Small clusters of students would stand huddled together to hear the latest bit of gossip from the front lines. Some would be sweating profusely, pacing back and forth wondering if their hiding spots for illegal contraband would thwart the Rabbis, beis medrish guys and spies planted within the underclassman’s ranks to seek out and discover the forbidden stuff brought into the dorm. Some students would result to that age old fear elixir called prayer, during these times you could always see someone shuckeling extra fast with fists raised to the air begging God to spare them their CD collections or cigarettes stuffed inside their toiletries bag, pounding extra hard for silach lanu was nice, but rarely ever worked to keep the snoopers at bay.
Most things would be found, confiscated and in the middle of English classes random students would be removed for further questioning, leading to shtender banging mussar talks about the evils of masturbation, secular music and smoking, school suspensions, kenasim (fines) and of course the dreaded expulsions which seemed to be a regular occurrence after the dreaded yeshiva room searches.
It always seemed to happen at times when we students actually needed to be in the dorm, like after shabbos when we had off and wanted to take the backyard for a game of basketball or to one of the several legal hangouts like the mall or bowling alley- as long as the girls school wasn’t at one of them that night. Instead we would all be dressed in our shabbos attire trying to peek into the stairwells where sentries were present usually wielding some sort of sefer and leaning on a portable shtender, that could be transferred to other stairwells if the crowds got to violent. We would try and garner small pieces of news from these unmovable guys hired to protect the identity of snitches and from seeing any contraband that was confiscated.
Folks who knew their days were numbered, would call home and already have reservations on the next train or plane home. They would kick themselves for being careless, because shabbos was definitely the time to lose track of thought in regards to keeping your contraband well hidden. The Rabbis went home and the dorm usually became a drunken free for all with stories of dodging Rabbis and meeting girls in Woodbourne for a night of Dougies and Kiamesha Lanes.
Then all of the sudden during one of the weekly musar shmuzim between shalosh suedos and maariv, someone would mention that a room search was about to go down, which made everyone switch their thoughts from the multiple sins they did according to whomever was speaking to hopes and prayers that they didn’t look in their cereal boxes or under the mattresses for dirty magazines.
Then as soon as it began it was over, the clusters dispersed and everyone ran upstairs to gauge the damage. Like Hurricane Katrina the damage was not always evident at first. Many folks forget what exactly they had that was not allowed in the first place. Was it a novel that had failed the “kosher novel test” that was shown to us on the first day of school during the assembly that all had to attend. To test a book, one would let the book open to any page, the Rabbis would say that most books would open to the most read page in the book, which was always some raunchy sex scene, and therefore pasul the book.
Then other folks would discover that their fool proof hiding spots were not fool proof at all. Like the multiple readily known porn magazine hiding spots, freezers, removable ceiling panels, cereal boxes, single pages folded and placed into pockets, shoes and other small areas, mattresses- under and inside ripped open pockets, gemaras, and behind radiators are all well known amongst folks in the yeshiva system.
Other folks would find a pile of broken CD’s and tapes, it was almost like a ransacked house search without a warrant. You know the movies when the couple comes home to find everything flipped over and broken, and cannot figure out if anything was actually removed. I always felt that way after room searches, though I was a pretty good boy in high school and never had anything too bad.
Then, like all environments in which men reside, came the victory stories. The stories of narrow escapes, and great hiding spots and tips of course. This was like the “after bar fight” in which both sides like to tell of their heroism.
There were always a few folks who were sleeping through the shmuz and were able to sense the inherent danger and remove questionable items to a safer location, usually a friendly beis medrish guy willing to borrow the item for a few hours. Then there were those that abandoned ship and just through the items out into the street in order to save them for later retrieval. Then there were always a couple Paul Reveres in the bunch who were able to get the word out to their close companions by signaling to the unknowing shmuz listeners that all hell was about to break loose upstairs, and they better come before it was too late. Then you have the guys, who slipped past the already expanding search party by claiming they had just woken up, and who had just placed large amounts of magazines, books, CD’s and possibly drugs in their pockets to find a better spot somewhere- that would not reveal the owner of the stash.
