Carol Master wants students to read, but she also wants them to go beyond appreciation of the written word.

“I want them to explore a topic in all its depth, with the excitement you get from that,” said Master, chair of the English department at the Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck.

Together with Leah Moskovits, the school’s librarian, Master is planning TABC’s first Book Day, to be held Feb. 9. To prepare, everyone in the school is reading the same book.

“We’re having every single student, faculty member, coach, and staff member read it,” said Master, a Teaneck resident who has been with the school since 1992. “They all got a copy of the book.”

Leah Moskovits and Carol Master

She added that Rabbi Josef Adler, rosh yeshiva, and Arthur Poleyeff, principal for general studies, were both supportive of her plan.

“They always say yes to innovative ideas,” she said.

Master said she and Moskovits had been discussing the idea for several years, looking for a way to promote reading among the students. They chose “Persepolis,” by Marjane Satrapi, at least partly because it combines text with graphics. (The book was made into an animated film of the same name.)

“We were trying to figure out what would work,” she said, noting that inviting authors to speak about their books is often an expensive undertaking. They ultimately selected “Persepolis,” a graphic memoir, “because for our first Book Day, we wanted something catchy.”

Moskovits, now in her 11th year at the school, noted that she and Master worked together with a committee including four other faculty members, each reading the same five books and coming together to discuss them.

“This was the frontrunner by far,” she said. “It’s an easy read but a good read.”

Through a combination of presentations, workshops, music, debate, and culinary treats, Master hopes the students will become — if not experts — knowledgeable about the issues discussed in the book.

“It’s a coming-of-age story,” she said, explaining that the book, named for the ancient capital of Persia, was written by an Iranian woman and describes her experiences as a young girl before, during, and after the country’s Islamic revolution.

“Iran is a current topic,” said Master. “The boys know about it, but they know little about the history. We wanted to look at it not just from a literary point of view.”

The program will include nearly a dozen workshops led by both faculty members and outside presenters, including Prof. Daniel Tsadik of Yeshiva University. In addition to discussing the history of Jews in Iran, workshops will tackle psychological issues, “exploring what it would be like as a child living in a war-torn country,” said Master.

Comic-book writers and illustrators will also be on hand to talk to students about creating graphic novels or memoirs, and Iranian Jews from the local community will speak about their own experiences.

“Every student should hear at least one personal narrative about what it was like to live there, why they left, their escape, and their life here now,” said Master.

The day will begin with a keynote address by Michael Schneider, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. During the Islamic revolution, Schneider was the director of the Joint Distribution Committee for Iran. Teaneck Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin, Bergen County’s first Muslim mayor, will also speak, focusing on the topic of tolerance.

This graphic memoir about growing up in Iran is the centerpiece of an ambitious ptogram at Torah Academy of Bergen County.

“It’s a huge operation,” said Master, noting that some 270 students, 30 faculty members, and 25 presenters are involved in the project.

But while the logistics have been a bit daunting, “it’s been a labor of love, exciting to work on,” she said, noting that the day will include a Persian lunch. The meal will be jointly prepared by Seth Warsaw, a former TABC student who is chef-owner of Etc Steakhouse in Teaneck, and Dalia Golbari, owner of Persian Delight caterers.

Book Day will also include a debate by members of the school’s debating team on the issue of a nuclear Iran.

Moskovits said she likes the fact that students from different grades will be sitting in on the same sessions. In addition, she said, “I like that we chose a book with so many angles to touch upon and were able to pull out so many different subjects [for] workshops. When you read it by yourself, you don’t necessarily see all the angles.”

She is also pleased that the book lends itself to so many Jewish subjects, such as the Torah perspective on religion and state.

Moskovits said the books were distributed to the faculty in November and to the students in December. According to Master, they were presented to students at a school assembly, where the chair of the history department spoke about the historical context of the memoir. In addition, English teachers throughout the school spent a class period reading from “Persepolis” and talking about it.

“Once the students started reading it, they wanted to keep reading,” she said, adding that students have also been helping to organize the event.

TABC senior Noam Cohen, who lives in Teaneck, said he thought the book was a “great choice. It was a very emotional story,” he said, adding that it made him “appreciate what we have here in America, our personal freedoms.” Choosing the book was also somewhat prophetic, he said, given the current situation in Egypt and Tunisia.

