Seattle Hebrew Academy ALUMNI
								ALUMNI ARCHIVE 2005                                           By Alumni Committee Chair: Melissa Rivkin Dear SHA Alumni and Friends, Well the first year back in the new building came to a close 10 days ago  to great fanfare and excitement.  It was a very emotional and heart warming send off for Rabbi and Debbie Kay as the entire school assembled in the gym to sing an original song composed by Asaf Erez, our music teacher and accompanied by Rabbi Pepper on keyboard and Rabbi Peromsik on drums.   The Second Grade class  was the chorus.  I will try and get the lyrics as they present a quite detailed account of Rabbi Kay's accomplishments at SHA. I haven't written in a while and I apologize.  I will spend the next few weeks trying to catch up on all the exciting news of our alumni. To start we have  a lot of Mazal Tovs to add to the web site .  Congratulations to the SHA classes of 2005 and 2001 who graduated from SHA and high school in June!  Today, I will tell you about the  SHA Class of 2001 as their high school graduation came first and next week I promise to report on the Class of 2005!   Since many members  of the Class of 2001 just graduated from the Northwest Yeshiva High School I can easily update you on their progress.  To see photos from their graduation click HERE.  If any of you have contact with alumni from the Class of 2001 who did not go to NYHS, please let me know . Check out the SHA Class of 2001!  What an impressive group of young men and women.   As you can see, many of them will be going to Israel to study before continuing on to college.   I see the possibility of an SHA Alumni Reunion in Israel happening soon!   Please let me know if  you are interested in helping to  plan such an event by writing to me at melissa@english-in-america.com . We wish all the graduates much success  and we hope they will keep us all up to date by visiting www.shaalumni.org very often!   Also, if you haven any more information regarding these alumni plans for the next year, please write! Daniel Aaronson - Yeshiva in Israel before going on to the University of Illinois Reuben Antolin - Young Judaea year course in Israel before college David Babani - plans in progress Tzippy Blaut - Midreshet Moriah Seminary in Israel before going on to Stern College Abby Brockman - Kibbutz Yavneh near Jerusalem and then on to Stern College Platon Chubotin - University of Washington ( Valedictorian for General Studies) Aaron Cohen - Young Judaea's Year Course in Israel and then on to college Herschel Cox - Ohr Yerushalayim in Israel before going on to college Solomon Davis - Young Judaea Year Course in Israel before going on to college Mallory Genauer - University of Toronto Zach Grashin - Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi in Israel before going on to college  ( Guideposts Magazine Young Writer's Award) Gilah Kletenik- Migdal Oz Seminary in Israel before going on to Stern College  ( Phi Beta Kappa Award) John Marshall - Yeshiva Eretz HaTzvi in Israel before going on to the University of Washington ( Torah Studies Valedictorian) Yishai Mizrahi - Young Judaea Year Course in Israel before going on to college Marina Oganyan - University of Washington ( Phi Beta Kappa Award) Jacob Rosen  - Young Judaea's Shalem Program before going on to college Mordechai Treiger - Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel before going on to the University of Pennsylvania ( Irwin Elyn Award) Deirdre Willner - Boston University ( Valedictorian for Overall Excellence) NEW UPDATE: And while you are here check out our latest Alumni Update submitted by Boris Kurbanov, Class of 1996.   Click Here and scroll down to 1996. $25K Matching Gift Pledged - Please Pledge/donate today! I have some very exciting news.  A very generous anonymous donor has just pledged a $25,000 matching gift for every new Annual Giving gift made before June 30th ( end of our fiscal year)!!!  Annual Giving dollars make up over 20% of SHA's operating budget for the year and help covers the gap between tuition, grants from Samis and the Jewish Federation and the real cost of an SHA education.   First of all, I would like to thank this incredibly generous donor.  Supporting the future of our Jewish community is a vital endeavor and SHA relies on your assistance in order to continue providing excellence in a Torah centered education.  SHA's mission is to provide our students with an inspiring and challenging Jewish and general education and set them on a journey of life-long learning, self-fulfillment and service.  Your charitable support,  along with the support of  all of our donors, enables SHA to be successful in this special commitment. Second, I would like to ask all of you who benefited from SHA in so many ways, to open up your hearts and wallets and support the next generation!  