Volume 67, Issue 8

From the Editor's Desk: Zack Streit

It’s hard to walk around campus these days without catching wind of discussion about “Yeshiva’s shift to the Right” and the “polarization of the student body.”  In previous years, I, like many other good Yeshiva boys, used to shrug my shoulders upon hearing such chestnuts and continue on my way, oblivious to their consequences and irritated by their overuse.  They don’t really affect me anyways – the reasoning went – right?  Wrong.  And I’ve only begun to understand their true import.

From The Editor's Desk:Yehoshua Levine

“There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” -- Oscar Wilde
If I were to attempt to write a study on the volcanoes of the Philippines, I would be laughed out of the publishing house because I know absolutely nothing about the subject. Perhaps, after visiting the country and spending endless hours gathering geological data and downloading information from Philippine volcanologists, I’d be able to come up with a manuscript that would at least earn me a second glance. Even then, though, I’d have doubts about the accuracy and scope of the draft, and I’d have to prepare myself for attack from far more knowledgeable scholars.

From the Senior Editor: Avi Robinson

“Itton, bevakasha? Would you like a newspaper?”
I could not resist the offer from the El Al flight attendant. The day before my flight to Israel, after all, a pair of horrific suicide attacks had ripped up the Naveh Sha’anan neighborhood of Tel Aviv, killing 23 people. I knew that the Israeli tabloids, in their characteristic gruesomeness, would satiate my voyeuristic appetite with full-color spreads of the disaster scene.

Editorial: Columbia’s Tragedy For Yeshiva, A Particular Consequence

Since the beginning of space exploration, the world has been invigorated by shuttle launches and landings, moonwalks, and triumphs beyond human comprehension.  From a divisive U.S.-Russian rivalry during the Cold War, space travel has progressed to unite the world, as evidenced by the International Space Station currently under construction and Columbia’s crew, comprised of an assortment of ethnicities and nationalities, including the first Israeli, Ilan Ramon. 

Letters to the Editor

Editorial: Cheating at Yeshiva – Towards a More Efficient Response

Let us be perfectly clear: Cheating is unacceptable under any and all circumstances.  Students who cheat on an exam or a paper, including first-time offenders, deserve no less than a failing grade for the assignment, if not expulsion from the university. At the same time, we remain troubled by recent reports concerning Yeshiva’s handling of alleged cheating during the final exam of Sy Syms School of Business’s Money and Banking course last semester. 

Guilty Until Proven Innocent – Yeshiva College’s New Policy on Cheating
by Yaakov Sheinfeld

While checking their grades on GetGrades.com this past winter vacation, some students were shocked to discover they had received a grade of Incomplete in their economics course. Some students who had been corresponding with the professor via email were even more shocked since they had already received their grade from the professor. Upon conversing with fellow classmates, the students of Professor Kellman’s Money & Banking Economics class learned that everyone that they knew in the class had also received a grade of Incomplete.

Letter To: Dean Jesionowski

A FULL TIME JOB
IN MEMORIAM: RABBI BERNARD SIEGFRIED Z"L
by Rabbi Shalom Carmy

When the Gemara (Eruvin 65b) picks out situations that reveal character, one view is that a person is known by his humor. The Rav once differentiated between the high spirits that evaporate the moment reality intrudes, as when the siren of an ambulance startles revelers at a party, and the sober joy that is not abated when reminded of mortality. Our memories of Siegfried (that is how he was usually known in his student days – Dov Noah was a byproduct of the Mi she-Berakh’s in the last three years) are inseparable from his keen, often offbeat, sense of humor.

Don’t Write Out in Anger
by: Amitai Blickstein

Controversial elements of many already-thorny issues have arisen in recent days to speak out.  Issues of what?  Issues of everyday life, as reported in issues of our very own Yeshiva University Commentator: The Official Undergraduate Newspaper of Yeshiva College.  These touchy subjects are rightly publicized in our paper; the dialogue that ensues leads –at the very least – to awareness of the topic or concern.  Hopefully, a newspaper article will lead to constructive change. 

A Message From YSU President: Shai Barnea

It’s been a long time since we’ve last spoken, and I want to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to school.  But, before I continue with a standard column – you know, a list of thank-yous and a preview of upcoming events – I’d like to speak briefly about something that has been on my mind for the past two weeks: cheating.

A Message From SOY President: Josh Goldman

Monopolies lead to complacency, while competition breeds improvement.   As the sole advocate of Torah U’Maddah for so many decades, YU strayed from its ideological focus, allowing new institutions to stake a claim around what was once its exclusive province. A new president provides the perfect catalyst to reinvigorate its mission of producing the finest leaders of the Jewish community.

On Modern Orthodox Rabbinical Schools
by Rabbi Nati Helfgot

The Commentator is to be commended for attempting to explore the options currently available here in the U.S. to a Modern Orthodox college graduate who wants to pursue a career in the rabbinate. The survey article describing the programs offered at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School (YCT) contained useful and factual information.

Responding to a Self-Proclaimed Leftist
by Mitchell Rocklin and Avraham Zwanziger

In the last issue of The Commentator, David Druce wrote an op-ed, calling himself a Leftist Zionist. Here we will respond to the issues and ideas that he raised. Last year, a couple of YU professors signed a public petition asking for the cutting off of vital economic and military aid to the state of Israel on the part of the United States of America, and asking privately run commercial and industrial operations in Israel to take their business elsewhere.

The Global Village and Why I am Leaving
by Jesse Mandell

At 8:55 this morning my alarm went off, wrenching me from my few hours of rest and existential solitude. Before any thought, any cognition of Modeh Ani Lefanecha had entered into my cortex, I found myself reaching for my keyboard and mouse. Before I had fully gained consciousness – even opened my eyes – I was reaching for my umbilical cord to the world, my 9:00 AM information fix. My name is Jesse Mandell and I have a problem.

A Song of Rebuke

I am writing in response to the article entitled “Do You Hear the Women Sing? The Kol Isha Myth” by Mordechai Levovitz.  I found the article to be personally insulting of my own and the entire Jewish nation’s intelligence and furthermore a large Chillul Hashem. 

Ramblings…Now with More Vitamin E
by Avi Mermelstein

It’s taken a while, but the media bias has finally become so pronounced that I can no longer pretend to ignore it.  I cannot remain silent when the radio that wakes me up every (well, almost every) morning flavors its reports of the facts with clear favoritism and broadcasts this distorted view throughout the Tri-State area. 

To the Rambler:

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