Cohen — who helped create a Facebook page for the project — said he likes the fact that the entire school is reading the book and that he looks forward to discussing it “with everybody around the school.”

“It definitely shows a more personal side of Iran,” said the 17-year-old. “It made me think of the citizens of Iran, not just the regime and the weapons, but also the people living there.”

Ninth-grader Aryeh Krischer, 15, said he has read the book and it “opened his eyes. I don’t usually like coming-of-age books, but this was very interesting,” he said, adding that it will inform the way he now looks at Iran.

Krischer, who served on the Book Day committee with 11 other students, said he will attend a personal narrative presentation as well as one on Persian cuisine.

“Food is always fascinating,” he said.

The Teaneck resident said the students on the Book Day committee made several important contributions, helping choose the format of the day and suggesting specific topics.

“A lot of the animation [sessions] were our idea,” he said.

Moskovits has been particularly pleased by the students’ level of excitement.

“We’re getting very positive feedback,” she said. “The boys are stopping me to tell me they like the book.” While there are always a few students who discuss books with her in the library, “now they’re actually stopping me in the hall,” said the librarian. “It’s very gratifying.”

In the front row, from left, are Gavi Dov Hochsztein, Danny Shlian, Benjy Koslow, Aryeh Krischer, Ari Innes, Shua Katz, and Leaad Staller. In the back row, from left, are Ann Shinnar, associate professor of chemistry at LCM; Moshe Sokol, dean of LCM; Judy Oppenheim, associate director, day schools and yeshivot, JEP; Rabbi Martin Schloss, director of the JEP’s Division of Day School Education and a visiting professor at Touro College; J.J. Rosenberg; Aaron Haber; Adam Weisel; Yakir Forman; Joel M. Berman (with trophy), chair of the science department, TABC; Hillel Hochsztein; Isaac Shulman; instructor Judy Hochsztein; and Dan Friedman. Triple S Studios

Students from Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck won first place in last month’s Yeshiva Science Olympiad, part of a national science competition designed to test students’ abilities in science, technology, and engineering. This is the second year in a row that TABC came in first in its division.

Because it measures not just classroom aptitude but applied knowledge, the day-long competition includes tasks like building model electronic cars and towers as well as traditional paper and pencil tests.

“If you like to compete it’s good for you, because you can use your academic smarts and whatever you are best at, and you can find your place to shine,” said TABC senior and winning team co-captain Gavi Dov Hochsztein, 18.

Co-captain Yakir Forman, 17 and a TABC senior, added, “It was a lot of fun — pretty informative. It’s a good team-building exercise too.”

Eleven teams competed in this division, which was created for yeshiva high school students in 2003 because the National Science Olympiad, the nationwide competition of which this contest is a part, typically schedules its events on Saturdays. Observant Jewish students could not participate.

Then Linda Padwa, a former high school science teacher, teamed up with Judy Oppenheim of the Jewish Education Project and approached the national organization to start a yeshiva division to meet on Sundays. (Because her grandchildren are Orthodox, Padwa wanted to make sure they would be eligible to compete.)

With the JEP’s sponsorship, the yeshiva division has been operating for nearly a decade.

Any Jewish day school can enter a team of 15 students in grades nine through 12, with a maximum of seven 12th-graders, the rest underclassmen. Teams come with two coaches, usually their science teachers. Teams spend weeks preparing for the competition, which took place this year on March 6.

For the first time this year, Touro College’s Lander College for Men hosted and co-sponsored the project with the JEP.

Students are told in advance what the competition will consist of and they have several weeks to prepare, according to Joel Berman, a physics and chemistry teacher at TABC and the winning team’s coach.

Berman stressed his team’s independent work ethic.

“I leave them alone in the lab and say, ‘You conquer these problems on your own.… If you have problems I am always available,’” said Berman. He added, “These guys like to develop the muscles between their ears.”

On top of the world are, from left, club president Eliyahu Friedman; Arthur Poleyeff, TABC’s principal; club members Asher Radensky, Chanan Schnaidman, and Dan Friedman; and club adviser Howard E. Friedman. Courtesy Howard Friedman

Eliyahu (Eli) Friedman, a June graduate of Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck, is one of 10 finalists for the L.L. Bean Outdoor Heroes Award. Of the 10, five will become L.L. Bean Outdoor Heroes.