There is no better time to maximize your gift.  Just think - your gift of needed tzedakah dollars will be doubled!  Help us match this generous gift!  All gifts large and small are welcome.  If you want to check the progress of this matching gift, just visit www.shaalumni.org - we'll be updating it regularly. Please make your pledge today !   You can email me directly at melissa@english-in-america.com or you can email Marc Maislen, SHA's Development Director, at mmaislen@sha613.org.   You can also send in a check to: Development SHA 1617 Interlaken Drive East Seattle,WA 98112 or if you'd like to pay by credit card, please call Therese at 206-323-5750 ext. 212 As always, I am happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have. Please don't delay this offer is only good for the next 4 weeks!                                                     The end of the school year is creeping up on us and I want to remind all of you who will be back in town for short or long term stays to visit SHA.  We even have FREE SHA t-shirts and alumni buttons for you - Just ask for them at the reception desk at the main desk.  Thank you again to David Vaillancourt '81 for donating the buttons! We do have some new updates on the web site so please visit www.shaalumni.org!  Many of you are graduating this year, so please let us know where you are now and what you are doing next year.   ******************************************************** Mazal tov to the Class of 2001 graduating from high school this month!  Daniel Aaronson is off to the University of Illinois. Platon Chubotin and Marina Oganyan will stay local at  the UW.  Mordechai Treiger  will be going to U. Penn, Deirdre Willner will be at Boston U and Abby Brockman is off to Stern College.  Zach Grashin will be studying in Jerusalem at Eretz Ha Tzvi.  Let us know where the rest of you are going and best of luck to you all!   Here are some dates you definitely need to put on your calendar.  I also have 2 assignments for you! Monday, June 6th - 7:30 pm at SHA  Please join us as we pay tribute to Rabbi and Debbie Kay at a dessert reception in their honor at SHA's Annual Meeting . Thursday, June 16th 2:15 - 3:30pm in the SHA Gladstein Auditorium  - Please join us for our Volunteer Appreciation Dessert and special presentation to Mrs. Betsy Babani in celebration of her 16 years of service to SHA.  Mrs. Babani is retiring at the end of this school  year. Assignment for all alumni and friends who have well wishes and/or memories you'd like to have included in Memory Books for Rabbi and Debbie Kay and Mrs. Betsy Babani: Please send me your  message, greeting, story , memory or anything you would like included  in these books.  Lea ( Behar) Hanan '81 will  gather this material  from alumni and current students and format it to present to The Kays and Mrs. Babani at the end of the school year.  Feel free to include photos!   Please send all materials by June 10th.  You can email your greetings to me or if you prefer, please send your wishes on regular size piece of paper  to : Lea Hanan c/o SHA 1617 Interlaken Drive E Seattle,WA 98112 Please stay in touch. Melissa Rivkin '81 SHA alum, Mike Ekshtut has been re-deployed to the Middle East as a Chaplain's Assistant.  He updates us on his latest exploits in an article recently published at Jews In Green.  His most recent article and other articles about our "Jewish Warrior" can be found by clicking HERE.   Well - I don't have any  pictures of alumni celebrating Pesach in exotic places like Jerusalem, Phoenix, Miami, Oahu, or Guatemala but not for lack of trying ( or begging)!    THIS JUST IN!  David Vailencourt was kind enough to send us a most unusual photo of himself spending Pesach in Cancun. Thank you David! We also have a couple of lovely photos of Alumni enjoying the exotic atmosphere of the UW Hillel over the Pesach Holiday.  To take a peek, just click HERE. Daniel Cohanim '80 , now living in Guatemala City ,actually claimed that he couldn't send me a photo of Pesach in Guatemala replete with  the colorful parrots that roost in his backyard because he doesn't own a digital camera!   You may think I am just envious of you globe trotters but the truth is I enjoyed a wonderful Pesach in Seattle where I ran into many alumni feasting on Leah Jaffe's  delicious kosher for pesach lunches at the new Hillel!  Please visit www.shaalumni.org and view my Hillel photos.  If you do have some Pesach photos you'd like to share, by all means, send them in as well! Those of you in Seattle have likely heard the news that  Rabbi Shmuel Kay, Head of School, has accepted an offer to head a school in St. Louis.  He and his family will be moving this summer.  I would like to thank Rabbi Kay for his leadership over the past six years and wish him and his family well on their new adventure.   