The Official Newspaper of the Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys
Volume 19, Issue 3
Trivia Corner
Page 2
A Father and His Son
Page 3
Debate: Apple vs. Samsung
Page 4
Cooper Clicks
Page 6
Activity Page
Page 7
This weeks issue is sponsored by: Drs. Lindi and Ari VanderWalde in honor of the CYHSB Weekly Staff
To sponsor an issue and lend support to the next installment of the CYHSB Weekly, please reach out to Nadav.Lowell@mhafyos.org https://issuu.com/mrsashleybrown
@cyhsb_weekly
season. The players eagerly reunited, ready to showcase their improved skills and reignite their unity both on and off the court. The Cooper Macs are prepared to face any challenges ahead, determined to demonstrate the power of hard work and teamwork. While the Macs lost their
point performance, the team still holds a promising future. Everyone understands they will need to adjust to make up for the star player who is unfortunately not on the team this year. Though this year’s team may not match last season’s talent on paper, they Cont’d on next page.
Jack Kampf shooting a fee throw, Benny Freiden and Jonah Siegel looking to see if it went in. Photo by: JJ Stein
Cont’d fom previous page. have several underrated skills that could surprise many and prove that hard work can outshine talent.
Returning for his junior year, the starting point guard for the Macs is Jack Kampf. After an impressive sophomore season, where he led the team to a stunning victory over MTA in the Memphis Invitational, Kampf spent his summer honing his handles in his garage and shooting in his driveway. Many are optimistic that his leadership will help bring the team together and steer them to success.
Next up is shooting guard Daniel Kahane, who is expected to have a breakout season. After a challenging freshman year, Kahane spent the summer training at Step It Up Basketball Camp, where his hard work earned him a spot on this year’s roster. His improvements are clear, and he has shown the potential to be an important asset to the team.
This season’s small forward is rookie Gavi Lichter. Although he opted out of the team last year in order to completely focus on his basketball skills and fine tune
Trivia Corner
Yom Kipper Edition
his gameplay, he is now ready to prove himself. Even though it’s his first year of organized basketball, he is eager to showcase his growth and value to the team.
Power forward, Benny Freiden, returns after a remarkable season last year during which he managed to secure a last- second victory at the Red Sarachek Tournament in New York. Hopefully Freiden will continue to assist the team with his capacity to play in high pressure scenarios.
Rounding out the starting lineup is center Ethan VanderWalde, who has the challenging task of fi shoes of his cousin, Yosef. However, Ethan is determined to put in the work and live up to his position despite the anchor that is his workload that’s holding him back from unleashing his full potential.
Off the bench, Jonah Siegel brings an array of skills, particularly in finishing around the basket, that he practiced during the offseason. Eli Weisfogel, who gained experience last year, is optimistic about seizing his moment in the spotlight. Additionally, Gedalia
Last Issue: Answer: Condor. Winner: Benjamin Schubert
What Jewish garment is only donned at Yom Kipper night, and no other nights?
First one to email Yitzy.Ryp@mhafyos.org gets a shout out in the next issue!
working tirelessly over the offseason to bring the team together to succeed. Along with the coaching staff is Rabbi Grunwald who, despite his responsibilities as the head of the Memphis Kollel Torah Mitzion, managed to sacrifice his time for the team and accompany them on two trips during the previous season. Despite losing some key players, this year's Macs remain optimistic about their future. As a cornerstone of the Memphis Jewish community for years, this team is ready to carry on the tradition and make their many supporters proud.
Cooper Clicks
Top Right: Cooper Macs hard at work training. Middle: CYHSB students learn about Boots for Israel.
Bottom Left: CYHSB learns about the Soroka medical initiative in Israel.
On April 1st, 1976, the world changed forever. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had created what would soon become the largest tech company in the world, revolutionizing technology. They created Apple Computer, Inc., with the goal of inventing a computer which could be used virtually anywhere a notion which had been perceived as impossible only a few years earlier. By 2011 they had become the largest tech company in the world. Since then, they have continued to create transformative technology for the masses and shown repeatedly why they are considered the best technological company in the world.
While Apple is the biggest company in the world, there is one company that is seen as their competitor in the technology industry Samsung. This tech company manufactures a large variety of technology, from phones to refrigerators, and is considered by some to be “better” than Apple. These claims are completely false as those who defend Samsung will use factually false, insignificant, or irrelevant facts to support their claims.
One of these arguments is that Samsung is generally cheaper than Apple. Samsung’s products are cheaper than the Apple’s as the iPhone 16 Pro Max ranges from $1200 to $1600 while the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is around 1300
dollars. iPhones can be more expensive, but you can still buy the best iPhone for less than the best Samsung. The reason that Apple has the ability to be considerably more expensive is because there are more iPhone versions of the same model and you can pay more if you want more storage. Ultimately, how much you pay for an iPhone is up to you. If you want to get the base phone it costs the same, but based on the amount of customization you want have to pay a bit more.
