Thresholds ATELIER
Fine Art
Path to Adulthood Dalia Aghion
This painting shows a door standing between two worlds: childhood and adulthood. The door acts as a threshold, a point of transition, showing how we move from a bright, playful past into a stressful, complicated adult life. The open door lets us look back at where we came from while standing in the reality of where we are now.
Childhood, Life’s Sweetest Candy
Sarai Levy
This piece shows a child stepping through a swirling, candy-colored portal into a bright, fantasy world, filled with sweets and colors. The candy landscape represents the sweetness and wonder of childhood, while the portal symbolizes a threshold, crossing from reality into imagination. The artwork reflects how childhood itself is a transformative doorway, a space where the world feels magical and full of possibility.
Growing Forward
Noa Nahom
This artwork displays a person walking into the future, moving from a scene of childhood to a world of adulthood The landscape of nature flowers and trees surro symbolizing he woman, displa transformation beginnings, ad
ing Lights ira Sager
We all have desires. It’s inevitable. And oftentimes, it’s acceptable to give in to them. But what if taking a step too far proves catastrophic? This piece, “Blinding Lights”, is a representation of that catastrophe, or specifically, moments before the storm. There exists a threshold, entrancing and deceptive, that stretches from the earth to the sun. One that reels you toward your desires, in which you haven’t yet suffered the consequences of the chase. The moment of pure bliss when you pursu reveals itself as blinding.
Held Between Ilana
Perlman
My piece is about the idea of a threshold. To me, this is the moment where I am in between two parts of my life. That’s why I split the canvas into a dark side and a light side. The dark side stands for things I am leaving behind, and the light side is what I am moving towards. I added the strings in the middle because even when we change or move forward, we’re still connected to where we came from. The little gap between the two sides is the actual threshold because that’s the space where everything feels confusing, but
Lugassy
Behind the Curtain Maayan
This piece captures that moment backstage when you ' re caught between who you are and who you ' re about to become. A reflection is a pause, an opportunity to connect with yourself prior to entering a new version of you. It mirrors real-life feelings of being in transition, standing at a threshold, and trying to make sense of the person staring back as you make your move from one space to the next.
Photography
My 2016 David Lawerence Jr. K Graduation
Eli Kerbel
My David Lawrence K Jr. Center’s Graduation was in 2016, and I was 5 or 6 years old. My teachers’ names were Ms. Molly, Ms. Jenny, and Ms. Rosa. They were there for me to help me learn and grow, especially in the computer lab, where I was doing Teachtown & Starfall. Sometimes we had parties, and then in June, I had my graduation! After the graduation ceremony, I gave Ms. Jenny a great big hug, and I went to the Gordon school of Beth David Congregation! These were moments I will never forget!
Dusk
Olivia Herschman
My piece is a photo of a sunset. I chose this because a sunset represents a threshold; it’s the moment between day and night. It shows when one part of the day ends and another begins. To me, sunsets symbolize change, endings, and new beginnings. By taking this picture, I wanted to capture that exact moment of transition and show how a threshold can be something we see and feel in everyday life.
Writing
Nothing is Ever Predictable -M
Nothing is ever predictable. assume, but until you make a choice, cross the line, exceed the boundaries, you will live in doubt.
Nothing is ever predictable. people, animals, nature, are expected to act. to perform what is predicted, but it is not set in stone. Nothing is ever predictable. until you leap, take a risk, move into the unknown.
because to live is to be free, free of expectation, assurance, question. by making a decision that may lead you nowhere or somewhere you may have thought you would never end up.
Nothing is ever predictable, so cross the threshold.
Entering the Unknown
Michelle Solomon
Thresholds, the invisible moments where everything shifts are the constant moments filled with possibility, whether it is crossing a doorway or some kind of a limit. Thresholds don’t literally change where we stand; they change who we are. Astronauts in space: they climb into a spacecraft and leave gravity behind in an instant. This threshold transforms them, not because space is magical, but because they are stepping into an unknown force that allows others to adapt and imagine differently. Thresholds are invasions or invitations to become someone new.