The next day always be interesting, sometimes you already knew some folks were goners based on the stack of luggage placed near the exit to the school. You had those folks who would negotiate a better deal and return, but many folks after being through many yeshivas would just become what most folks called “off the derech” even though reading pornography and listening to secular music is hardly so. Then you had the folks who for one reason or another gotten off without punishment, these were usually referred to as the folks who paid full tuition. This phenomena is an increasing in the yeshiva system, a system where rising prices have caused families to scramble for scholarships making the full tuition crowd highly sought after, even if it means trouble for the other students.
Have any stories about room searches in your yeshiva days? I would love to hear about them.
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Gee, thanks for ruining my perfectly good day by filling me with rage by reminding me of my god awful dorm days.
Seriously, I’m seething with fury right now!
Dude- Rabbi D has a basement full of stolen crap. I wonder if halacha really allows for “confiscation”. I took my stereo back from Danny G(via a trip to Rabbi D’s house with one of his boys, they didn’t care) who was dorm counselor for a while (I was listening to WCMF) . Better dorm counselors would take us to movies, get us beer and smokes, and understood the fine line of good behavior in return for not being a prick!
Mr. G (upstairs from Jacob da Jew)
such harsh bans on something only make it cooler to break these bans. it’s similar to how weed and alcohol isn’t as big a deal in european countries where it’s legal (and where alcohol being legal for younger ages). maybe if there wasn’t such a strict “no no” on all of this “contraband”, then the yeshiva boys wouldn’t go so nuts for it. or at least they could whack off in peace…
I am ashamed to say that i once snitched on a guy for having porn- but there were extenuating circumstances-i really wanted to read the porno but at the same time was not up to that level of horniness and unholiness, so it was like tell someone so that i wouldnt just read it. talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! The searches were amusing. My yeshiva usually would not chuck a guy just for being horny, you had to also be an all around punk. the stuff that got confiscated was always interesting. There was this one time when on a Rosh Hashana that fell out on a shabbos a klepto kid stole like 500$.
That was freaking wild. The poor kid was stupid enough to leave it in his room. At the same time some other kid got busted with a bb gun. the putz waltzed out after rosh hashana was over with everone all suspicious and went bottle shooting. Yes those were the times my friend I wish they would never end where having a Sports Illustrated was like some college kid with really good weed-it was guarded like a bank, with strict usage policies. “You leave it in the bathroom and a rabbi gets it i ‘ll focking kill you” was the common refrain. I love New York!
Well you know the whole thing about not bearing a grudge and how its real bad, so I forgive you man. I never snitched, and all I ever got taken away from me were bike magazines that happened to have women wearing spandex in some of the pictures.
We used to get magazines in the mail and after the secretary was done with them it looked like someone had used them for scrap booking, in fact the only uncensored mags we could have were readers digest and Smithsonian.
The Beis Medresh guys were like the Fucking KGB. We had to dream up the most wild and exotic hiding places for our porn and cigarettes or they would smell us out.
If any of you have noticed I tried to keep the yeshiva name and hanhala out of this, I have been contacted several times and asked to take down posts which told the truth, but of course in the world of the Bush administration the truth is too hard to handle.
Please respect my wishes and leave names and places out if you know the yeshiva I am talking about.
I remember when I was dorm counselor. Oh the fun I had! One of my fondest memories was taking away this kids Greenday album, I think it was Dookie. I decided to really fuck with his head and emotions. So I took the cd and rubbed it up and down on the bricks outside of the window!!! LOLOLOL!!!! Rendering it completely useless!!!!!!! I then handed it back to him and and said with an evil smirk, “Dont let me see it again!” Good times! Good times!
bla
this story brings me back to the days when i was in yeshiva. although i did not dorm i lived these same memories with all the guys that did. mainly because i was a supplier, hahah. yo man, you know who this is. just wanted you to know i do read your crazy blogs that you spend countless number of hours on my computer writing instead of hanging out with me . hahahaha…. when you commin back, i always got a bed for you sweet thang
The Rabbis from my Yeshivas still owe me a whole bunch of radios, books, a hand-held TV, colored shirts, some CDs and even a role of film (don’t ask!).
