When it came time for administrators to announce the North Shore Hebrew Academy’s valedictorian for 2012 earlier this year, the high school’s Headmaster Daniel J. Vitow immediately recognized that he had a problem on his hands.
It turned out to be a pretty good problem to have.
North Shore Hebrew Academy seniors Ben Markowitz, Mackenzie Berman and Jason Lefkovitz all finished the 2012 school year with identical 98 GPA’s.
Instead of choosing only one of the students to serve as valedictorian, North Shore Hebrew Academy administrators decided to honor all three as their school’s top academic achievers.
It was the first time in the history of the North Shore Hebrew Academy that three students shared the prestigious position of valedictorian.
“It’s because of kids like this that we were able to build this school,” Vitow said. “When people see great kids going to a school they want their kids associated with this school. Great kids bring other great kids.”
And in his 38-year career in education, Vitow said he has rarely seen three kids as “great” in one high school class.
“It makes me feel good,” Vitow said. “We’ve never had this.”
For Berman, sharing the role of valedictorian with Markowitz and Lefkovitz was equally as pleasing.
“When I first thought about it, I guess my initial reaction that the three valedictorian situation is just a testament to how hard we worked as a grade and how much we’ve been able to help and push each other,” Berman said. “In the end there wasn’t a best. It was a group of people that did well.”
“It just shows,” he added, “how tough and competitive and how hard working our grade was.”
The top three students of the North Shore Hebrew Academy 2012 senior class will all be attending Ivy League Universities next school year.
A Great Neck resident, Markowitz, is enrolled at Harvard, while Berman, of Woodmere, will be attending Princeton.
Lefkovitz, a Jamaica Estates, Queens native, will be heading to Cornell.
In addition to serving as North Shore Hebrew Academy’s valedictorians, the trio also previously each held the same distinction as eighth graders at their respective middle schools, Vitow said.
“I was definitely proud, but … it wasn’t the first time I experienced this,” Lefkovitz said of being named valedictorian. “The two kids that won it with me are my friends. So it was actually enjoyable to go through the valedictory process with them.”
For Markowitz, the process of working together with Lefkovitz and Berman throughout their high school years certainly paid dividends in terms of the trio’s academic performances. He said the partnership also was what led them to being named valedictorians.
“They’re very nice kids who I’m good friends with,” Markowitz said. “It was just really nice to share it with them.”
“It was less competitive and more cooperative, meaning we sort of worked together,” he added of their time at the North Shore Hebrew Academy. “There was no cut-throat (attitude). We were all good friends.”
During his four years at North Shore Hebrew Academy, Markowitz was the debate team co-captain, Model Congress advisor and AIPAC sector founder/president. He earned a national merit letter of commendation, was member of the national honor society and received recognition as part of the state math and science honor society.
Markowitz was also an AP scholar and a United States Tennis Association tournament competitor.
While maintaining an avid interest in politics, Markowitz served as an intern in the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer, Congressman Peter King and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer during his tenure at the North Shore Hebrew Academy.
At Harvard, Markowitz said he is planning on pursuing a major in economics.
“To me, politics is more about human interaction,” he said. “So I’m not very interested in political theory, but economics is what drives all political interaction wherever you are.”
Like his classmate, Lefkovitz also interned in Schumer’s office during high school.
Lefkovitz said he plans on pursuing a degree in political science at Cornell.
A member of North Shore Hebrew Academy’s varsity baseball team, Lefkovitz was also a member of his school’s travel debate and math teams and its Model Congress. He was a national merit letter of commendation recipient, was an AP scholar, a member of the National Honor Society and the state math and science honor society.
“A skill I’ve learned from this experience is public speaking,” Lefkovitz said of being valedictorian. “It’s not everyday that a person is required to speak in front of a thousand people.”
Lefkovitz said he also acquired another important lesson during his senior year of high school.
“(I learned) how to treat an honor with humility because you don’t want to look like your arrogant,” he said “You want to accept the honor with as much humility as possible.”
Next year at Princeton, Berman said he is leaning toward a major in financial engineering.
Berman was debate team captain at the North Shore Hebrew Academy and was on the travel math team.
In addition to serving as captain of his school’s varsity hockey team, Berman was founder of the JCC tutoring program, a Long Island math fair silver medalist and a recipient of the Bausch and Lomb honorary science award.
Berman was a member of the National Honor Society, a National Merit commended scholar and was director of North Shore Hebrew Academy’s academic advisement and languages department.
“You can’t do it completely by yourself, you need teamwork in a way,” Berman said of his time in high school. “You need to help each other study and help each other know what is going on.”
That sense of community fostered at North Shore Hebrew Academy is something Berman said he will take with him to college.
“You have to really in life work together in order to achieve your whole potential,” he said. “That’s what happened in high school and going down the road I’ll be able to help my peers achieve and achieve myself.”
