Torah Bowl team on a roll

Bnot Shulamith wins first two matches of the season

By Yaffi Spodek

Jan. 2, 2009 / 6 Teves 5769

The Bnot Shulamith Torah Bowl team scored an impressive victory Dec. 17, besting five other schools to claim their second straight win this season in the league’s Eastern conference division. As last year’s defending champions of the Torah Bowl Metropolitan League Championship, Bnot Shulamith boasts an undefeated 10-0 record so far this season, having competed twice against students from HAFTR, HALB, HANC, North Shore and YCQ. In the Dec. 17 match-up, Bnot Shulamith put up 110 points in five games, compared to their opponents’ 22. “The fact that our students are able to consistently buzz in first and correctly answer about 80 percent of the questions is a testament to their preparedness and determination,” said Rabbi Nosson Schreiber, Bnot Shulamith’s principal and Torah Bowl coach. “They’re really very self-motivated and they’re doing an unbelievable job.” Six students comprise the Bnot Shulamith team –– three each from the seventh and eighth grades –– who commit to learning and preparing the material in their free time after school. “In an age in which teenagers are distracted by various media our girls still take pleasure in the simple study of Torah l’shma,” Rabbi Schreiber told The Jewish Star, reflecting on his students’ victory. “They have to put in hours and hours of their own time to do this.” This year, students have been studying Sefer Devarim together with Rashi’s commentary. The first meet of the season focused on the first three parashot, while the second tested on Shoftim and Re’eh, the fourth and fifth parashot. Over the rest of the season, the league, which is coordinated by Rabbi Moshe Wolofsky, principal of Yeshiva of South Shore, will complete the rest of the sefer. The next match of the Eastern division is scheduled for February, followed by the playoffs in March. The winner will then compete against the winners of the league’s other two conferences for the Metropolitan Torah Bowl League championship title, in a competition held at the end of the year. “A repeat championship would really be an amazing accomplishment for the team and for the school,” said Rabbi Schreiber, hopefully.