Stepping
Thresholds mark the changing spaces between who we were and who we are becoming. When we cross a doorway, we leave something behind even when we are not ready. These in-between moments hold possibility: the hesitation before a decision, the breath before speaking, the pause before stepping into a new chapter. Standing at a threshold means confronting uncertainty, but it also means recognizing what could be. What lies behind us becomes part of our past version, while what lies ahead becomes a place for what could be. This illustrates how thresholds are not just borders we cross, but instead, they are the little moments - that we call life - that shape us.
The
Stone Alexa Kattan
thing I Know
I stand in front of a door that wasn’t here yesterday
Behind is my childhood, my school, my friends , everything I know
As days turn into years, I inch closer to the door
Leaving behind everything I know
I do not know what life will be, but I cannot stay here, I have to open the door
Leaving behind everything familiar to go into the unknown
What lies ahead is the future I create for myself
What lies ahead is entirely up to me
So, as I stand in front of the door, I am no longer afraid
Next Dance
I paused at the doorway of my old dance studio, my hand hovering over the The room exactly as I had last seen it: cracked mirrors and fading posters. But , as if it sensed how many invisible borders I had crossed since I last stood here. Stepping inside felt like slipping into a memory footsteps were steadier, my presence quieter but stronger who once lived in this room.
In the center of the room, I let my body move again. freer, until the mirror reflected someone transformed. When I finally walked back toward the doorway, I felt the weight of the threshold beneath me, one small step separating who I had been from who I was becoming. I touched the door gently acknowledging the world I was leaving and the one I was stepping into. Nothing in the room had changed, and yet everything in me had.
Emily Waich
Acceptance Nathan Schonfeld
But I started to notice things.
Your eyes that had previously greeted me With an unapologetic expression of yourself, That had carried with them an insistent shimmer, Refusing to be dulled out by the faults of others,
Now refuse to have the desire to see, Merely showing echoes of your old self. Their sparkle only becomes dimmer, Deprived of any emotion, starved of love.
Your voice that would ring out with mine, As we reminisced over ridiculous moments, That showed no shame of association With me, a man who is in no way perfect,
Now solely exists through a monotonal whine, Apologizing for being too loud to our opponents. Facades of joy and false feelings of elation Now run awry with our obligation to cooperate.
And the comfort that we used to find In our deep conversations about identity, In the time we dedicated to each other, In the agreement of our maturities,
Suddenly found itself shattered, confined, Lost under a realm of forced laughter and felicity, Where we no longer have time for each other, And fail to grant each other understanding.
How can I see that sparkle of your eyes again?
Blending Safa Carpenti
I write to forget and yet, to immortalize but still to remove from the pain of my mind.
As I draw the scene the emotion dissolves my ego unseen I find the cause of my amnesia, and discover the stolen me
The line for me is blurry what once was could never and could’ve been. I combine all three into on and infuse it in the sea.
And as I forget, I am broug to the ecstasy of creation and I lay here, my clones surround the space in, and I leave when it’s done, and return when I reread it.
The Beauty and Danger of Knowledge Andrea
Chocron
I’ve always lived on the edge of wanting to know more.
Even as a little girl, I was the one leaning across the dinner table, asking questions before anyone finished their sentences. I listened in on conversations I wasn’t old enough to understand, lingered by cracked doors, and demanded explanations for things I had no right to know yet. Curiosity felt like a constant ache; this pull toward answers that stayed just out of reach.
My parents loved how hungry I was for information, but they also believed in shielding me. Sometimes they answered gently. Sometimes they exchanged glances across the table and said, “Not now. ” And pushed anyway. Childhood for me was standing in front of a doorway where truth lived, stretching on my toes, trying to peek inside.
That was my first threshold: The space between knowing and not knowing, between the safety of innocence and the weight of understanding.