Some argue that Samsung phones have a better battery life than Apple phones do. In the past, it may have been true as it had been that Apple would use smaller batteries while Samsung used larger batteries so they would have a longer battery life. However, Apple moved away from that and the batteries nowadays are much more efficient. Samsung, on the other hand, still has larger batteries than Apple, but this doesn’t make any difference because Apple's software and hardware is more energy efficient causing the battery life to be similar. On top of that, because of Samsung’s larger batteries, their phones have less room for the hardware needed and will take up more room in your pocket than if they had used smaller batteries such as those Apple uses.
Anyone that is informed in the matter would know that despite Samsung’s outrageous
claims, Apple has a superior environmental plan. As opposed to Samsung having some of the highest carbon emission rates in the tech industry, Apple has maintained a small carbon footprint. This is partly because Apple has made their packaging 95% fiber 70% of which is recycled. Another reason as to why Apple is much more environmentally friendly is due to Apple’s refurbishment policy and the iPhone’s durability. Additionally, in 2022 Apple stated that “20% of all material shipped in products in 2022 came from recycled and renewable sources.” These proofs support the fact that aside from Apple being far superior to Samsung in many other ways, there is significant evidence supporting Apple’s environmental policies. Apple is clearly the best tech company in the world for many reasons and Samsung can’t compare. All arguments used against Apple look reasonable on the surface but if you dig a little deeper they tend to fall apart quickly revealing false, irrelevant, or insignificant facts. Apple has shown to have similar pricing and battery life with better software and hardware, it is also substantially more eco friendly than Samsung has ever been. There is no question Apple is superior in almost every way.
Debate: Apple
Omer Zalman (’27)
Imagine you wake up in a dungeon. Before you are two doors: an old brown door, and a modern door. Behind the brown door is a large minimalist house, and behind the modern white door is a large modern house. The large minimalist house is very customizable, you can add more doors or rooms to it, or knock down walls; the design is in your hands and you can do anything with it. Meanwhile, in the modern house, the furniture is welded to the floor and the walls, only certain details can be changed, and even if you were going to change these details, the price to do so would be exorbitant, and you would have to go to a specific store.
and feels of Samsung can be changed: Do you want lower resolution? Just go to the settings menu, there is no limit to the customization you can have. Meanwhile, Apple has many problems with customization. As an iPhone user, one of the big problems of customization I see are the pop-up notifications, which you can’t turn off ! I don’t care if my phone has 20% battery, I just want the pop-up notifications to stop; maybe if I switch to Samsung it would stop…?
vs. Samsung
These houses represent Apple and Samsung. Samsung is customizable, with the ability to remove or add parts if you want, and it's more functional. On the other hand, Apple is difficult to work with, you can’t change the parts of the devices and going to an Apple store is very expensive. These represent some of the main problems of Apple devices: Customization, affordability, software compatibility, and performance.
One of the biggest areas that Samsung prides itself on is customization. It is easy to change parts of a Samsung in minutes using their repair kit. Not only that, but the looks
Afordability: If you have been using Apple for a long time, you would know that there are a lot of things that Apple overcharges for. They mark up items by 20% up to 80%. In addition, you are going to have many problems with repairs. To repair your Apple device, you have to go to their stores, where you will be greeted by their employees, who overcharge you and sometimes treat you badly CBC, the Canadian version of BBC, discovered that Apple employs deceptive and controversial business tactics: when they brought a broken phone to get repaired by genius bar, the cost of the repair was extremely high and costed more than just to get a new device. CBC then went to a repair shop and found that the repair only cost around $20. On the other hand, Samsung is relatively easy to repair. You can either get a new part online, ship it back to Samsung, or use their repair kit.
Another problem most Apple devices have is software compatibility. Apple devices have problems with finding functional software in the App Store. I enjoy playing video games such as Minecraft on my phone and it is a good experience. However, once I got bored of minecraft and tried switching to other games, I came up pretty dry. For most app developers, it is difficult to make apps for Apple since their operating system is hard to work with. As a result, the most essential apps that are used on a day to day basis are not available on Apple devices. On a related note, in Apple's WWDC 23, they announced new games for the Mac, yet the games they showed couldn’t be run on Mac, which was a big disappointment to Apple’s gaming community. Meanwhile, Samsung computers can run almost all of the apps that are available to Apple and more. Performance: Samsung reigns supreme in this category. To test whether Apple or Samsung has more efficient performance, we ran a benchmark test to measure the performance of the CPU and GPU in Apple’s and Samsung’s best processors and GPUs. As of 2024, Apple’s best GPU is the A18 Pro, as opposed to Samsung for Samsung is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Our results were unsurprising: Apple had a better energy efficiency, but in every single other category, Samsung dominated.
