HASF: Alumni

An Evening with Old Friends
by Irene Shatenburd, Class of 1990

Yehuda, Eli Angel, Jose Ritz Once upon a time, there was a little house on 26th Avenue that was made into a Jewish school. Years later with the help of the community, the school moved to a real building with real classrooms, a real playground, a real library and many many more real students. That school was the Hebrew Academy. News of the school traveled and eventually reached the Jewish communities of Panama and Mexico and one year students from Panama and Mexico came to study in the school and live in the little house that the school once occupied. Those students became part of a class, which became the first class ever to graduate from the Hebrew Academy High School.

Judy London, Elina Shcop, Eli Angel After the graduation of that class in 1990, many of the foreign students went back to their homelands of Panama and Mexico. Many of the local students drifted to various universities in other parts of the state or country, while others eventually moved to Israel. Although, they all vowed desperately never to lose touch, the reality of life and how it sometimes scatters people set in and many of them did not see or speak to each other for 14 to 15 years.

Until one day, when the one who was farthest away from them in the land of Israel, David Curwin, had an idea to start a group on the internet; find all of the people who attended the Hebrew Academy in the 1980’s and get them to sign up. He spoke to a few people, who spoke to a few people, who knew some other people who could speak to a few people and, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of spreading the good word, low and behold almost the whole class was found. Because the class was small (only had 13 people) and those were friendlier times, you can say that the whole entire high school was good friends. And so the group that started on the internet does not consist of only those people who graduated in 1990, but many more that graduated in 1991 or just attended the school for some time in the 1980’s.

Olga Nemchenok Shapiro, Irene Shatenburd, Milana Kipper Thanks to modern technology and the new form of communication that this group had, it came to be known that one of the Panamanian students, Eli Angel, was going to be passing through San Francisco on his way home to Panama from a business trip in Hong Kong. The group quickly and eagerly decided to meet for a spontaneous reunion. They could not sleep; they could not eat; they could not work for days… all they could do was chat on the internet about how excited they were to see each other again. The pictures from that evening are attached with the story but the emotions and warm wishes that flowed through that room that night are hard to describe in words. Let’s just say that in a world that is so divided and a time that is charged with so much negativity, it was really nice to know that after 14 years, you could reunite with old friends and for a moment feel like time stood still and the vows of friendship that were made when they parted were truly never broken.

A single toast was made that night and it is important to repeat it “To David Curwin, for bringing us all together after all these years.” We the people of the Hebrew Academy 1980’s yahoo group are forever in your debt.