Hesh, i reach down for a newspaper to read for my usual leisurely morning seder crap, and what came up? An f’ng porno! Back then it was like dynamite to me, (very sad) probably kind of like when engaged self righteous jews “accidentaly” brush against each other. Noone knows what to do with themselves!
Dude that sounds like one of those dreams when you win a million bucks, when I was in yeshiva that what it would have been like- reaching for a paper and finding a porno, although in my school some of them kids read some awful stuff.
I remember stories circling around of some kids who liked the whole fat black women thing and even gay porn.
I knew this girl who used to help sneek in contraband into the yeshiva were I go to school. Whenever one of the Rabbi’s daughters would invited us to one of the Yeshivah’s yom tov parties she would bring with her a newpaper incased it rained and leave it there. The newpaper usually had some advertisments for a department stores sale on women’s undergarments.
That is disgusting. What an invasion of privacy!!
No Yeshiva I ever went to had a dorm search program. Things like non-Jewish music and smoking werent even forbidden, just discouraged.
Never went to a NY yeshiva though…
there were really room raids?? how intrusive
Well how else would you lay down the law? I mean they were really after drugs and porn, two things which as any of you who went to a yeshiva high school with a dorm know, are rampant
What would you suggest they do?
Oh and they used to open up your mail as well, and if a girl sent you the letter- I am aging myself here- the Rosh Yeshiva would call you into his office and read it out loud to you for embarrassment purposes.
That’s sad. Nurit, I also knew someone who did something similarly, but not on purpose. Some cousin of one of the guys at the yeshiva closest to me brought in a newpaper full of advertisements unknowingly picked it up from a secular person’s recyclables and it full of half dressed women because it was raining and yom tov, and left it on the table and the guy who’s cousin it was got in big trouble.
Ah the good old days of using the JC Penny under wear ads instead of porn.
Crapchester USA dude.
I never had any real contraband….just some smokes and the sort, but only good time brother….good times
dude there was one time where i was fed up with all the crap that had been take from all of us and i broke into one of the rabbis offices late at night adn i remember we where looking fro the porn and hand held tvs but only ended up witha grbage bag full of cds, which i gues where slated for sale to record archive.
i’m still trying to face the fact that guys in the yeshiva really look at porn. I know I know “im so naive”…get over it.
Flatbush: Are you serious? If you look at the average yeshiva high school curriculum you will notice that the whole point of a black hat yeshiva is to et you to stop masturbating, I mean over 50% of the mussar shmuzim I heard were related to not looking at naked women which included women wearing pants or red shirts.
Dammit, I always imagined yeshivas as these holding houses for angelic young boys, ready to marry and procreate… And now you’re telling me there was porn?! I actually am a little disillusioned
Hey I only know my yeshiva, not all yeshivas are they same- but remember we are talking about 14-18 year old boys in a all boys environment.
Imagine trying to get peoples minds off of food by starving them to death, it just doesn’t work. Then again many guys would just resort to underwear ads as mentioned above.
so the guy i end up with most probably will have had some stashes of porn at some point in his life? yuck. do u think he’d lie if i asked him?
Flatbush gal, there’s probably a hundred percent chance of that. Only now instead of stacks of magazines, its gigabytes of porno video files with tasty categories like fisting, double penetration, bootfucking, cum drenched, anal creampie, interracial zaniness. You get the idea. Guys have needs that you will NEVER understand. I openly admit that I look at porn. What’s creepier than a guy looking at porn, is something called a spank rolodex. Basically the best masterbation fantasy a guy can have is when he conjures up a whole erotic scenario in his head involving a girl that he knows. Usually girls in the spank rolodex are past hookups. But it could also be coworkers, friends, family friends, crushes etc. Listen Flatbush Gal, if you aren’t hideously ugly then there’s a very good chance that your in someones spank rolodex. If you’re actually good looking then you’re probably in quite a few of em. Some guy might be trying to crank one off right now while thinkin about lil’ flatbush gal bobbin up and down on his lap. The spank rolodex! Flatbush gal, that’s much creepier than a guy looking at porn. Face it, all guys do both. If they don’t, then they probably just love cock.
