Congratulations to Matan Bendor ’23 who won first prize in the International Hebrew Poem Writing Contest for Hebrew as a Second Language. Only a seventh grader, Bendor won in the high school category. His poem will be published by the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel. Also submitting poems in the contest were Guy Lavian ’22, Ariel Appel ’22, Keren Perlson ’22,  and Ariel Snapir ’22 who all received certificates for their participation.

Monday, December 4 was the culmination of a month long social justice immersion program for Grade 11 Advisories. The program began on November 6 and featured guest speakers each Monday who spoke on subjects including the environment, education, food insecurity, and housing. At the social justice wrap up, students took action and wrote letters or called government representatives, and signed digital petitions. One example was the petition to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Calfresh as it is called in California. The program was organized by Director of Advisory for the Upper School Cheryl Cohen, and Director of YOZMA and Assistant Director of Service Learning Carolyn Camras.

Congratulations to three Varsity Football players who earned All-Conference honors this season. Yoni Ben-Naim ’18 was selected to the All-CIF Eight-Man Football Team Southern Section Division 1, and Maxwell Ptasznik ’19 and Gavin Lieberman ’19 received All-CIF-Eight-Man Football Team Southern Section Division 1 Honorable Mentions. All three players boasted impressive stats for the season. Ben-Naim rushed for 562 yards, had 185 kickoff return yards, 8 touchdowns, 2 extra point scores and 65 tackles. Ptasznik had 245 yards rushing, 154 yards receiving, 45 Tackles, and 2 Safeties. Lieberman had 345 yards receiving, 6 touchdowns, 15 punts for over 40 yards, and 47 Tackles on the season.

Team 1836: The MilkenKnights participated in the DTLA Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, December 2 at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. The team spoke with families about the robotics program, sharing their passion for STEAM and encouraging kids to pursue it. They showed off their robot and joined FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 4 ELEMENT and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Team 8564 Lockdown for robot demonstrations on the main stage in the Mark Taper Auditorium. Afterward, kids had the opportunity to operate the robots. The Faire featured exhibits, projects, experiments, and interactive displays.