Eli was nominated for his role as the founding president of TABC’s Outdoors Club. A two-minute video interview will be posted on the L.L. Bean website and Eli’s picture will appear in thousands of L.L. Bean catalogues. People from across the country will have the opportunity to vote for the winners at www.llbean.com/heroeswww.llbean.com/heroes. Should Eli be voted a winner, TABC will be awarded a $5,000 grant and will receive a gift card from L.L. Bean.

Eli founded the Outdoors Club in January 2010, with support from the school’s administration as well as his father, Howard Friedman, the club’s adviser. The club, he told The Jewish Standard, was designed to “open up people to a whole new world.”

“There is a wide world that’s open and people shouldn’t have to be cooped up in their homes and cities,” he said.

The club’s first hike took place in the Ramapo State Forest in Bergen County in 19-degree, icy weather. The club hikes as well in Ramapo Reservation in Passaic County, and in the Palisades State Park and Harriman State Park in New York. It has also made trips to the Gravity Vault, an indoor climbing gym in Upper Saddle River, for certification in climbing and in belaying, a general term for a variety of techniques using ropes. One hike in March 2010 included post-holing through two to three feet of snow. The club plans to expand its activities to include overnight trips and snowshoeing in the winter.

In his interview for the L.L. Bean website, Eli praised TABC’s administration for supporting the formation of the Outdoors Club.

“I think starting the club has made me more confident in myself,” Eli said in that interview. “Standing up in front of the student body to announce hikes was uncomfortable at first, but now it’s routine. Now I’m known around school as the ‘outdoor club’ guy.”

Eli was determined to get the Outdoors Club established before he graduated in June 2011. He has been accepted to The Cooper Union’s electrical engineering program and hopes to establish an outdoors club there as well.

Eli came to his appreciation for the outdoors through years of family hiking, camping, and backpacking trips in New York and New Jersey State Parks, including the Catskills and the Adirondacks. “It’s nice to go outside and breathe fresh air and see the amazing scenery,” Eli told the Standard.

Over the years, he has taught himself necessary skills such as starting a fire from tinder, pitching tents and tarps, cooking with a lightweight alcohol stove, and leave-no-trace practices. He has tried to impart these lessons to the club members. Eli also has volunteered his time on many occasions to accompany his father to perform trail maintenance for the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference.

Noam Safier contributed to this report.

Updated Thursday, 8/18/11, 11:54 a.m.

The arrest this week of Rabbi Uzi Rivlin casts doubt on the future of a scholarship fund he created for needy Israeli children.

Rivlin, 63, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual contact and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The charges were brought by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit, the Teaneck Police Department, and the Israeli police, with the assistance of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Through the FBI, the county unit was informed of two separate complaints of inappropriate touching lodged with the Israeli police by two 13-year-old boys who had stayed at Rivlin’s home, one in the summer of 2009 and the other in 2010.

Maureen Parenta, spokeswoman for the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, told The Jewish Standard on Wednesday that the investigation will continue. “We’d like to determine if any other children have been victims,” she said.

Rivlin founded the Scholarship Fund for the Advancement of Children in Israel (Keren Milgot le-Kiddum Yeladim be-Yisrael) about 12 years ago, after learning of the desperate straits of families in impoverished areas in his native country. Over the years, the Standard has published several articles about Rivlin’s efforts, which include monetary and material assistance to hundreds of 4- to 18-year-old children recommended by Israeli social service agencies and municipal officials.

The teenagers in the fund are paired with pen-pals in Rivlin’s religious school classes at Temple Beth Abraham, located in Tarrytown, N.Y. Often, the American families support their children’s Israeli pen-pals and host them during the summer. Rivlin has arranged for several of the children to mark their becoming b’nai mitzvah at synagogues in and around Bergen County, including Cong. Beth Aaron and the Jewish Center of Teaneck and Fair Lawn’s Cong. Ahavat Achim. He also arranged b’nai and b’not mitzvah celebrations in Israel for indigent boys and girls under his care.

People who have worked with Rivlin on both sides of the ocean expressed shock and disbelief over his arrest.

“I couldn’t give you the exact number of years I’ve known him, but the accusations are inconsistent with anything we know about Uzi Rivlin,” said Rabbi David Holtz of Temple Beth Abraham. “As far as we know, he’s spent his life taking care of kids through his scholarship organization, getting kids out of poverty, and making sure they get appropriate education.”

Reached by the Standard on Wednesday, Holtz said that Rivlin had been teaching fifth-grade students about Israel’s history and politics.

