Lions' Legacy E-Newsletter and hope that, as an alumnus, you will enjoy reading it and staying connected to your classmates and other alumni of all ages. Our yeshiva high school is an institution that is close to my heart on many levels, having been associated with YUHSB for some 40 years - first as a student, later as a rebbe, and currently as Rosh Yeshiva/Head of School. In that capacity, it is my hope that this E-Newsletter and other efforts we are making to re-connect with you - our alumni - will be the first step towards strengthening the bond we all share. Enjoy this publication! |
Sunday, June 23rd
MTA & BTA Class of 1963 - 50th Anniversary Reunions
The MTA Class of 1963 reunion will take place at 12PM; the BTA Class of 1963 reunion will take place at 5:30PM. Both events will be held at the MTA Library in Zysman Hall. For more information, contact Moshe Kinderlehrer at: mkinder@yu.edu or 212-960-5489
Early Fall 2013
MTA Class of 2003 - 10th Anniversary Reunion
Date/Time TBD
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The YUHS Community Gathers for the Annual Dinner of Tribute; Dr. Taylor Is Honored
 On Wednesday, May 28, the annual Yeshiva University High Schools Dinner of Tribute took place at Terrace on the Park in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Our beloved Principal for General Studies and veteran history instructor Dr. Seth Taylor was honored with the Distinguished Faculty award. Also honored were Mrs. Lynda Smith, longtime Athletics Director at Central, as well as Guests of Honors Louis and Naomi Tuchman.
For more coverage of the event, be sure to read MTA News. More pictures available on Flickr.
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Class of 2013 Joins Alumni Family
From MTA News
 On Thursday evening, June 6th, parents, families, friends, faculty, and the YU administration gathered for the 93rd annual Commencement Exercises of Yeshiva University High School for Boys. With Rabbi Taubes presiding, the graduates transformed from students to alumni.
Remarks were also shared by YU President Richard Joel ('68), who congratulated the students and their families, charged them with making a difference in the world, and noted that this graduation marked the 45th anniversary of his own graduation from MTA. The singing of the Star Spangled Banner and Hatikva were led by the YUHSB Choir, who performed again later in the program; the YUHSB band performed during the musical interlude as well.
An astounding 18 graduates will be attending Yeshiva University's Honors Program, once again the largest representation, by far, of any yeshiva high school. Over 90% of the Class of 2013 will be spending next year studying in Israel.
To continue reading, please click here. More pictures available on Flickr.
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For Mordechai Kornbluth ('06), Advanced Rabbinic and Physics Studies are Part of the Same Equation
From YU News
 At Yeshiva University, students pursue a wide array of interests. Some conduct cutting-edge research with the guidance and support of faculty mentors. Others, fascinated by foreign cultures or historical texts, sharpen their analytic skills and broaden their worldviews with Semitic language courses. And still others deepen their connection to Torah and Judaism by immersing themselves in top-level shiurim [lectures] at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). In his four years on campus, Mordechai Kornbluth accomplished all three. Kornbluth, a Teaneck, NJ native who graduated MTA in 2006, Yeshiva College in 2012, majored in physics, minored in mathematics and Semitic languages, and enrolled in rabbinic studies at RIETS in his senior year. Now a graduate student in a joint MS/PhD program in applied physics at Columbia University, he is also continuing his semikha studies at RIETS. It may seem like an unlikely combination, but according to Kornbluth, it's all part of the same equation. To continue reading, please click here. |
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'Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Passed Through His Doors'
Rabbi Sidney Kleiman ('31), reportedly the oldest and longest-serving congregational rabbi in the country, dies just months after reaching the century mark.