As I got older, I began to realize that not every answer is meant to be handed to you. Some things you grow into. Some things you learn through age, perspective, and timing; not curiosity. I learned that knowledge has a cost, and sometimes the price is a kind of heaviness you can’t return.
But today, that boundary, the one that used to protect us, has thinned. Social media dragged the door open long before we were ready. There is no “Not now” when every video, every headline, every raw and violent truth blares across a screen at any hour. October 7 showed that the threshold between innocence and exposure can be crossed without permission, without warning. The images, the comments, the hatred; none of it waited for us to be old enough, strong enough, or prepared.
We are a generation raised at the doorway, pushed through it too quickly.
And yet, I still find myself standing there, trying to understand the world I wasn’t meant to confront so soon. The threshold between knowing and not knowing hasn’t disappeared; it has just changed. It’s no longer about what I’m allowed to learn, but what I’m capable of holding.
And I’m still learning where that line is.
me
After years of struggle and anxiety e finally leave our beloved home.
Go on a permanent “vacation”
For the greatest luxury of all.
Showing our love by saying nothing ying to them as we are watched Hoping they will not pay for our flight.
Eager with anticipation - filled with sorrow aving the hell we loved goodbye eaching out to some sullen promised land.
e leave the first checkpoint
Exultation adulterated by trepidation and
Do they see and follow us still? ill they force us to return home?
Apprehensively approaching hardship , growth.
Free at last in a foreign world ienna - you are so beautiful
The Hinge of Light Sophia Marcushamer
There is a moment the world forgets to breathe; that slim, trembling seam between what was and what could be.
The hinge of light waits there, quiet as a held note, soft as dust rising from a book just opened. It glows not with certainty but with invitations. Touch it, and the shadows rearrange themselves. Listen, and you can hear the future pressing its ear against the door.
Thresholds do not demand courage; they simply unfold; a slow turning, a gentle unlatched hum; and we step through because the heart, curious creature that it is, leans toward brightness even before we know we’re moving.
And when the hinge of light swings wide, you find the world tilted slightly; not changed, but changeable, as if every doorway has been teaching you how to open.
The Bridge at Dawn Sophia Marcushamer
Noa walked to the small bridge by the water, every morning, just before the sun came up.
The one right by her house. The world was quiet there. The air felt soft.
She wasn’t alone.
On the other side of the bridge stood her best friend, Lior. She was always there.
Appearing in the light, glowing, as if the sunlight brought her back.
They didn’t talk about what happened on October 7th, the day everything truly changed.
Some things were too big for words; they weren't needed, they both knew.
Instead, they talked about the little things. How the sound of the waves were strong, the feeling of the cold air on their skin, the future they had planned, that felt like it was gone.
Every day, when the sun started to rise, Lior would take a small step back. The light made her look more hollow, like she was made of the mist of the cold.
“Noa,” she whispered, “you have to keep walking forward.”
Noa nodded, even though her heart felt crushed.
She wanted to stay on that bridge forever, in the quiet; in the threshold where she could still feel her friend close.
But the sun kept moving, and so did the world.
So one dawn, Noa took a deep breath and walked across the bridge alone.
And even though Lior faded along with the sunrise, Noa felt the warmth, like a help guiding her to what was to come.
She knew that was the thing about thresholds:
You can cross them, but you never leave the people you love behind you.
Psychoanalysis Lev Gaines
Entry 3: June 8th, 1976
“Speak of the devil and he shall reap what you sow, hm?”
The woman of tender eyes and refractory persistence peered at the young man before her.
“As charming as always,” She chuckled in mild amusement at the boy’s languid disposition; fiercely betrayed by transient glances and stilted limbs.
He smiled fondly, the gesture faintly outstretching to his eyes. Taking the seat propped across from the woman, eyes trailing rugged edges of the table; nimbly inspecting for a stunt in her tranquil expression. It was as if he were eyeing her for a misdirect; one he anticipated and condemned. One that would not come.