“We’ve never had a hint of a complaint about this kind of thing,” Holtz said. “He is passionate about teaching kids and the work he does in his foundation in helping kids.”

Rivlin’s wife and daughter have also taught in the after-school program, according to Holtz.

“I’m sure you are emphasizing the innocent till proven guilty aspect of all this,” Holtz said.

Echoing the Tarrytown rabbi was Chaim Shalom, the former vice mayor of Kiryat Gat, a development town where many of the scholarship’s beneficiaries live. “I don’t believe it,” Shalom said.

Shalom said several boys who have stayed at Rivlin’s home the past few summers were from particularly troubled backgrounds and that at least one of them lives in a group home.

“Uzi has done only good for kids here. No other man has done so much for these children. I’ve worked with him many years; I just spoke with him two weeks ago,” said Shalom. “He sends clothing, food for holidays, school supplies…. He takes children from very sad situations to the United States to go to camp. He arranges bar mitzvahs for them, he buys them tallit and tefillin. This must be a mistake. It is terrible for a man who has fought for so many children to have his good name tarnished in this way.”

Shalom said two of Rivlin’s six children live in Israel — a daughter with several children of her own and a son serving with the paratroopers. Shalom did not hear of the arrest until informed by this reporter, and said he would try to call Rivlin’s wife, Jenny, immediately.

At press time, The Jewish Standard was unable to reach Jenny Rivlin or Rabbi Moshe Yasgur of Teaneck, who until a few years ago helped Rivlin with the fund.

Rabbi Yosef Adler, principal of Torah Academy of Bergen County, also expressed surprise at the news. Last year, Adler said, a 14-year-old boy from Sderot boarded with the Rivlins and attended the all-boys high school in Teaneck through the fund.

“There were no problems and no suspicions whatsoever,” said Adler. “I had contact with Rabbi Rivlin many times, and he only had the best interests of the children in mind. He gives his life for these people.”

The previous year, the Rivlins had housed two boys from the scholarship fund while they attended Yeshiva University’s high school for boys for a semester. Rivlin reportedly traveled to Israel often to check on the circumstances of each child in his care. He once told the Standard that he spent many hours at home in Teaneck calling government officials in Israel to gain better housing or other social welfare assistance for the most serious cases.

At his arraignment on Wednesday, Rivlin was ordered to surrender his Israeli passport (he told the court he did not have a U.S. passport) and he was forbidden to have contact with any children under age 18, including the two alleged victims. Bail was set at $175,000, to be paid in full, meaning that the traditional 10 percent bond will not be accepted in this case.

Since suffering a stroke this spring that left him unable to travel, Rivlin had turned some of his responsibilities over to 19-year-old Daniel Vaks of Kiryat Gat, an orphan who lives with his grandmother and is one of the fund’s first beneficiaries. In 2006, when he was 14 1/2, Vaks marked his becoming a bar mitzvah at Teaneck’s Cong. Beth Aaron. Rivlin also arranged for a party at a now-defunct Hackensack hotel.

An accounting and economics major at Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, as part of an army program for gifted students, Vaks was to have returned to Bergen County in September to accompany two of the fund’s current recipients, one from Eilat and one from Kiryat Gat, on a vacation break before the school year begins.

A week before Rivlin’s arrest, the Standard spoke with Vaks about his then-upcoming trip and how the scholarship fund (“keren”) had helped him. “I really think I would be in a much worse place now if I didn’t have the keren helping me,” he said.

Now supporting himself, Vaks has been counseling younger fund participants, helping to distribute money and items sent from the United States and advising Rivlin on the most efficient use of donations earmarked for such necessities as clothing, shoes, and bedding.

Rivlin said in early August that he was short of money to buy the school supplies that the parents of at least half the children in the fund could not afford.

In Israel on Thursday, Vaks said that he had not heard about Rivlin’s arrest until contacted by The Jewish Standard and was “totally in shock” over the news. He said he did not stay at the Rivlins during the two summers in question, but he had been a house guest during Passover and two other summers, and had never experienced any inappropriate behavior toward himself or other Israeli teenagers who stayed there with him.

“I just do not believe it,” said Vaks. “Rav Rivlin is an honorable human being who has helped so many of us.” He added that the Rivlins and his Westchester sponsors are like family to him.

