This year’s Color War, won by the seniors, was a fun time for all and a great opportunity for each grade to unify. Director of Student Activities Yitz Rabovsky broke out Color War during Mincha break on Tuesday, March 12. Events took place over the next two days.
When asked about the goal of color war, Rabovsky said, “To allow students to showcase talents that are usually not focused on in school.”
Color War has been going on for “ten years or so,” according to General Studies Principal Arthur Poleyeff.
At first, some students were concerned when they found out that Color War would only be one and a half days. Junior Yoni Bierig said this made him “very upset,” adding his view that “there is really no reason not to have a full two days.”
When asked about the change, Rabovsky said, “We felt it was overall beneficial.” Assistant Director of Student Activities Ezra Stone explained this point by saying, “Color War ended on such a strong high and wanting more is better.”
Rabovsky announced Color War by letting the student body know about each year’s generals, captains and team themes. The themes were summer, spring, fall and winter for grades senior, junior, sophomore and freshman, respectively.
When asked about his goals for the Junior grade during Color War, Junior Grade Dean Jonathan Kessel responded, “A great sense of unity and realizing how leadership is supposed to be done by looking at the seniors.”
Responsibilities of a general include signing people up for activities, making sure all projects are being completed and all activities have enough people.
Freshman Yis Kaminetzky served as general of the freshman team. When describing the experience, he said, “It’s a lot fun putting people on teams and committees that they don’t know about and seeing everyone work together to make something or to play something.”
Kaminetzky continued to say, “It’s a solid amount of work being the general and you actually have to do things to make your team not look stupid.”
Students arrived at school on Wednesday decked out in their respective team colors and excited for an awesome day of competition. Activities commenced with the first period consisting of “Minute To Win It,” a Spelling Bee, and a Poetry Slam. All students and faculty were in the shul and the highlight was certainly Yonatan Kaye and Yehoshua Kanarek’s star performances in the poetry slam.
When asked about these two performances, Josh Miller said, “what made them so great was that they were humorous but at the same time had a level of seriousness and deeper meaning”.
The day continued with plenty of fun sports and other competitions and everyone had a great time. Students were glad to get Rita’s Ices as a nice refresher on a very exhausting day.
Additionally, behind the scenes, many students continued to work hard on the room decorations, class videos, etc. Some even stayed after school.
In order to make it easier and more enjoyable for those staying in school, pizza was bought, thus allowing students to work on full stomachs. Some students stayed in school until around 10:00 o’clock at night.
Many people had a problem with the one-and-a-half-day schedule for Color War because, in the words of Yoni Bierig, “It didn’t give the people on stomp, room, etc. enough time to prepare their things and make them really good.”
The next day was all about showcasing the large projects like video, stomp, and room decorations. First, the rooms were showcased during breakfast. Each team had been assigned a classroom with the job of decorating it to match their theme.
Despite the strong efforts of the juniors, who made a forest-esque room, and the sophomores, who made a winter wonderland, the seniors held the spotlight. In accordance with their summer theme, the seniors set up a beach highlighted by fake sand and a tiki bar.
Next, the videos were shown, with the juniors video receiving lots of laughter and applause, only to be completely outdone by the seniors and phenom Oren Neuwirth just a few minutes later.
The seniors created a rap video, led by the videography of senior Binyomin Schulhof and rapping of senior Oren Neuwirth.
Neuwirth commented on the great fun he had on this project: “We had most of the grade just having a good time in a parking lot with music blasting. You see it in the video.”
But Neuwirth also took care to give credit for the video’s success to Schulho: “[T]he moment we knew it was gonna be great was when a few of us sat around Binyomin Schulhof while he edited the video. That man is a wizard. He was doing things we never would have imagined. He is the reason the video is so hype.”
Neuwirth concluded by saying about Schulhof, “his mastery of film took the song to a new level.”
In response to the senior’s video, faculty member Oren Glickman (who had a key role in the junior video) put it simply: “Oren Neuwirth > Oren Glickman."
After the videos, each grade had some team time in order to make last preparations before final presentations, which included stem challenge, stomp, banner and song.
Each grade did a great job with many awesome presentations; however, once again, the seniors stole the show.
The senior stomp was a phenomenal performance led by Seth Maza and Ben Antosofsky, among others. Afterwards, Yitz Rabovsky commented that their performance could have been a halftime show at an NBA game.
After this, the stem projects were showcased, each one adhering to the respective team’s seasonal themes. Highlights included the sophomore presentation, where an LED light was used to ‘turn a new leaf,’ fitting very well with the theme of fall. Additionally, the seniors had two remote controlled boats racing each other.
This was followed up by a heartwarming song by the seniors which reflected on their four years at TABC. The seniors gathered around with arms around each other, waving their flashlights in a very meaningful moment.
As everyone expected, the seniors were announced as winners due to their all around stellar performance.
Despite the mere one and half day of color war, everyone had a great time full of fun and bonding with the rest of their grade. The competitive sports, challenging activities and demanding projects were something everyone enjoyed. Rabovsky simply described color war as a “huge” success.
Senior Yoni Zirman truly put it best when he said, “Color War, no matter how many days, is a great time for the grade to just get together, have a good time, and get closer with each other.”