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“What happens to a dream deferred?” With this question, Langston Hughes began his poem “Harlem,” inquiring what happens to a person who discovers their long-sought dream to be unobtainable. Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Does it linger and fester? Or does it, as Hughes suggests in his allusion to the…
“I just woke him up to tell him [that you called] and he was very excited,” Leah says about her father, long time Forward reader Mordechai Miller. For a Holocaust survivor like Miller, receiving an education during the war was unusual. “My education from Poland was nothing. I only made it to the first grade…
Frimet Goldberger and her children at her graduation from Sarah Lawrence College Three weeks ago, I learned that Barbara Walters gets her gumption from my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College. The legendary female doyen of American media made a surprise appearance to rousing applause before Fareed Zakaria’s keynote address. In her two-minute speech, Walters quoted…
I’ve given three commencement speeches in my life: at a state university so large there were two ceremonies on the same day to accommodate all the students; at a community college where the sense of triumph by first-generation graduates was inspiring and at one of the storied “Seven Sisters,” where I felt humbled to walk…
Chabad’s Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, N.J., plans to ordain 280 new rabbis at an event the movement is billing as the largest ordination class in the modern era. The Sept. 9 program will feature former Israeli Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and other rabbinic dignitaries. The newly minted rabbis, some of whom…
Thank you for asking; the graduation was lovely. But you can probably sense that’s the party line. The ceremony was actually surreal, emotional and intense. We are, as the old saying goes, in the big leagues. Next stop, university. In the mix of growing up together these kids have loved each other, hurt each other,…
With much fuss and fanfare, this week’s NYU 2012 university commencement marked the conclusion of my undergraduate career. But instead of rushing forth and celebrating recklessly, determinedly, as is perhaps appropriate, that evening was a decidedly low-key affair. In this post-graduation haze, the only thing I’m inclined to do is sit and self-reflect by the…
My daughter is graduating high school today. This is a huge moment in life — probably more for her than for me, although I’m not sure — and the mass of thoughts and emotions are a bit overwhelming. The moment Avigayil was born, I was born as well. Her entry in the universe was transformative…
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