“This is our third session. Consider that a feat of its own.” He gave a curt nod in response, as the women adjourned to let the words settle in. “I believe it is time we divulge further. Do you mind enlightening me of your delusions?”
The man’s precipitous, vacant eyes and sweat-streaked neck appeared to regress his cerebral age; as if the same child drafted to war was a sentiment to his current appearance. His hands clasped in a rhythmic motion, the action stabilizing the drifted mind of his not-so-brawny temperament.
“Shots. Mostly auditory responses; nothing you haven’t been informed of.” His voice held a tone of prudent agitation; seeking to compose himself in front of the woman cognitively jotting his every flinch and riposte.
“True. However, it’s different ascertaining it from you I’m doing what I can for your
“Of the mistreat very soldiers that protec used to entrap them? Ye the case.” His hands sla quavering aluminum table, the reply came in that snarky timbre; the one she hadn’t seen much of, yet persisted to unravel. In all veracity, his attitude was rightful. Being convicted one month prior under suspicion of affiliation with drug cartels painted a not-sofetching picture of his future. A future that he doubtlessly didn’t conclude would endure only months prior. Gazing into those eyes convoluted with all the misfortune and tribulation to have roamed the Earth fragmented her heart in means she would avoid dissecting. After all, she was there to aid him in a shorter sentence, not sympathize aimlessly. Attachment to a strictly professional case would be the ruination of his sentencing and her career. No matter how his eyes fulgurated with that boyish intent her son at home carried. Even those bungling hands, pattering and thrumming restlessly, wouldn’t dissuade her. Couldn’t.
The mind is a fragile, serpentine domain of its own. It adheres by no laws, executes in ways only few can fathom. A soldier’s brain, however, is uncharted territory in many regards. No matter how many Vietnam soldiers the psychologist continues to scrutinize, she may never truly understand them. She can inscribe her findings; their PTSD, psychosis, circulatory and nervous system after effects, but she was never there. She would never truly decipher a reality so macabre where it was to kill or be killed. But as she examined the crippling form of the boy before her, she couldn’t help but attempt.
Attempt to delve into the threshold of the mind.
Almost, Not Yet, Becoming
Sabrina Jamri
Thresholds are the quiet moments when life begins to shift. They can be physical spaces like a doorway or emotional ones where you feel yourself moving from one stage to the next. I connect to this idea because I am standing in that space now, leaving the comfort of childhood and beginning to step into adulthood. It feels like being paused between two worlds, where what I am leaving behind and what I am moving toward both matter.
In my art, I explore this in-between place. I mix memories from my childhood with the person I am becoming today. Through color, layering, and small details, I bring forward the parts of my past that shaped me while also adding new ideas, experiences, and responsibilities that come with growing up. Each piece becomes another step across the threshold, showing that change is not sudden but something that builds slowly over time.
This theme helps me express what it feels like to be in transition. I am no longer who I was, but I am not fully who I will be either. I am learning to carry pieces of both versions of myself. Thresholds represent growth, movement, and the courage it takes to walk forward even when the future is still unfolding.
A New Threshold Gabriella
Gorin
What is college? Is it something to fear, something to be excited about, or both? How do we truly know what lies beyond the threshold our minds create? How do we truly know what lies ahead and what choice leads us to our best selves? We don’t know if it’s the right choice. We don’t, but we have faith in the fact that we know ourselves and where we belong. We have faith in a choice, a key that unlocks our next journey, four years spanning. A time in which we discover the parts of ourselves, and the new people that join our rollercoaster of life. But still, how do we know it’s the right choice? Faith and relying on others' experiences to get a grasp of the overall prism of facets that is college can only get you so far.
Focus on the life you imagine for yourself, focus on independence, creativity, and new meaning. What do you want the beginning of your adulthood to be? Where do you want to live, and what experiences do you want to feel? Where do your va what will you gain from the new friendships that wi you can answer these questions, but know that a fe the way are only a minuscule fraction of the journe take ownership of your life and permeate your surr new ideas, cultures, and conversations, some of wh have never thought of, like the chicken nuggets clu want to be, is the question on the minds of every h college student, and even beyond. As high schooler are not stuck, you don’t have to decide now, and w way to go before we reach the point of a career. No set and stone. But for now, we must walk through t from high school to college, choosing a path of mat ahead.
