1993-1994 Rothberg Yearbook

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 Rothberg
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 Rothberg
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].