Hey Flatbush Gal, by the way. ASL????
Who says gay guys don’t have spank rolodexes?
Glad your back Mr Ice Horse- but please if you could please keep the raunch away from the site- I am trying to have a rated pg13 gig here.
The hell? Keep it to yourself Ice Horse.
I’ve never even heard of a “spank rolodex”.
Also, I never had porn in yeshiva. Some guys had car mags (with the pretty girls posing on the hood) or celeb pinups, but never outright porn.
HAHAHAHA!!!! I Love u Ice Horse! omg spank rolodex is so funny- esp since its true- I prob am in like a million of them!
Also flatbush gal- seriously ive known ALOT of guys in my life- every last one has seen porn- all guys do and surprise surprise many girls do too. So yeah its like 99% that ur husband will have seen it.
Btw yeshiva guys didnt stop at porn…phone sex i hear was big too
Relax Hesh! Its not like I’m posting pictures of Flatbush Gal and I playing wheelbarrel!
Jenn, do you mean phone sex line services? Or listening to Malkie over the phone while she’s touching herself?
Hot Damn! This thread is getting outta control!
Seriously, F-Gal, you need to get out more. Porn is out and about.
yes i know its out and abt im not retarted i just didnt know it was so common i thought things went down a bit more like the way jojo described thats all.
oh whoops uh 16, F, NY
iCE hORSE, why dont ya take a seat over there…..
whoa, when did this blog become so illicit? I remember when I found out yeshiva guys were just as dirty minded as secular guys. I was at another college’s library and I noticed a few seats away some guy from yeshiva was on the computer. I look closer and I notice he was watching a youtube video with scantily clad women. I freaked about it and asked my other frum friends if they had ever heard of porn and yeshivas, and it turns out it’s a problem at almost every yeshiva.
Look Jacob, I don’t think Flatbush Gal needs to get out more at all. I think it’s just dandy for her to stay in her sheltered fluffy lil Flatbush velt. Ignorance is bliss. She just has to understand that this blog is about keepin it real. Look Flatbush Gal, to be honest with you I didn’t really look at that much porn in high school. One major problem was the roommate situation. It was really very difficult to bust out a porno mag and hock the chaynik with your roommate reading in his bed on the other side of the room. I think that’s why the SPANK ROLODEX came in handy. I would have sweet thoughts while humping my pillow. I think a couple of times my roommates caught on and figured out what I was doing. On those times I stopped dead in my tracks and got a nasty set of blue balls. ? But I think another part of it were the works of Rabeinu Yonah, the Shaarei Teshuvah. When I was in eighth grade my Rebbe used to give a little chaburah on Shaarei Teshuvah. He once got to a part where it said that if you look at a girl in her nakedness, you lose your chailek in Olam Haboh and are banished to Gehennom for all eternity. L’oilam voed! I then broke into a cold nervous sweat. You see when I was in sixth and seventh grade I was all about the playboy, penthouse, barely legal. Some guys in my school used to shoplift them from the drug store and then cut out the pages to distribute them to the entire class. I would take my precious pages home and put them in my combination box (613 of course!). Anyways, I loved the porn but I didn’t want to lose my chailek in Olam Haboh and I defiantly didn’t want to spend an eternity in hell, especially since I heard that Medrash about how you sit there and just boil in a room full of your own spooge. I was an easily influenced little eighth grader with loads of Yiras Shamayim so I just kinda listened to whatever my Rebbe told me and let in sink in. So for 9th, 10th and most of 11th grade I really didn’t look at any porn. Honest to g-d! Finally in at the end of my junior year someone introduced me to porno videos……..Now I’m an adult well into my 20s that has a mind of my own and I probably spend close to 3 hours a week watching porn videos online, maybe an additional hour or 2 going through the spank rolodex.
why the heck should i know what goes on at yeshivas its not like i ever go to any stop pretending it should be common knowledge.
Humping your pillow!? For real?
Freakin hell IH, you rank amongst the horniest guys I ever met.
