Nostalgic! What a night! I recently had the great pleasure of attending my 25th class reunion of the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School.
Upon entering the Ohel David and Shlomo Synagogue in Manhattan Beach, I heard roars of laughter. The walls were decorated with blown-up photos of our classmates from our days in high school. A badge with my high school yearbook picture along with my maiden and married name was presented to me to be worn around my neck for the evening. I was immediately a girl of 18 again, taken back to my high school days! I found out many alumni had flown in from Israel, Texas, Michigan and Florida. Many more drove in from New Jersey and Manhattan. The majority of us still live in Brooklyn.
Cocktail hour was held from 6:30 to 8 pm in the lobby, where we were given the chance to try to recognize classmates we hadn’t seen for the past 25 years! Everyone was thrilled to see each other again.
At 8 pm the doors opened to the main ballroom where a full buffet dinner was set by Zami caterers. Round tables were set up with burgundy tablecloths and gold touches (reminiscent of the Flatbush colors). Pom-poms and megaphones were set out on each table with a journal containing the bios of our classmates, keeping us up-to-date on their lives and their many accomplishments.
More meeting and greeting took place, until we were asked to be seated. The lights went down and our very own class president, Avi Shapira, became our Master of Ceremonies for the evening. We had a moment of silence for two former classmates who had passed away and then a tehillim reading was recited by Abe Zami.
A list of our teachers who had passed on was read, leaving us all with tears in our eyes, as we remembered them dearly.
We watched, on a screen which was set up for this purpose, as members of the alumni committee interviewed our former teachers asking them if they had any thoughts about our very special class of 1983.
It was so nice to see that many of our teachers were still working in the yeshivah today, teaching some of our own children.
Finally, we took a trip down memory lane watching a montage of photographs of the class of 1983 throughout our four years at Flatbush. As you can imagine many bouts of laughter and outbursts were heard around the room. As if that wasn’t enough, our president went around to each table asking trivia questions from our fulfilling years at YOF. Each person who answered a question correctly was rewarded with a T-shirt.
It was a night of new memories—a fabulous time was had by all. Promises were made to keep in touch and old and new friendships were forged. We were presented with a knapsack, journal and a CD of the slideshow to take home as keepsakes.
For all of the alumni who couldn’t make it that night, you were truly missed. With G-d’s help, we would love to see everyone again in good health at our 50th!
