Alumni Profile: Author and Playwright Liz Maccie - Newark Academy

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10 With Israel celebrating its 60th Anniversary of statehood, Amy Rubin Schottland and Sam Goldfischer made heroic efforts to book travel arrangements through Ayelet Tours. Additional arrangements were made with the help and influence of Jane Wilf, allowing us a tour at Israel’s memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, and Peter Feinberg ’78, whose association with MetroWest led us to a tour of The Feinberg Center for the youth of Rishon L’tzion and a meeting with Ethiopian Jews who had emigrated to Israel. Making final arrangements in March for a trip set to go in mid June, we were limited in some ways to following the general tour paths. Still, with foresight and persistence, we were able to visit two schools, meet with staff at two youth services organizations and meet for discussions with three different groups interested in fostering the peace process. Efforts were made to engage us in the plight of the displaced Palestinian Culture, but we did not get to the West Bank except for a two-hour tour of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Clockwise from top left: Bahai Temple in Haifa; a market in Jerusalem; students at the Yad Byad School in Galilee; NA faculty members; hijab displayed at an Arab market in Jerusalem; ruins at Megido
Wisdom and Wonder By Von Rollenhagen Faculty Members Journey to Israel In the fall of 2007, Blackie Parlin approached Head of School Don Austin about the possibility of embarking on Newark Academy’s global initiatives by finding a way to send 11 faculty members to the Middle East. Concept quickly gave way to reality when Mr. Parlin arranged financial support with several Newark Academy alumni. At the spring Parents Association Gala an additional $40,000 was raised in auction to ensure that we would indeed be traveling to Israel and the West Bank. From Jerusalem and the Old City and the Temple Mount to Tel Aviv and Old Jaffa, to Haifa and Safed and Tiberius and the Golan Heights to Ein Gedi and Masada, we participated in a trip that had a profound impact upon us individually and collectively. As we gathered on our last night together in a park on top of Old Jaffa overlooking the Mediterranean for an improvised Shabbat Service, the sun set into the sea to our left behind the cross of a Medieval Church and to our right we could look past a Mosque and down the coast to Tel Aviv. Amy Rubin Schottland and Sam Goldfischer led our group – one Orthodox, one Conservative, one Reform, two agnostics, an atheist, four Protestants and a Roman Catholic – in song and prayer, then each of us offered a reflection on what had passed between us and before us in these 10 days. At first we were moved to reverent silence, then as emotions leveled into wistfulness there was expression of respect, deep admiration, questions political and personal, and universally there was gratitude that our school community could give so generously to a trip that will have long term effects on our lives and, by extension, the ways in which we approach our jobs as teachers. As our service atop Yafo ended, the loud-speakers from the Mosque below us carried out the Muslim call to worship and we set out for a Shabbat Dinner at Beit Daniel, Israel’s first Reform Congregation. Though the neophytes among us had come to understand that the political and spiritual divides in Israel are many and deep, we were still surprised to learn that the power wielded by the Ultra Orthodox delayed the occupation of Beit Daniel’s building until an Act of Parliament facilitated its opening 20 years after its first attempt to form. When we returned to the States, I asked each traveler to offer a written reflection on what he or she had seen and learned. Each of us had personal highlights and insights and I cannot represent them all here, but collectively there were a few places and themes that coalesced into the defining elements of our journey to Israel. Overriding all was the sense that we were, by our very presence, being asked to understand the layers of history and religion that define the region and its distinct populations. We literally visited the walled city of Old Jerusalem in layers with our first night’s witnessing of the devout shuckling in prayer at the Western Wall, then later in successive days beneath the city along an excavation tour and finally a trip to the Temple Mount and a walk along the Old City’s Ramparts. Inside lay the Quarters: Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim. In 1967 the IDF claimed Old Jerusalem in one of the fiercest battles of the Six Day War. What the Israelis call the “liberation” of Jerusalem has united disparate Muslims from neighboring countries in defiance ever since. There are the layers of history elsewhere as well: Megiddo with its ruins of 25 civilizations and modern Israel itself, at once democratically secular and determinedly Jewish, with its myriad political parties, from the more liberal Labor Party to the fundamentalism of the Shas Party. Among the many stunning landscapes we visited, The Golan Heights, a territory annexed from Syria in the waning moments of the Six Day War, struck us as especially beautiful. And here, too, the layers and the contradictions were in evidence: a beautiful valley brimming with agriculture was being irrigated with water diverted from the Jordan River while down stream its decimated flow of fresh water into the Dead Sea exacerbates the evaporation of what water remains there. Amidst beautiful fields where cattle grazed above the flourishing kibbutzim below we passed the bunkers once used by the Syrians to bomb the low lying Israeli farms and we read signs warning us away from acreage still rife with live land mines. Later we visited the Golan Winery, a thriving enterprise in a land that, as I write, Israel is negotiating with Syria in consideration of its return. Masada, our last real stop of historic note, was majestic in its design and inspirational in its story of siege and sacrifice. Here we took in a 360-degree view of the Dead Sea plateau and the mountains above, imagining with the help of our guide Roni’s 11
Page 1 and 2: outreach NEWARK ACADEMY FALL 2008 I
Page 3 and 4: Contents 10 18 23 Features 6 Wilder
Page 5 and 6: Perspectives I am very pleased to a
Page 7 and 8: GLOBAL SPEAKER SERIES: ETHAN ZOHN C
Page 9 and 10: as well as the Navajo National Monu
Page 11: COLLEGE DESTINATIONS FOR THE CLASS
Page 15 and 16: CONVOCATION September 5, 2008 Head
Page 17 and 18: Secrets BY MARCIA WORTH-BAKER Trade
Page 19 and 20: NJSIAA REALIGNMENT PLAN Newark Acad
Page 21 and 22: JUNE 26 MADISON, NEW JERSEY Leaving
Page 23 and 24: AUGUST 2 COLORADO The mountains of
Page 25 and 26: from the Archives by Blackie Parlin
Page 27 and 28: Green Mountains; and for the five y
Page 29 and 30: much that she was invited to come b
Page 31 and 32: 1 3 4 5 2 Young Alumni Cocktail Rec
Page 33 and 34: AMentoring Experience Life’s Jour
Page 35 and 36: THE BEST ADVICE I HAVE EVER HEARD r
Page 37 and 38: Don Goble Rahman Smiley ’98 Jamal
Page 39 and 40: CLASS OF 1978 CLASS OF 2003 CLASS O
Page 41 and 42: Class Notes 1933 Jack Selvage is do
Page 43 and 44: Mac Simpson ’61 and Tony Mascia
Page 45 and 46: York City for the summer. Larry spe
Page 47 and 48: Bill Simon ’69 with his wife, Cin
Page 49 and 50: has turned 50 he will have to swim
Page 51 and 52: A fish tale: David Arthur ’84 wit
Page 53 and 54: Jason Marino ’89 R.J. Grissinger
Page 55 and 56: Carolyn Borlo, Maria Teresa McNeill
Page 57 and 58: Stacey Rapacon ’99, Emily Weinste
Page 59 and 60: Daniel Singer ’02 on his travels
Page 61 and 62: Citigroup. He is enjoying the “re
Page 63 and 64:
REUNION 2008 (continued from page 3
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Alumni Profile: Author and Playwright Liz Maccie - Newark Academy

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