And I’m being serious when I say there was no porn. Did you go to a NY yeshiva? I never liked New Yorkers. They rub me the wrong way. (Pun partially intended.)
No, what I mean is that NY/NJ yeshiva guys rank amongst the most secretive in their desires and how over the top they go with them (hence the “actual porn mags in yeshiva bit). I think it relates to how theres so many Jews and therefore since its all so frum you have an outside image to keep up which contrasts with how you let loose. Extreme ends and all that.
I’ve never been anywhere where we had an image to keep up which keeps us more grounded.
Anyone understand what I mean?
Jojo, first of all I’m not from NY and I do hump my pillow. I straddle my pillow while I’m naked under the covers with a sock over my dong so I don’t get all messy when I come. I grind the pillow up and down while prentending its someone that I wish I was boning.
See, I don’t know if you’re being sardonic.
You probably are, but thanks for the mental imagery anyway.
You’ve just made my “spank rolodex”.
Jojo, I’m not being sarcastic one bit. I still hump my pillow until this day. But because I don’t have roommates I’m a lot more liberal in regard to how I do it. Sometimes I’ll even straddle my pillow while I’m sitting in front of the computer.
I take care of business the old fashion way – good ol’ fists of fury! It’s my wife who’s the pillow humper in our family. She lays face down on top of her pillow, and she rubs off against it, making the bed rock and creak back and forth very noisily.
Alright, point made.
*shakes head*
Also, I said sardonic, not sarcastic. Look it up.
Attention everyone!!! I would like to publicly apologize to Jojo for mixing up the word sardonic and sarcastic. Jojo is clearly more worldly and educated than I.
His vocabulary is amazing and his dick is probably longer than mine.
Even better, every time I correct someones spelling my dick grows several cm. Correcting grammar adds inches at a time.
wow Jojo! What an amazing gift you have. Just keep me in check for a few more months and you may be able to audition for freaksofcock.com
Oh, thats my plan. You will make me rich, young one. Sadly, I can’t use the goldmine that is Hesh, as he has a disclaimer. *shakes fist*
JOJO if using me involves me making money as well, you should email me, I like to b used for money.
This thread get even more disturbing…
yup-u are all goin to hell. and I never looked at porn
Nuch A Loser- unless you have a desk job like the rest of us, you must be a big loser for sitting here and commenting all the time.
Frum Satire does a big mitzvah for the frum community- he makes thousands of us LAUGH at good natured things like this posts, have you even read any other posts, or you are a new comer that is bothered by his popularity and high ranking in the blog world.
If you have nothing intelligent to say- get the fuck out of here.
Ice Horse…yeah i was talking abt the chatting with malkie scenario not the #900 scenario- LOL…and im not sure i can look at my pillow the same way again….ick
Flatbush Gal, you got any brothers?
I’m reading this thread, and I don’t know if the comments here are representative, but like, I don’t think the yeshiva repression thing is really working that well.
What do you mean not working that well. Are you basing that off of 58 comments by folks you do not know? How about the thousands of folks who went through the yeshiva system and turned out fine?
Im gonna kick it Ol school for a bit.I just Feel that a blod/thread like this is really the only way to get back at those bastards in that school.The point of a yeshiva is to show you how to live,Those people in fact showed us how not to live.I mean you need to build relationships with studentsin order to mold them .aThey made me distrust rabbis for a long time.The bais Medrish guys I felt never could be trusted .I felt if there was one that was a little cool, he would still bust you in a minute tolook good to you know who.I mean kids today are doing Crazt stuff ,you should only be so lucky if porn and goyish music are your only issues.Fortunitly for me after getting kicked out I led a life of crime and drugs for five years.I blame that partially on that crappy school.In fact almost evrt kid i know who went “off the derech “went there at some point.Ill tell you the truth I saw a Bais medrish guy a few years ago.When I was 14 he gave me a concussion forlauaghing at him when he slipped on some gravel outside the base and cracked his 2 front teeth.I was with a big group of kids ,he singled me out andslammed my head into the wall.I promosed myself if I saw him I would get him back.When I saw him I went over to him ,(now im 6 inches taller than him) ,and I said “do you remeber me?”He nodded I explained to him that i could easily beat the ^&$&^$ out of him but I am not like him and I dont pick on people that are soo much smaller than me.He really had nothing to say…..I still wish I dropped him.And this was one of the nicer BM guys ……..Laughable ,really.
