Reaching Creative Heights: Spires Reading Draws a Crowd

Enticed by Baron Herzog wine and fine Swiss cheese, a pack of Yeshiva University undergraduate students crammed into a campus apartment for an evening of fiction, reading, and reflection. The event, hosted by Yeshiva College student Ilan Rubinstein, kicked off this semester's publication of Spires, an intercollegiate arts and literary magazine.

Contributors to the publication include students from Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, DePauw University, Washington University, and Yeshiva University. Each institution maintains an active chapter that receives submissions from member students for publication in Spires. This year marked the second annual public reading by YU students published in Spires. Earlier this semester, an overwhelmingly successful benefit concert was held in a student's apartment to raise funds for the YU chapter.

After some mingling, wine, and cheese, Benji Joffee, in his last semester as Uptown Campus Editor of Spires, fired up the event with some introductory remarks on the continuing success of the YU Spires chapter. Attributing the strong turnout at such events to the plethora of YU submissions to the magazine, Joffee cited the intense interest of YU students in engaging in worthwhile literary activities on campus. Introducing some of the editors and staff of the YU chapter, Joffee apologized for not being able to publish more submissions due to space limitations. He did, however, encourage all those who were not published to resubmit their works to future editions of Spires and the Yeshiva College Arts Festival next semester.

Highlighting the fact that the event and publication is a joint YC/Stern College for Women (SCW) effort, Joffee introduced his Co-Editor-in-Chief from Stern, Esther Yehudis Zipris. The SCW representative emphasized the fact that Spires continues to stimulate interest on the Stern campus, generating a pool of submissions that equaled that of the Uptown Campus. Zipris proceeded to read her work entitled Altenyu, a poem inspired by her grandmother's depiction of life in Poland. Chaim Strauchler, a YC student, prefaced his rendition of his work with a call for YU students to appreciate their "uniqueness" in their life as observant Jews. He asked that students not downplay the special literary vantage point that experiences such as the year in Israel affords. Strauchler did, however, endorse the need to promote literary events in YU, and proceeded to read his poem Commute.

Some other students who read included Jacob Berkman, Benji Joffee, David Rappaport, Yishai Fleisher, and Ilan Rubinstein from YC, and Esther Yehudis Zipris and Tova Katz from Stern. Taking a short intermission to sample more of the cheese and vegetable spreads, participants were able to discuss the works and offer suggestions for future literary and arts events on campus. Pointing to the effort on the part of Spires to increase faculty involvement in such events, Professor Cynthia Weiner, who teaches creative writing at both Stern and YC, was the sole faculty representative at the Spires reading. Many of the submissions to the magazine were inspired by her creative writing course that seeks to foster a genuine enjoyment in fiction writing. Additionally, unique courses such as next semester's Fiction Writing course, to be taught by a visiting writer, should spark literary interest among a wider audience in the college community.

Commenting on the combination of an on-campus magazine publication with a public reading of selected works, Joffee, said that this "two-fold purpose" of Spires enhances a "college" atmosphere within YU. He added that the inter-collegiate effort affirms the reality that YU is "on par with what other colleges offer" in the availability of intellectual events and involvement. Serving as a source of momentum for the upcoming Yeshiva College Arts Festival, the evening proved that YU students wish to create an active liberal arts environment conducive to the appreciation of their colleagues' creative efforts.