A Father and His Son
Rafi Goldkin (’25)
A huge mevakeish Hashem who was killed during the Holocaust at the Trawniki concentration camp was the Piaseczna Rebbe. They found a note that he wrote on his 40th birthday which exemplified his immense yearning to serve Hashem. It wrote “What shall I undertake for this occasion? To learn more? I believe that every minute possible I learn, I do not waste any time. To stay away from desire? If my evil inclination is not fooling me, then I believe that I am not ruled by my cravings. So what am I lacking? Simply to be a Yid ( Jew ) ! Ribbono Shel Olam , You who know and behold all that's hidden, to You I confess and beg; I am cast away and far from You and Your palace. I simply wish to convert and become a Yid.”
went after my evil inclination and now I realize that it was worth nothing. I am sorry and just want to come back to You. I just want to be a Yid again.”
Rabbi Yehoshua Nissan, one of the Rebbeim in the Memphis
A son jumps into his fathers arms. Source: Chabad.org
Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Toras Chochom in Yerushalayim writes that aside from the basic obligations of teshuva (repentance), teshuva means to return to Hashem and to live with Him by your side. Rav Itche writes that teshuva is very simple. All you need to do is come before Hashem and say, “Hashem, I made a mistake. I
A king sent his son to a faraway mountain village. The prince possessed no knowledge of how to live in a mountain village in poverty, but eventually, he became accustomed to it all; The mud huts that everyone lived in, the squalor that he had to deal with, and the terrible manners of the people all around him. After a few months of living there, he had adapted
and almost become one of them, yet he still could not figure out how to get his mud hut quite right. Every time it rained, his house would cave in and come crashing down. The king wanted to see how his son was doing, so he decided he would travel through the town. The custom was that whenever the king would ride by, anybody could throw a request on a small piece of paper up onto the carriage and hope the king would read it. So the news spread and the day of the king's arrival came. As the king rode through the town in his carriage, elegantly garbed, and cleanly pressed, he eagerly looked for his son in the throng of peasants until at last, he found him. His son started sprinting through the crowd to his father and at the last second, threw a note on top of the stack of other notes on the carriage. The king pushed aside all the other notes, grabbed the note from his son, read it, and began crying. It read, “Please, my king, build me a better mud hut that can withstand the rain.”
Sometimes, we have the enormous opportunity in front of us to just return home. Yet we often forget that it is our
Father who is extending his hand to us to come back to him. Instead, we focus on mundane and unimportant things such as our mud huts. If we just returned home, and said sorry to our Father in Heaven, we wouldn’t need to build our mud huts. Hashem is waiting for us with outstretched arms, waiting for his only child to return home and hug him closely.
If one were to watch a reunion of a father and a son after a long time of being apart, one would be able to feel the excitement and happiness in the air. A reunion between a lost one and his parent is a moment of immense and incomparable delight. Why should returning to Hashem be any different? It should be fi with just as much simcha (happiness) as any other reunion, if not more.
Rav Itche writes that many people are unsuccessful in their teshuva because they are looking at it the wrong way. They think it's a time of sadness, crying, and depression. He writes that there is no place for any of this in the teshuva process. If a son returns to his father, apologizes, and begins to act correctly, immense happiness will fill the house and there will be a renewed relationship between father and son.
Rav Itche writes further that teshuva needs to be a mindset of, “I merited to be one of Hashem's children! How great is this opportunity my Father
has placed before me! Surely I should return home and be happy that my Father is so forgiving and still loves me.”
A week ago, on Shabbos Shuva, I had the opportunity to partake in a bris milah. On a deep level, it was a spiritually moving event, witnessing a newly born Jew, entering into G-ds covenant and declaring
Hashem. At Neilah, the peak of Yom Kippur, and the end of the 10 Days of Repentance, we seal our covenant with Hashem. We resolve to keep the relationship with our Father that we developed over Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. We are happy now that we live with Hashem and are able to declare ourselves one of His children. A
The one-year mark of October 7th. It is a commonly discussed topic. How many hostages have been released? What actions are the Israelis taking now? Does the president support them? These are questions raised by our teachers, speakers, and across social media. We say Shir Hamalot and other prayers every day at the conclusion of services, but we don’t even know what we’re focusing on anymore. “Israel,” a student might answer. “For the soldiers,” another might recite. It is our responsibility to change this. We should not only read the CYHSB Weekly to view the points, opinions, and school life but also reflect on the active situation across the world. Not to pause our lives or wait for the conflict to end, but to be conscious and active both in our local lives and for those abroad.
