Dear Fellow Students,

I hope that you enjoyed your vacation and are slowly getting back into things.

It has been a very interesting couple of weeks with all of our events going off without a hitch. Firstly, I would like to thank Student Services for their wonderful Dougie's party. We all enjoyed the

food and saw a wonderful game. Furthermore I would like to congratulate all of the newly elected freshman and sophomore student representatives on their victory.

As many of you may know, this month was a time of victory for two very important parties in our local community. One was the union local 1199, who with their tough negotiations and peaceful activism managed to secure a new contract from the University. The second, was our very own New York Yankees, who after a spectacular season iced the cake with a four game sweep of San Diego. However with so much victory and good will all around us we must not lose sight of greater issues that affect our Jewish Community. As recently as this Friday, President Clinton emerged from his peace talks victorious in the knowledge that he had secured a tentative peace between the Palestinians and the Israeli's in the West Bank. However, we must look at what the Israeli's actually gained in these concessions and who was really victorious. Are we really secure in the knowledge that Israel is now a safe place to live? Or is it just another empty handshake by Yassir Arafat? Only time will tell, and it is not for us to prejudge.

However it seems that everyone but the Israeli's walked away from the table with a smile on their faces. Arafat now has 13% more land than he had before while Clinton enjoyed a long vacation from the Washington chopping block. However, the Israeli's are left hanging with continuing questions of safety and security. It seems to me that the only true victory we can achieve is through our tefillot to Hashem. He is the only one who can truly protect us and secure our victory.

May we join together in our tefillot, for safety, security and peace in Israel. Let us hope that someday in the near future we will be truly victorious and "Bayom hahu yiheye Hashem Echad ushmo Echad."

Dror Barber
YCSC President
740-5109 Mo222