Get ready to transform into a more mature, more c individual who chooses to break beyond the small p the big pond of the future. Choose the decision tha take the giant leap. Find your passions, find your pe that everything may be scary now, but you will look perspective. We don’t know, it’s okay to be scared, the big pond of life, walk through that threshold, w mindset. It’s time to be the best version of yourself
sWith the deadline approaching Joy bites her lip
And furrows her brows She thinks: get a grip!
Joy’s 18th was a blast
She wishes it could last forever.
But that was six months ago
Now she reads forecasts of another city’s weather.
The imminent choice is essential
Joy knows this, yet she wonders If the door will remain open after she crosses
Or slam shut behind her, deafening, like thunder
Joy stops wondering, in fact
Her mind is blank
For the day is here
She makes her decision–she walks the plank
Her smile is brilliant, white, and feigned As Joy distantly watches her family and friends Bombard her with hugs, kisses, well-wishes, gifts…
Her breath is shaky, like the writing in the first letter home she sends
uddenly, Joy realizes it’s been four months away he lies on the soft, sun-lit quad ll in one piece, she notices, under the ery same sky he thinks: this might not be so bad
The Next Step
Maia Weitzman
I’m standing at a threshold now, still sorting out the when and how. The past stays with me when I move,
Something New Tamar Grobman
Cross the threshold over the snow-capped mountain to discover something grandiose and bold; something new.
Cross the threshold across the flowering meadow to discover something serene and blissful; something new.
Cross the threshold beneath of the canopies of the vast Amazon to discover something vivid and untamed; something new.
What is now and what once was become interchangeable over the course of the tedious journey across the threshold.
What is now and what once was become irrelevant so long as one discovers something new.
The Weight of Wings
Jeremy Dejman
From the sandbox days of sunlit ease, To halls that hum with restless pleas, The leap from child to something more, A world unlocked, yet a closing door.
Freedom sings like a siren’s call, New heights to scale, yet fears befall. Dreams stretch wide, ambitions soar, But each step feels like a quiet war.
The weight of wings, unseen but real, A promise of flight, a burden to feel. The world expects, demands, assumes, While self-doubt festers in quiet rooms.
Yet even here, where shadows creep, In moments brief, the soul may leap. A smile exchanged, a whispered cheer, A spark ignites, dispelling fear.
Through nights of doubt and days that ache, The heart finds rhythm, the soul its wake. Pressure molds, but it does not break, A diamond forms with each mistake.
So walk the path, though jagged, steep, With scars to show and dreams to keep. For every tunnel holds a gleam, A flicker of light, a daring beam.
And when the wings no longer weigh, But lift you toward a brighter day, You’ll know that freedom, hard-won, true, Was forged in the fire that burns in you.
Alexa Kattan Editor
Jeremy Dejman Editor
Safa Carpentieri Editor
Jason Touvi Chief Editor and Faculty Adviser
Nathan Schonfeld Editor-in-Chief
Andrea Chocron Writer
Bina Sragovicz Writer
Avichai Meisels Writer
Chloe Benharrouch Writer
Eli Kerbel Photographer
Dalia Aghion Artist
Emily Waich Writer
Lev Gaines Writer
Gabriella Gorin Writer
Maayan Lugassy
Artist
Sabrina Jamri Writer
Sophia Marcushamer
Writer
Tamar Grobman
Writer
*-m wishes to remain anonymous but is credited here for a writing contribution
** Those with a gold symbol on their pictures are also members of the National English Honors Society!
Mia Fishman Writer
Maia Weitzman Writer
Michelle Solomon
Writer Olivia Herschman Photographer
Noa Nahom Artist
Shira Sager Artist Sarai Levy Artist
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