DRS celebrates its top students in the class of 2018

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The phrase “all-around excellence” is what Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys officials have used to describe Tzvi Heimowitz. The class of 2018 valedictorian is a National Merit Scholarship winner and Siemens semifinalist, College Bowl co-captain, conducted research at the Rockefeller and Garcia summer programs.

Just as vital to his makeup are his experiences at OHEL Bais Ezra with people with special needs, which has helped him become a more compassionate person, school administrators said. His next step is Yeshivat Migdal Hatorah in Israel.

Advanced Placement scholar with honors, Debate Team captain, editor-in-chief of the Spanish Language Journal and Math team member are part of salutatorian Yosef Mehlman’s resume.


His business acumen propelled him to lead the Woodmere school’s Wharton Investment Club, and to serve as  business editor of the school newspaper. He showed his spiritual side as he attended the National Conference of Synagogue Youth Kollel and took part in Night Seder all four years at DRS. Mehlman He has was a part of helping children and young adults with special needs with the Kulanu mishmar program and volunteered to help raise awareness about Colon cancer. He will attend Yeshivat Har Etzion, commonly known in English as “Gush” and in Hebrew as Yeshivat HaGush, in Alon Shvut, an Israeli settlement in Gush Etzion in the West Bank, near Jerusalem.

As the goalie for DRS’s championship floor hockey teams Jakey Friedman also helps keep his peers anchored in what school officials said was a “state of achdus (unity) and simcha (joy).”

The Keter Shem Tov Award winner has an infectious smile, incredible respectfulness, a constant desire to help, and concern for everyone around him makes him beloved by his friends and teachers, DRS administrators said. What they called his “insatiable thirst for growth in Avodas Hashem (service to God).” He is considered a true learner and that helped him fashion unbreakable bonds with the rabbis who are not fond of him but respect him. He has also volunteered at Kulanu. Next stop is Yeshivat Sha’alvim a yeshiva high school for boys, in Kibbutz Sha’alvim in Israel.
—Jeffrey Bessen