According to an article in the Chicago Sun Times last month, Liberman, a 6’ 10”, 215 lb. forward from Valley Torah High in Los Angeles, is only the second Division I player to ever wear a yarmulke on the court. The only other player to do so was Tamir “Jewish Jordan” Goodman, who played for Towson University in 2000-2001.
Liberman led Valley Torah to a 25-5 record and a CIF Southern Section championship as a senior, the first time a Jewish school had claimed a section title in basketball in California. Liberman then spent a year in Israel before coming to Northwestern, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
Dishonesty In Jerusalem Municipality?
Before the beginning of the 5774 school year, the Jerusalem Municipality publicized criteria for kollel families detailing one’s eligibility for a reduction in rates for a child’s daycare afternoon session. The document stated that a couple would have to document that together they could earn 125 of a possible 200 working points. This means that if the husband learns full-time he earns 100 points; thus the wife only needs to work a quarter of the typical workweek to become eligible for the discount.
But things did not go as promised. Many full-time kollel avreichim, whose wives have at least 25 percent of a full-time position, were told they were not eligible for the afternoon session discount.
As the number of rejected avreichim increased, the matter was brought to the attention of Councilman Rav Yisrael Kellerman, Yated Ne’eman reports. Jerusalem’s City Hall has apparently decided to recognize full-time limud as worth only 25 working points, not 100 as promised.
Rav Kellerman says that this is illogical. If an avreich works all day engaged in limud Torah, he asks, why should that be only recognized as a quarter of a position?
Rav Kellerman turned to the appropriate officials in the city’s education network to implement the necessary change. Baruch Hashem, after Rav Baruch Helfgot, the deputy director of the city’s Chareidi Chinuch unit, became involved, a change was made benefiting the avreichim. An avreich learning full-time will be recognized as working full-time, giving that family the daycare afternoon session discount.