Hey thenerve, think a blog is the only way to get back at that school???? You gotta be kidding me
The nerve 95.1 95.5- good commercials
I loved the way the Nerve used to dog on classic rock
No but its not like you can go over to a chain smoking Rosh Yeshiva and Slap him.Ya know?Trust me I did pretty crazy things in that school to “get back” at that Yeshiva.But you dont really get a chance to express yourself.
A few classics:
The chain smoking Rosh yeshiva confiscating my smokes, I smoked the same brand he did. I didn’t bother hiding them, he would randomly ask me for them, he knew they were in my pocket.
He never found my Ozzy, Maiden, or GNR tapes, I kept them in my Tefillin bags, one of the places they NEVER check, as the tefillin were usually not in the room.
Best of all:
Lubab schools have bigtrime boozer Farbrengens, once the hanhala were drunk and asleep, we would raid the left over scotch and transfer it into Gingerale bottles, they never figured out hot we kept getting tipsy everytime we went to the “toilet” in midle of shiur.
Worst of all:
The guys that hid their shit in the roomates clothes, when the search went down all hell broke loose.
Wow, interesting page on an interesting site. I don’t know that all my dorm search memories would fit in one post, but I recall some interesting ones. I’m midway oldschooler here by the way. 89-93. My junior year a friend who would go up to the 4th floor found a good stash up there. We found out who it belonged to and moved it just to scare him. It worked. If it was you, and you’ll know who you are, sorry about that. It was a good stash too. I survived all the raids since I never kept much local. I wish I could pass on the good spots, but besides not remembering them, I’m sure the building has changed since I was there. Heh, do they still make you write “words” as punishment? Reb Baruch used to love making me do the words since I outright refused to pay knasim as I told him it was gnavah and I wouldn’t do it. We all gathered for the day Yoshi Powers handed in his 100,000th word. I’m not sure, but I think he actually made it to a million as well. (Words were a form of punishment we had – you had to copy anywhere from 250 to 2500 or so words from some Jewish text based on your transgression) Yoshi used to write them in artwork form. You know, create pictures out of the words for fun. Those were the days. I remember the day Rabbi D called me into the office because I had received something from Playboy. Still not sure what it was, but I convinced him, and proved it, that they had simply bought my name off of a computer mag’s mailing list. Close call. Best roomraid story I ever heard was from before my time even. Some guy was a computer/techie whiz and rigged up a system to hide a TV in the radiator box when the door was open. Problem was, one day the checker closed the door behind him once in the room and the TV popped up. Oops. This guy also had rigged up keycard access only to his room!!! most hotels didn’t have keycard access at the time. Guy’s probably a millionaire somewhere now.
Then there was the time Chaim Brown lost a bag of crickets. Yea. guy had a bag of live crickets to feed the iguana (which escaped one day and was missing for a week until we found it) and someone left the cricket bag open and about a half dozen crickets were loose in the building. Word was to not let the hanhalah know and if you saw a cricket, catch it and bring it back to the bag. One day, in Chumash, one guy saw one and caught it and went to run out of the room to bring it back. Teacher stopped him and asked why he was running out. He told him he had a cricket in his hands. So the teacher told him to just toss it out the window. He said “I can’t, it’s Brown’s!!” The teacher was very confused.
Wow, that was a lot, there’s tons more, but I don’t wanna bore you kids. Let me know if you want more stories.
Oh and one last thing, up above, someone signed Mr G. I hope you realize *I* was Mr G. Don’t tarnish the name.
I was also Robin Williams, but again, that’s for another time.
Dude that is long and classic and I know tons of the guys you mentioned in the post.
When were you there?
I came in 1995 and left at 2000
ah, way past my day. well a bit anyway. So you know Brown I’m sure. Yoshi Powers was gone before I was so I don’t know if you knew him. Probably half the BM were from my time. My old classmate, Ilan Arlin, spanned roughly 15 years there.
