The Belfield Banter, Issue 5

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BELFIELD BANTER THE

Winter Rewind

Vol. 5

The St. Anne’s-Belfield School Student Newspaper

In This Issue:

A PERSONAL NOTE ON UKRAINE ON COVID-19 AND “PANDEMIC BRAIN” THEY/THEM (INFORMATIVE) LOCAL BUSINESSES: IVP and FRY’S SPRING (Part 1) CONVERSATIONS WITH COLLEGE COUNSELING AN ODE TO LETTER WRITING SCREENSHOTS OF LIFE SAINTS BASKETBALL: LOCKER ROOM ACCESS INAUGURAL SHOWCASE FEBRUARY OPEN MIC NIGHT A CONVERSATION WITH IGOR MILILIC FACULTY FEATURES: MS. HERRERO AND MS. BENEDICT EDITOR’S NOTE

A PERSONAL NOTE ON UKRAINE by Jack Dozier — Though I have always known that Judaism is part of my family’s diverse religious heritage, it is only in the past few years that I have learned that part of my family hails from Ukraine. Due to decades of American assimilationist culture and societal change, my Ukrainian roots were buried. However, as I have become more curious about life experiences and family members’ journey to becoming Americans, I’ve dug up these roots and become more knowledgeable about my family’s Jewish identity. Though the number of our family members who identify as Jewish has dwindled as people have aged, married people of other faiths, and become concerned about the rising hate crimes against people who identify as Jewish, my Jewish ancestry has become a personally significant part of my ethnocultural identity. To truly acknowledge my Judaism means to acknowledge my Ukrainian ancestors. My

great-grandfather, Carl Saltzman, was the last of my ancestors to come from Ukraine. We never met, but I’ve learned about our identity from my grandparents, great-aunt, parents, and, of course, the internet. Family lore about Carl is impressive. He was handsome, charismatic, possibly a race car driver, and fell in love with and married a woman who was Syrian and Catholic, my great-grandmother. Together they raised three children, the older of whom were bar and bat mitzvahed in the early 1950s, the youngest of whom (my grandmother) lost her father at a young age, and as a consequence, lost her connection to Judaism. My 84 year-old great-aunt and I spend a lot of time talking about family history and genealogy. Recently, she inspired me to go on a deep Wikipedia dive looking into the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, and its expansive history. It was hard to believe my parents’ stories of growing up in the 1980s at the tail end of the Cold War and how every TV or movie villain was KGB. We laughed about how the music I listen to sounds like their music from the 1980s, so why not a new Cold War? But, it’s not funny. I spent a lot of time looking at my phone this past week. It’s hard to focus on school and everyday life when you know civilians sleeping in their apartments are under siege and people are sending their children away to keep them safe. I can’t imagine the fear people who have close people in Ukraine are experiencing. Our friends in the U.S. military are unsettled and hopeful that this conflict will not escalate. I’ve witnessed Instagram posts about taking our COVID masks off just in time to see people’s reactions to World War III. Simply put, they are just not funny. Two weeks after my Wikipedia dive, I would see posts highlighting clouds of bombs destroying Kyiv. Accompanied by the disturbing haze settling over the city were posts about advocacy from major news outlets and individual activism accounts. Later-on that day, I was overwhelmed by a sea of recirculated posts and, eventually, found myself reloading a stream of news outlets to stay updated. By the end of the day, I found accounts that varied from semi-famous dogs, a globally renowned drummist, and local politicians making surface-level posts about “the situation in Ukraine.” I have little to offer, except a reminder that the majority of us have ties to somewhere else. It’s easy to wat-

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