“I really think I would be in a much worse place now if I didn’t have the keren helping me,” he said.

Regardless of the eventual outcome of the charges, it is unlikely that Rivlin will be able to continue administering the scholarship fund.

On Thursday morning, Jenny Rivlin e-mailed this reporter, saying, “We can only hope that justice will prevail.”

Heather Robinson contributed to this story.

Over 150 students and faculty at Torah Academy of Bergen County donated at least $5 to Sharsheret’s breast cancer campaign in order to be included in this photograph, taken on Wednesday. Over $2,000 was raised, in memory of Mrs. Toby Mayer, the mother of TABC junior Jared Mayer. Courtesy TABC

It did not cost a dime to participate in the third annual Sharsheret Pink Day Around the World. Jewish students in four countries on Wednesday raised awareness for the Teaneck-based national breast cancer support organization (sharsheret.org) simply by wearing pink to school. If they generated donations, too — Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC) alone raised $2,000 on Wednesday — that is icing on the cake.

And here is another unusual aspect of this volunteer effort: The driving force behind the annual event is an Orthodox college student, Tzvi Solomon.

Solomon was a freshman six years ago at TABC when admissions director Donna Hoenig launched “Do Real Men Wear Pink?” at the yeshivah high school in support of Sharsheret. He was one of a handful who showed up in pink on the designated day. Hoenig tried again the next year, and the next.

“By the time I graduated, the entire school, including the faculty, was wearing pink on Sharsheret Pink Day,” says Solomon. The boys also raised funds for the organization by charging $5 a head to be included in a group portrait.

“It was not easy to do in a boys high school, yet even today TABC raises the most money of any school,” says Solomon, now a junior at Yeshiva University. Whether it remains so this year awaits the final tally of donations, but it seems likely that the TABC record will hold.

Still, “it was never about the money. It’s about awareness. I find people neglect to get involved in causes because they feel it will cost them money they don’t have. I wanted kids to feel they could just put on a pink shirt one morning and make a difference.”

Inspired by Hoenig, Solomon harnessed the power of social media to turn Pink Day into an international phenomenon in Jewish high schools and post-high school programs in Israel. In cooperation with their administrators, kids come up with creative ways to mark the day, from serving pink snacks to suspending dress codes that normally preclude bright colors. Sharsheret supplies promotional and educational materials.

“I feel, as a 20-year-old, that I want to show people they have the potential to create change and do something positive,” says Solomon, who plans to wear a pink button-down shirt, pink yarmulke and pink socks on Feb. 29. “One of the most amazing aspects of the day is that almost the entire event is student-run and organized.”

Last year, students in about 70 schools in the United States, England, Canada, and Israel participated. Even more signed up this year, as evidenced by the listing on the event’s Facebook page. “We’ve built a network of go-to people. Many of the kids who did it three years ago as seniors in high school did it at school in Israel and now in their college or university.” In fact, students at 29 colleges and universities were participating this year.

Last year at Yeshiva University, Teaneck resident David Bodner served on a Pink Day volunteer committee that sponsored — with the support of the administration and various student groups — a 40-minute cake-decorating contest involving 15 teams of male and female YU college students, 15 sheet cakes, and unlimited frostings and toppings.

Ellen Kleinhaus, program manager and campus liaison for Sharsheret, says the organization encourages all kinds of fun events to raise awareness of its services. Sharsheret (Hebrew for “chain”) offers a community of support to young Jewish women diagnosed with breast cancer or at increased genetic risk — and their families — through networks of peers, health professionals, and related resources.

“We’re so grateful to Tzvi for helping us publicize Pink Day,” says Kleinhaus. “He’s a perfect example of how we’re engaging the next generation. We just want to encourage them to make a difference creatively, to do something fun and utilize social media to educate everybody around them.”

Kleinhaus says other groups have done events such as Pink Shabbat and Manicure for Sharsheret. “TABC was the first school to designate a day to wear pink. Now some schools make their own pink shirts as Sharsheret Pink Day is growing.”

Solomon, who also recently began collecting nearly expired packaged foods from a local manufacturer to distribute at local food pantries and shelters, and to American troops abroad, uses Pink Day as an example of what can be done with little more than access to the Internet.

“It’s a shame that, as Jews, we so often look at a pink ribbon and the first thing that comes to mind is not Sharsheret,” he says. “I want to get into the most obvious and random places to make Sharsheret a household name.”