Wow, there’s probably nobody left except hanhalah that I know there. That happens when you get older I guess. Considering I graduated over 15 years ago and I forgot some people that very summer…
Dovie,
Keep the old memories flowing!
We all were there and can relate!
Random memory of the day…Mr. Botsman.
Talk about a douchebag. Wow. For some reason he hated me. I mean literally hated me. He tried to fail me but realized I’d win that one so he gave me a 67 on the Regents. Anyone who was there then should remember the day he got all up in my face in the hallway between classes. I held my ground though and everyone was waiting for him to hit me because they knew I’d take the “self-defense” opportunity to rearrange the guy’s face. I wasn’t amazingly big, but he was smaller. Basically Botsman was a self-proclaimed hobo who thought he knew what there was to know about the world and it was our honor and privilege to have him bestow it upon us. Such informative gems as “when backpacking across nowhere the best places to sleep are under bridges and also wharfs since they have showers” were plentiful. One day he showed up having ridden his bike there and was wearing his biker shorts. Certain people should be banned from wearing spandex. The man was so spindly he could’ve probably fit both legs into one leg of the spandex. For those of you who remember the first Bush era, which was about that time, I actually personally declared Botsman’s head one of the thousand points of light. Seriously, the glare off his head could blind you!
Best part of all was when he got mad and yelled really loud, his voice always cracked. As a result it was very hard to take the man seriously. Supposedly, he was a good teacher there the years before us, but he was gone after our year. I’d like to think I had something to do with that.
Anyway, more another day!
OK. I was there in 85-86. The worst place ever. The upperclassmen beat up on us freshies regularly and the Rabbis didn’t care. I vowed to never get beat up again after that year and I never did. I also saw a couple of the guys a few years later in Woodbourne. One of them said “whoh, you got big” as I towered over him. I guess I was the bigger man in more ways then one, cause I didn’t bash his teeth in.
I remember the most important thing was getting to davening on time, otherwise you got detention from Rabbi P. What a douschbag! I had detention every fucking night and you had to pay to get in. What a scam. His whole number list that everyone tried to decipher because it was anti-halacha to embarress people. What a croc of shit when I was getting beaten a few times a week and people were stealing shit from my room.
We also had the masturbation lectures. Rabbi P kept talking about sodemy and we had a kid with a similar name so it was fucking hilarious.
I had this little redneck kid in my class that is probably someone’s girlfriend in jail now! Anyone reading know Robbie McLoed from Buffalo?
The best part of that year was going to the bowling alley to watch Chicago kick the Patriots ass in the Superbowl. Oh also stealing panties from girls’ dryers in the laundromat down the block. There were some hot chicks living in the house across the street and we used to watch them at night! They noticed after a while..lol..
Anyway, I knew the guy with the keycard entry system, it was damn cool! He did it with a soldering gun and plastic card. There was also a guy with a CB and we would stay up talking to people…lol.. like AOL in the 90’s!
Heh, I remember the girls across the street. They had this little mustang too. And if you think they were hot, you obviously left before the daycare opened up. Do you remember the little house nestled in right in the back of the yeshiva? They opened up a daycare in there and a few of the girls that worked there were smokin’! I can still picture that one with the rockin’ body, great tan and orange short shorts…but I digress.
I also notice that many of the people who post here seem to have horrible memories of the place. I’m not saying it was heaven, but it wasn’t really that bad for me. In fact, it was a pretty positive experience overall. Sure there were bad times, but it all matters what you decide to focus on. I never got beat up, although that also might have had to do with the fact that I was one of those types (still am) who simply get along with everyone. I can’t really recall anything getting stolen from me either, although I knew that happened.
