The people behind the memories: our beloved teachers, passionate Rabbanim, dedicated administrators and wonderful staff! Dr. Laufer taught Trig at HA. He also taught at the Royal Military College. He was affectionately known as THE GREAT HUNTER (said by Rabbi Shpira as “De Grrreat Hunterrr” with a strong Eastern-European accent). He would go to other teachers’ classes providing discipline and classroom management. “You, you and you – ‘til six o’clock!” Rabbi Shpira’s threat to students was that he would send you to Dr. Laufer’s class – to DE GREAT HUNTER. -Chaim Goldberg, ‘71 One thing that comes to mind is kind of a strange memory but it was actually the first time I really met Marcy Fewkes. She wanted us all to understand what a meter was, and I remember that she was just so full of energy and she went running around the class with her meter stick measuring us from shoulders to fingertips. Some of us were really small, we were in Grade 7, but it didn’t matter; she just kept running around with her meter stick and I’ll just never forget it. -Joy (Marmor) Sacher, ’83 Editor’s note: Joy Sacher ultimately became a colleague of Ms. Fewkes as a Science teacher at Hebrew Academy and continues to inspire hundreds of students in the very same lab where Ms. Fewkes influenced generations. Mrs. Erdstein used to make learning interesting and enjoyable. She would bring in science projects for us to learn from. One experiment I clearly remember and have done for my own kids was getting a hard-boiled egg to pop in a milk bottle (yes they still had milk bottles when I was in Grade 3!), teaching us how fire needs both fuel and oxygen to burn and that an empty milk bottle isn't really empty at all, but that it has oxygen in it, and that when you burn up the oxygen a vacuum is created which is why the egg gets sucked in. Quite a bit to learn in Grade 3 from one experiment and pretty impressive that almost 50 years later I can still remember the class crowded around her desk and watching as the egg popped. She also encouraged my love of reading and writing – something for which I am eternally grateful. -Deena (Deitcher) Vatenmakher, ‘79 When I was in Mrs. Rosenzweig’s Kindergarten class (back then Kindergarten was in the old high school building now occupied by the Belz girls’ school), I was lucky enough to be chosen to be the Abba for the mock seder. At one point during the mock seder, I got up, took the seder plate and started walking around with it over the other kids’ heads (the Sephardi tradition known as “Bibhilu yatzanu mimitzrayim”). Being the only Sephardi kid in the class everyone was wondering what I was doing. Luckily, my mom was there to explain what I was doing to the teachers and the other parents that were there. -Alain Mamane, ‘85 Editor’s note: This past year, a few hours after Alain submitted this memory, Alain’s son Ness took part in his own Kindergarten mock seder where Morah Kathy Knafo explained and performed “Biblihu” much to the delight of the many students who were familiar with the tradition as well as those who saw it for the first time. How things have changed at HA! " 16