Winners in the Sixth Annual Jewish Heritage Essay Contest are, from left, Brenda Salamon, Aviva Cantor, and Michal Hirschorn, all eighth-graders at Bruriah High School for Girls, with their teacher, Joanne Asher.
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June 11, 2009
As the school year wound to its end, the students at the Jewish Educational Center’s Bruriah High School for Girls in Elizabeth won laurels in a variety of contests.
In the past couple of weeks, the school’s senior students won the hotly contested annual Torah Bowl championship, beating out 14 other schools from the New York/New Jersey region. The school’s junior high team won their section of Torah Bowl championship too, trouncing their nearest rival, the Ramaz school in New York, by 24 points.
Three Bruriah seniors also made it to the ranks of National Merit Scholarship finalists: Davida Kollmar of Edison, Aliza Slepian of Elizabeth, and Rachel First of Teaneck.
This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began in October 2007 when more than 1.5 million juniors from over 22,000 high schools nationwide took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Last fall, 16,000 of the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing fewer than 1 percent of the state’s seniors, were named semifinalists; 15,000 made it to this final round.
By the end of the 2009 program, about 8,200 finalists will earn the “Merit Scholar” title, and will receive a total of nearly $36 million in college scholarships.
In addition to the three National Merit finalists, five Bruriah students were selected as National Merit commendees: Avital Chizik of Highland Park, K. Ela Lieberman of Riverdale, Miriam E. Mandelbaum of Teaneck, Nicolette (Chana) Sinensky of Teaneck, and Yona A. Wagshul of Fairfield, Conn.
Other awards earned by Bruriah students are:
- Edward J. Bloustein Award: Davida Kollmar, along with four other seniors, was also chosen as an Edward J. Bloustein Distinguished Scholar Award winner. The award recognizes outstanding academic achievement of graduating New Jersey high school seniors and carries a $1,000 prize scholarship for undergraduate study at a New Jersey college. The other Bruriah recipients are Ariel Silber of Edison, Yocheved Stone of West Orange, and Rachel First and Miriam Mandelbaum of Teaneck. Bloustein scholars are nominated by a teacher or school administrator for their academic achievement based upon secondary school records and SAT scores at the end of the junior year.
- Jewish Heritage Contest: Three Bruriah eighth-graders were named as winners in the Sixth Annual Jewish Heritage Contest, a competition sponsored by Torah Atlanta, an outreach organization that seeks to strengthen Jewish identity.
Entries were received from 20 schools in 19 cities in the United States and one in Israel.
Bruriah student Davida Kollmar is a National Merit Scholarship finalist and the recipient of the Edward J. Bloustein Award.
Aviva Cantor of Hillside won first place in the Jewish family category with her essay, “A Fast for a Family.” Brenda Salamon of Elizabeth won first place in the Holocaust category with her essay, “Holocaust Diary.” Michal Hirschorn, also of Elizabeth, received an honorable mention in the Tanach category with her essay, “Sacrifice.” All three are students of teacher Joanne Asher.
The contest, designed to promote the importance of Jewish learning and a strong Jewish identity, is for Jewish students in grades six through eight throughout the world. The entries are judged on research, originality, and quality of writing. A first place prize of $100 is awarded in each of four categories — Tanach, Jewish Family, Holocaust, and Israel, and each winner’s teacher also receives an honorarium of $50.
Bruriah principal Marcy Stern welcomed the victories but put them in a broader context. She said, “We are very, very proud of the girls’ accomplishments, but what pleases me is that these girls also have other strengths. For example, the three National Merit finalists are outstanding students but they are also multi-talented, well-rounded people and not at all self-absorbed. They are all modest and giving. They’re all involved in reaching out and doing extracurricular activities inside the school and in the community.
“We want to prepare the girls to get into the college or the seminary of their choice, but it’s not just about intellectual ability,” Stern continued. “We want them to understand the importance of their place in the Jewish community, to use their talents to reach out to help other people.”
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