Anyway, funny memory time…
Fines for books. I’m not sure who there would remember this, but a new English principal showed up while I was there, Mr. Cohen. We actually got along fine on a personal level, he was actually friends with my uncle, but we were always butting heads on a school level. Guys used to leave their books lying all over the place so, in an effort to get it to stop, he’d go around after hours and find the strewn books and you’d have to pay a fine of like a buck or something to get it back. One day, I can’t find my math book and long story short, someone borrowed it and left it out and Mr. Cohen got it. I went to ask him if he had it, and he said yea and it would cost me the fine to get it back. I told him I had no interest in getting it back, I just wanted to know where it was. He insisted I pay the fine so I asked him if I get to keep the book at the end of the year if I pay the fine. Of course I wouldn’t so I refused to pay. He went on to try and explain that I wasn’t buying the book, I was paying the fine for leaving it lying around. I explained in return, that, in theory, that made sense, but since I wasn’t the one who left it out, I’m not paying the fine. It got to the point where he actually called my parents to try and get them to convince me to pay it. Obviously they sided with me. This went on for a couple months. I basically just borrowed someone’s math book every time I needed one. Through the coming months he kept trying to get me to pay it, and I kept refusing saying with a smirk that at least now I’ll always know where my book was and felt comfortable that it was safe (not to mention I actually had copies of the keys to the offices since a classmate had learned the art of making copies of keys but that’s another story, another day).
Finally, at Chanuka time, Mr. Cohen went around to all the classrooms and announced that his Chanuka present to all of us was “book-amnesty” and he was returning all the books he currently had in his office at that time. The look he gave me as he handed me my math book was priceless.
As far as McLoed, I heard his name mentioned several times in my days there, but didn’t actually know him. But speaking of interesting folks, to this day a guy from my freshman class, who actually was MAJOR trouble, and was tossed within weeks, bears the unluckiest name of anyone I ever actually met. I forget his first name, but his last name was Schmuckler. Poor guy never even had a chance. He was actually a nice guy when you got to talking to him a bit, and got past his anger issues, but he wrangled with authority issues one time too many I guess and he was sent packing very shortly into the year.
Anyway, more stories another day…
I was there from 84-86. The place was the most depresing school I ever went to. It drove me and dozens of guys to drinking and smoking. It took me over 20 years to quit the habit. A person can write A book on that place. Belive it or not I still have fond memories of the place. what happend to all the guys from those years? Maybe one day will have A reunion for the late 80,s guys. Any response?
“The place was the most depresing school I ever went to. It drove me and dozens of guys to drinking and smoking. It took me over 20 years to quit the habit. ”
sounds like every other high school on earth
I personally loved it- but I am a bit out of the box and not depressed like most yeshiva reject types who ended up there. I found cool guys and loads to do. Had my bikes and skateboards and just wandered around- great parks and great free concerts kept me busy without drinking or smoking
The techie guy who rigged up the room with keycards – Was he the same guy who played some elaborate Purim pranks? Like the best ever edition of speakers in the ceiling? Or Animals in the office?
Because if so he’s in trouble for not telling me this story.
No. I don’t think so. The guy who pulled the Purim pranks was a techie kid who overlapped me a couple years. He was two years behind me. His first year there he rigged up the lights in the BM to open by remote and let out confetti and balloons when they said Haman. He had spoken about improving on that, so I guess he did.
I never met the Keycard Kid. He was years before me.
I have n o idea about this keycard thing
This sounds like when I was in the Army. I forgot and left a pair of Jungle boots in the ceiling. Our room searches combined with wake ups. We would get woken up at like 4 instead of 5am and they usually found people’s stuff.
Somehow though, I never got caught. I used to dig deep to put things in the shadows in the ceiling tiles. Most were lazy and just put stuff right near the top bunk bed. I also read the wake up blog. That sounds like the Army, too.
ever try hiding s/t small in a tifillen bag
nowadays the yeshiva boys probably can hide their porn easily in their computers. But The hard part is keeping the computers inside their tuchis all day.
I until recently attended Toras Chaim of Denver. our dorm searches were the one thing every bochur had nightmares about. the menahel and dorm supervisor would go, during our english classes and proceed to search with a fine tooth comb. no one usually was found out, although the occasional knife or pack of Marlboro Lights was sometimes found. the hole in their system is that we always kept our contraband in our pockets or teffillin bags. we did have the occasional case of the cell phone going off during shiur though.