Local News Zen and the Art of Illegal Communication Or: How to Keep in Touch W ith Your Loved Ones 33 Robert Eden Astroff Judah Jonathan Gould "These are the days of miracle and wonder. This 18 the long distance call." -Boy In the Bubble Paul Simon, GRACELAND Being away from home for eleven months posed a significant dilem ma for the Overseas Student who desperately wanted to keep in touch with friends and family back home. Yet, such urges often resulted In Ingenious and often criminal means of circumventing this hardship. To quote Bob Dylan, from the classic track *Tweeter and the Monkey Man," (Travelling W ilbury's, Volume One): "In Jersey [Israel] everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught." An anonymous One Year Program student - let’s call him Wayne Zwaldman - took this challenge to heart. The following is his pathetic, but successful, attempt to beat the Israeli system. When the black clouds of the strike ominously approached our lofty institution for higher learning - The <strong>Rothberg</strong> School for Overseas Students - most pupils were concerned with the transferability of credits and their admissions to graduate schools. To Wayne, however, this was the furthest thing from his mind. He was obsessed with far more pressing issues, such as accessibility to electronic mail, In order to keep tabs on his lonely and virile girlfriend back home in North York. One fateful night, Wayne decided that it was time for action. But since his girlfriend was ten thousand miles away, his "action" had to be re-directed - to gaining access to the closed-by-strike e-mail communications center. By any means necessary. In light of the current political situation, the security on the campus was Increased threefold: now there were THREE dour Russian night watchmen who were prepared for any breach in security. These highly trained, and levelheaded - yet, overwhelmingly underpaid - guards, however, proved no obstacle to Wayne and his deviant behavior. An anonymous, but well-placed source, tells us that Mr. Zwaldman was seen scaling a 15-foot Jerusalem Stone wall on the main campus. Moving like a ninja on amphetamines, he was also dressed in basic black. Wayne, who had previously seen far too many Steven Segal movies (not to mention "Jaws" flicks), was off Into the night, e-maillng to his heart's content. Although he Is currently out of the country, Wayne has been charged in absentia by the Israeli Defence Forces for breaking and entering into a government facility. If extradited back to Israel, Wayne faces ten years of hard labor in the "textile" factory at Dimona. Yet this was not an isolated criminal act; felonies occurred over the phone lines, as well. Another unnamed Overseas Student - we’ll go by Karen Sephardl - came up with a "brilliant and foolproof idea. She found the only two phones in Israel that accepted payment by credit card, out by the Soweto Reggae Pub in Tel Aviv. Karen, In dire need to contact numerous "loved ones" back at home, concocted a deceitful scheme; why pay for a long distance telephone call when you can cheat Bezeq (the Israeli phone monopoly). A very reliable source close to the defendant heard her comment: "Hey! Instead of using a credit card, why don't 1 use my father's bank card in Worth America. It’s Impossible to trace electronically!" Unfortunately, after several months of ignorance and bliss, Karen received a filming call from her father (who DIRECTLY dialed from his residence) assuming his bank card had been stolen off her. Our attornies have obtained secret bank drafts which angrily state that Mr. Sephardi is in debt by eight hundred dollars. His offspring, besides being grounded for life, owes Daddy-0 eight o-notes. To pay for her foolishness, upon her return from Israel Karen will have to sweep the floors at her local bank all summer. There are many other heinous transgressions among overseas students. Tet they are not the only criminally-minded. Another sinner is the ex-convict who worked in the old fax office - a distant relative to the Frank Sinatra cashier, to be sure. As an Overseas Student entered, seeking to retrieve his/her month-old fax, the worker's pleasant demeanor suddenly changed to the vindictive personality of an ISSTA travel agent. The ,fax woman,' as she was snldely called, took obscene pleasure in closing the fax office 15 minutes prior to its actual closing time, as well as charging nineteen American dollars for each faxed page (plus the cover page). Moreover, she permitted any student to peruse through all the private and personal faxes of other forlorn recipients. These situations were just a microcosm of the iniquities that persisted among the student body of the Overseas Program. Yet, it must be mentioned that the evils of Wayne, Karen and the "fax woman" pale in comparison to the scam perpetrated by the administration Itself. In December, the <strong>Rothberg</strong> School organized a "visitation tour" for the parents of Overseas Students. The price was outrageously exorbitant, forcing many parents to take out a second mortgage on their house, or withdraw their children from university and sell them to slavery. How much longer will these profane crimes occur? This is a question that a child might ask, but not a childish question. [This has been a Crime Stoppers report].
Holidays Thanksgiving in Jerusalem Rachael Smith The classes continue The buses run The shops are open No one knows It’s a holiday. Tu-Bishvar
Change language