Among Rabbi Kay's many achievements at SHA are the successful overseeing of the rebuilding of our school and the seamless reunification of our two campuses.    He is  also  responsible for the hiring of our fantastic teachers and administrators.   It is exciting  to announce that Rivy Poupko Kletenik, nationally renowned educator and mother of 2 SHA alumni, will be our full time Judaic Studies Principal next year.  She will be sharing the leadership of the school with our General Studies Principal Paula Rogers and Business Manager Dick Moore.  For more details,  click on www.shaalumni.org and  read the front page story in the JT News ( formerly the Jewish Transcript) that details SHA's plan of leadership for next year. I encourage you to send in your updates and your mazal tovs!  Trust me, the more you send in, the less I'll babble on! Avi Levin of the SHA Class of  2003 tells us ”I'm doing great! I'm in 10th grade at Vancouver, BC right now at the new Yeshiva there, Pacific Torah Institute (www.ptibc.org). I am making friends, doing well in school, and having a great time".  E-mail Ari at handspring98118@aol.com More Updates HERE. Avi Levin of the SHA Class of  2003 tells us ”I'm doing great! I'm in 10th grade at Vancouver, BC right now at the new Yeshiva there, Pacific Torah Institute (www.ptibc.org). I am making friends, doing well in school, and having a great time".  E-mail Ari at handspring98118@aol.com We have had a pretty good response to our new Mazel Tov section! Thank you for e-mailing us such good news and keep it coming! The most recent Mazel Tov goes to Cynthia ( Kravette) Gamel and her husband Ilya who had a baby boy last week (Yosef Aharon)! Click on the Mazel Tov button on your left to read up on the other new babies, achievements and weddings of SHA alumni. I also encourage all of  you to check out the most recent photos from the NYHS Annual Dinner. Rabbi and Mrs. Moskowitz were this year's deserving honorees and it was great to see so many of you turn out to support them. I still need help identifying some of the photos from the dinner, especially of our most recent (young!) alumni so please help me out there. Other News: I would like to thank all of you who helped make our annual Gala Dinner & Auction a huge success!  We raised about $100,000 to fund educational excellence at SHA and we had lots of fun doing it!  Check out some photos from the event by clicking HERE.   We had record attendance for this event and it was great to catch up with so many old and new friends.  The auctioneer, Kip Toner, said that he had never seen such a social crowd!  Hope you all plan on joining us next year for another great bash! Aaron Katsman '88 wrote in to tell me that he and his wife Yael welcomed their baby girl, Penina Chana,  into their family last September.  Mazal Tov! I would also like to thank all of you who've sent in updates.  I would like to post an update for Rebecca Osman Polyakovsky SHA '85.  I recently had the pleasure of attending a performance of Chaim Potok's  The Chosen at the Lakewood Playhouse in Tacoma.  Rebecca was assistant director of this fabulous production!  Click here and scroll down to 1985 to read about how she got into acting and directing after graduating from Columbia University with a degree in Russian Language and Literature. Debra Rettman, wife of alumnus Peter Rettman '61, was exhibiting her black and white Hasidic photo gallery in the lobby of the theater as well.  Both performance and exhibition were impressive!  I will have a sampling of Debra's work up on the site in a few days so check back. I have learned a lot about the diversity of SHA alumni and their families over the last year of sending out these e-letters.  We have such talent among us! We just received fresh updates from Cynthia (Kravette) Gamel (Class of 1985), Susan Abolafya (Class of 1980) and Sara (Twersky Weiss (Class of 1990).  Click on their names to view their updates. Eve Rutzick (SHA Class of 1993) just submitted her updated information on the 1990's page. Check it out by clicking here, she would love to hear from you! Jeff Cohen SHA '80  has just released a film called Inheritance. Click on the 80s section to view Jeff's update and to link to the film's website! SHA Head of School at the White House: Rabbi Kay, SHA's Head of School, enjoyed latkes at the White House! Yes, you read correctly! Rabbi Kay was just one of 16 Jewish leaders from around the US to be invited to the White House for a round table meeting with the President. Among the other invited guests were such notables as Rebbetzin Jungreis, Rabbi Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Rabbi Herman Neuberger, of Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore. They discussed everything from Israel and Palestinian issues to taxes and Social Security. Read Rabbi Kay's first hand account of