From The NY Jewish Week
In the years since he turned 90 a decade ago, Rabbi Sidney Kleiman ('31) would ask his friends if they thought he would celebrate his next significant birthday. The rabbi, who served for 75 years as spiritual leader - since 2000 as emeritus rabbi - at Congregation Adereth El in Manhattan's Murray Hill neighborhood, sometimes asked Daniel Levine, a congregant, "Am I going to make it to 100?" Levine said. Rabbi Kleiman reached his goal. The rabbi, whose 100th birthday was marked at a gala celebration in January at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, died of natural causes June 7 in the Northern Manor geriatric center in Rockland County's Nanuet, where he spent his last few weeks after his health started to fail last month. To continue reading, please click here. For NY Daily News coverage of Rabbi Kleiman's tenure, please click here. |
MTA Alumni Take the Lead on Chesed
from MTA News
 Akiva Blumenthal ('12), with the help of Jeremy Felder ('12) and Avi Kaye ('12), who graduated from MTA last June took the initiative in developing a unique chesed program at Yeshivat Torat Shraga in Jerusalem, where they studied this past year.
After various terrorist attacks in November, during which missiles were fired at civilian targets, Akiva approached the yeshiva leadership expressing his desire to help those that needed food and shelter. Akiva organized 15 friends to volunteer at Yad Eliezer, a food chesed organization, where they packaged food for IDF soldiers and for the needy. The initial chesed trip was such a success that it was implemented into the schedule of every shiur in the yeshiva. Once a week - under the coordination of Akiva - a shiur headed to Yad Eliezer to help with the food packaging. Akiva also worked on a new program in which students from the yeshiva volunteered at a soup kitchen. "MTA provided me with the appreciation for community and my nation, and the confidence to take on such a project," Akiva noted. |
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Curing Children with Cancer:
Dr. Michael Harris ('61) of Tomorrows Children's Institute looks back on a 40-year career
from The Jewish Standard
 After more than 40 years of treating children with life-threatening illness, Tomorrows Children's Institute director, Dr. Michael B. Harris, says his secret weapon against burnout is his patients and their parents.
"I became a pediatric hematologist-oncologist because when I started my residency at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia [in 1970], I felt that these children and parents were the most courageous people anywhere on earth," said Harris, who at 69 has no plan to retire as chief of pediatric hematology-oncology at the Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center.
"In those days we weren't curing many children - just 30 or 40 percent," he said. "On the ward, you were surrounded by critically ill and dying children, and also in hematology there was still so much to learn. I loved both specialties, and I thought it would really be something to go into this field and be able to help these children and maybe be part of the process of discovery of new cures.
"I was driven by that."
Harris moved to Englewood in 1979, and has been a member of Congregation Ahavath Torah there since then. He began the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan in 1977 and was asked to move it to Hackensack in 1987 where it evolved into Tomorrows Children's Institute.
To continue reading, please click here.
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Recent Alums "Race to Save Lives"
from MTA News
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Aharon Watson ('10) and Alex Goldberg ('10) founded the event in 2011
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After graduating MTA in 2010, Alex Goldberg spent the following year studying at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh and Aharon Watson went on to study at Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh. Driven by the lessons they learned as high school students, they took upon themselves to coordinate an incredible 5k race - known as the " Race to Save Lives" - at Gan Sacher in Jerusalem, in which they raised over $250,000 for the United Hatzalah of Israel. Last year, they again hosted the race at Gan Sacher and incredibly raised over $300,000.
This year, Alex and Aharon, assisted by other MTA alums and other students from the tri-state area, moved the race to Roosevelt Island where the run took place on June 9th. This year's event raised over a million dollars!
While the MTA underclassmen were busy taking their Gemara final that morning, a number of seniors (with the coordination assistance of outgoing student council president Eli Weinstein) and alums, as well as Shuey Jacoby ('02), Director of Business Operations and Dean of Admissions, turned out to show their support to their fellow alums and to a great cause. Under the theme of "Lions Run as One," the MTA students had a great time running the 5k raising money for the great cause.
More Pictures from the race are available on Flickr.
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Class of 2013 Graduates with Shuey Jacoby ('02), Director of Business Operations and Dean of Admissions, top row, left; Alex Goldberg ('10), top row, fourth from left; and Mrs. Miriam Goldberg, Chair of YUHS, top row fifth from left
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Drs. Harold Fluss and Sharon Kaplowitz Fund the Hersh and Fannie Fluss Memorial Awards in Honor of Their Parents
From Faces@YU
 Dr. Harold Fluss YUHS '74, YC '77 and Dr. Sharon Kaplowitz '75 YUHS have made a generous donation to Yeshiva University High School for Boys. This gift will fund two annual graduation awards in memory of their beloved parents: The Hersh and Fannie Fluss Memorial Award for Excellence in Nach and the Hersh and Fannie Fluss Memorial Award for Excellence in Hebrew Literature. These awards were presented for the first time at Commencement this past June. Each year, up to two students each in Nach and in Hebrew Literature will be selected for their overall accomplishments or improvement to receive these awards.
