It must have been a pre-requisite for Madrichs to be somewhat
pathological. Ours, a fine mess named Zvi used to interact with us with
several personalities. One moment he was stealing us away from school to
bring us drinking with him in Tel Aviv until all hours of the night and
the next he was stealing our smokes and making us do push-ups. Very
unpredictable. If we hadn't worked together this guy would have walked all
over us. I do have fond memories of some of his more endearing
personalities though.

Here is a dispointment letter he wrote to all of us and a photo, kind of
funny since the girls were right, we were very close knit and often closed
ranks even in the face of undeniable evidence against us ( for whatever we
were doing or had done). Messing with this poor guy was a teamwork
activity in itself, as it was with Rena and some poor Berkley grad who
acted as our school psychologist. We made the math teacher, Sandy cry once
but I really did feel bad about that.

During the new year we discovered we had to go to school on January first,
a clear insensitivity to our American cultural roots. On New Year's eve
the seniors called a meeting and convinced the rest of the program that if
we all left school and partied in Tel Aviv Rena would be helpless to
punish us all. We left en mass and began New Years at M*A*S*H in Tel Aviv.
Here we drank as a group for several hours running up a huge tab and
looking wishfully at the British barmaid/body builder who was bringing us
our drinks. As the sophmore girls were dancing like Rocketts on the table
my roomate Doug suggested we leave. We went to a Kiosk on the corner and
bought ciggaretts and watched as Brad and his roomate Sam left the bar,
waved, and set off in the other direction. 

As we were there Zvi pulled up in his car, sent by Rena to collect us, and
went charging into the bar. Another senior boy came walking out through a
open window and fell into one of the picnic tables outside, then the rest
of our group poured into the street, many with beer glasses still half
full in their hands. The bartenders came into the street and tried to
claim the beer mugs, several of which broke on the street. Our classmates
fled in every direction. We watched from the safety of the corner until we
decided to move on. We never saw Zvi leave the bar.

We wandered all over the city, I'm sure you have done the same many times.
I always liked how safe it felt in Tel Aviv to wander from bar to bar,
drinking and watching movies at the video pubs. We watched big Dutch peace
keepers beat the crap out of each other and went down on the beach to see
who was having sex on it. 

Later that night, at about 4 in the morning, we walked into a bar and
found Zvi drunk and depressed. We sat on either side of him, and offered
him a smoke. He told us we were fuckers and that we stuck him with a 300
odd sheckal bar tab at M*A*S*H and that Rena was going to fucking kill
him. We sympathised and talked him into giving us a lift back to school.
Very strange night. This is only a faded memory but this is how I remember
that night.

Judd Olshan