the world around us. They were the very definition of courage in every sense of the word. Our rabbis from those years will always be, in our minds, bigger than life. How can we not remember Rabbis Abramovitz, Hamerman, Possik, Merkin, Mandelcorn, Werner, Wagner and the others? They instilled in us a love of Torah and learning. Few things were more rewarding than anticipating Tosefot’s question in Rabbi Merkin’s Shiur and more exciting than following the logic of a Sugya with Rabbi Wagner. They taught us that being passionate about Israel and Am Israel is part of who we are. Those rabbis modeled honesty and Chesed at the highest level. I often wonder how Mrs. Merkin put up with our late-night visits to her home and the emptying of her refrigerator. This yearbook is called Shalshelet (a chain). At Hebrew Academy we learned that each and every one of us is a link in the long chain of Jewish destiny. How do we remember with the heart? By saying thank you. Yamin Levy (‘80) is the senior rabbi of one of the largest Sephardic synagogues in New York. He is head of the Long Island Hebrew Academy, a small Sephardic Day School in Great Neck, and founder and international director of the Maimonides Heritage Center based in Israel and New York. He has authored three books - one fiction, edited two books and published numerous articles on Jewish thought, Halakha and Tanakh. "We believed we were invincible." 13