To continue reading, please click here.
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Zack Schrieber ('08) Enters Political Arena
from The Jewish Link of Bergen County
 As a member of a generation frequently criticized for its political apathy, 23-year-old Zack Schrieber defied that stereotype by running for the New Jersey Assembly from District 38. The Fair Lawn resident attended YNJ and MTA and is a soon-to-be graduate of Hunter College, where he is pursuing a degree in political science.
The New Jersey Assembly is a body of the state legislature that houses representatives from every district. Schrieber was candidate for District 38, whose constituents are residents of Fair Lawn, Paramus and Bergenfield. According to Schrieber, his youth has actually been advantageous. "Nearly all [the people] that I've met are excited to see someone so young actively involved in politics. I was nervous that people wouldn't take me seriously, but, if anything, the opposite has been true.
To continue reading, please click here.
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Janet and Cliff ('86) Goldstein, who met while attending Central and MTA, at a costume bar mitzvah dressed
as high school students.
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For many more recent MTA happenings, be sure to visit the MTA NEWS blog.
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CLASS NOTES
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Mazel Tov to Mr. and Mrs. Avraham Simcha Adler ('99) upon the birth of a son.
Mazel Tov to Josh ('01) and Ariella Perel Berliner upon the birth of a daughter.
Mazel Tov to Shmarya ('01) and Julia Frankston-Morris Gasner upon the birth of a daughter.
Mazel Tov to Rabbi Chesky ('02) and Aliza Gewirtz upon the birth of a daughter.
Mazel Tov to Rabbi Dovid ('02) and Lisa Kram upon the birth of a daughter.
Mazel Tov to Eli Gold ('03) upon his marriage to Lilly Berley.
Mazel Tov to Joshua ('06) and Shira Greenspan upon the birth of a son.
Mazel Tov to Jonathan Teitelbaum ('06) upon his engagement to Basya Adler.
Mazel Tov to Rafi Aspir ('07) upon his marriage to Shira Zuckier.
Mazel Tov to Gavriel Feld ('07) upon his marriage to Nina Mehlman.
Mazel Tov to Asher Lindenbaum ('07) upon his engagement to Miriam Seidman.
Mazel Tov to Yechiel Wohlberg ('07) upon his engagement to Cheryl Winter.
Mazel Tov to Yehuda Beilin ('08) upon his marriage to Aliza Ben-Arie.
Mazel Tov to Jeremy Hertzberg ('08) upon his engagement to Shlomit Geller.
Mazel Tov to Yosef Hoffman ('08) upon his marriage to Sonia Felder.
Mazel Tov to Elliot Teichman ('08) upon his engagement to Shira Ehrlich.
Mazel Tov to David Leshaw ('09) upon his engagement to Rachel Weber.
Mazel Tov to Dani Weinberger ('09) upon his marriage to Naomi Rabinovich.
Mazel Tov to Binyamin Weinreich ('09) upon his engagement to Huvie Yagod.
Mazel Tov to Yitzy Fuld ('10) upon his engagement to Aliza Gottesman.
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CONDOLENCES
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We extend our heartfelt condolences to Norman ('68) and Dr. Michael Kram ('74), father of Dovid ('02) and Yoni ('13), upon the loss of their father, Mr. Isaac Leo Kram A"H.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to Henry Orlinsky ('74), father of Yonatan ('04) and Judah ('07), upon the loss of his mother, Mrs. Rose Orlinsky A"H.
We mourn the loss of Rabbi Sidney Kleiman ('31) A"H.
May the Kram, Orlinsky, and Kleiman families know of sadness no more and be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
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CONGRATS
TO
DANI
GOFFSTEIN ('11)
UPON WINNING THE USC SHOAH FOUNDATION VIEWER'S CHOICE AWARD FOR HIS FILM
RESILIENCE
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