this historic opportunity.. After this meeting, Rabbi Kay got to daven mincha in the West Wing! How cool is that? Later on that evening, Rabbi and Mrs. Kay dined on kosher latkes at the annual White House Chanukah Party with 200 other Jewish community leaders. The box on the table in front of Rabbi Kay contained letters from all SHA students Kindergarten through 8th grade, Bush fans and critics alike! Thank you to Elie Goral '97 for posting an update! Please visit the 90s section to check it out and get re-connected! You can also view some recent alumni sightings by going to www.shaalumni.org - And please post an update yourself! Since many of you are back in Seattle over the winter vacation, I encourage you to stop by your old school. SHA is in session through the 23rd of December, so feel free to drop in anytime to visit your former teachers and to see the new facilities. Impromptu visits are welcome but if you want a guided tour, just email me today and I will arrange one for you. Alumni Site Year Wrap Up: We have been sending out e-mails for just about a year now. Thank you to all of you who have written in and re-connected with old friends and your school. I'd like to also thank Michael Behar '77 for designing and continuously updating the web site. It looks great! This is a total volunteer effort and I know that Michael spends a lot of his late night time making sure that this site is kept current. I would like to ask you all a favor. As we look ahead into the next year, we would like to see a volunteer representative from each class. The representative's job is simply to reach out to your former classmates and urge them to write in, post updates and send us news. Nothing too challenging! Please let me know if you'd like to do that for your class. Of course I will help in any way I can. I would like to welcome the following alumni new to the SHA Alumni web community. We welcome Jacob Korn, Isaac Morgensztern, David Twersky, Debby Loucas, Liz Azose, Loren Steinbrecher, Sara Green, Elie Goral, Elina Murdachayeva, Tamar Benzikry, Cynthia Gamel, Esther Normand, Isaac Bensussen, the Godwin Family, Dahlia Green, Shoshana Rosenbaum and Steve Hartholz. We just received a new update from Elie Goral (97) which can be viewed on the 1990's page. Click HERE.  New Alumni sightings at Ezra Bessaroth/Sephardic Religious School - Chanuka Party, click HERE to see photos. I encourage you all to post updates by clicking on this link! We heard recently from David Stern who now lives in San Fransisco. Go to the 80s section to see what he's been up to. We have also recently heard from Ellen Hellman '67 who wrote to us from Jerusalem. She is donating a gourmet glatt kosher dinner for 8 at her home in Katamon, Jerusalem! Thank you Ellen! I know quite a few people who will be bidding on that special treat!   Thursday, Alex Sassoon '82 who currently lives in Philadelphia was spotted at SHA touring the school because he is planning on moving back to Seattle with his wife and 4 kids very soon!   Mazal Tov to Isaac Kellerman '83 and his wife Sharon, on the birth of their baby daughter Hannah. Hannah was the first Jewish baby born in Washington State of the Jewish year! The proud family made the front page of the JT News( formerly the Jewish Transcript) and we added a link to the article to the alumni site. So just click HERE to read all about the Kellermans.  Some have you may have seen the article in the most recent JT News about Daniel Keebler who is making aliyah and joining the IDF very soon. We wish Daniel all the best and would love to hear about his experiences. We will link to that article as soon as it posts!   There is lots to talk about. So let's do it by subject: Third Annual Rebecca Books Drive: We are in the middle of our Third Annual Rebecca Books Drive in honor of Rebecca Cohanim A"H SHA '81. We are collecting new and gently used children's books for Childhaven, Jewish Family Service and SHA. Childhaven is an organization that services abused and neglected children birth to 5 years and they especially need sturdy board books. Jewish Family Service needs 50 new chidren's books for Hanukah. They service many recent immigrants so dictionaries and abridged readers are helpful. If you are in the Seattle area and would like to donate books, just drop them off at SHA or email Lea ( Behar) Hanan '81 at leahanan@hotmail.com   Veterans Day at SHA : Once again we had a very moving Veterans Day Ceremony to honor veterans in our community. As you may recall, last year Mike Ekshtut, SHA alumnist joined us on Veterans Day just days before his deployment to Iraq. This year he came again, along with 21 other veterans, and spoke to the kids about his recent experiences in Iraq and about how important it is to be a Jew first! To read about this special ceremony and to see some photos, just click HERE.