Gateway 2026

gateway

Gateway 2026

Editors-in-Chief: Ariella Eisenstadt & Odelia Krasner Friedman

Art Editors: Mollie Lachter & Ayelet Seltzer

Faculty Advisor: Ms. Hallie Anderson

Staff:

Sheyenne Abraham, Emily Kushnick, Aviva Markowitz, Cici Miller, Dan Neiss, Emma Nestlebaum, Avital Uram Eisenstadt

Special thanks to Mrs. Rachel Sussman

A Crumbling World

My fingers tremble as I type into Google and see the daunting headline: “Government official moves to dismantle transgender care.” When leaders debate my body as a bill, they are inevitably legislating harm—stripping away my identity with each word uttered. This fear doesn’t remain in Congress or on the news; it invades my home, forcing my family to condone a crumbling world that might strive to make me invisible. Rather than succumbing to erasure, fear compels me to remain unapologetically myself against an authority that endeavors to silence me. Frankly, fear knows my exact address, so why not let it see me clearly?

—Tyler Schwartz

When the Mirror Cracks

My beautiful gold mirror. There stands a girl— curly brown hair and blue eyes

She stands there each morning before school, wondering how much more she can take.

How much more judgment?

How many more assumptions? From the crowd that feeds off of blood in the water

She stands, and she waits, waiting for an answer back from the beautiful gold mirror.

But all this mirror offers is her reflection

And some mornings

That reflection feels like a stranger— Someone too loud too quiet. too much.

Not enough.

She studies every curve of her face

As if it holds an explanation for all her problems For why she suddenly feels the world’s weight on her shoulders

She tilts her head Forces a smile, something that doesn’t look fake

She tells herself:

“As long as I look confident.”

“As long as I can fake it till I make it.” The list goes on.

Because people love to break what is fragile

Because weakness is a target

And because the world is cruel to girls who feel too much

The mirror does not speak. It does not comfort. It does not lie.

It shows her— Exactly who she is.

And that’s what scares her the most.

This girl, at times, is me. And this beautiful gold mirror That hangs above my dresser

In my attic room

Has watched me unravel And rebuild

Thousands of times

It has seen the mascara-stained cheeks. The clenched jaw

The silent promises, To try harder

To carve away the wrong pieces about myself

But lately— Things have been different.

The mirror still shows my curly brown hair, my blue eyes

But now I am beginning to see things differently.

I still even see the girl who told herself to fix herself until she fit into someone else’s comfort. The girl who tried not to take things personally, even though it ate away at her.

The mirror was never meant to give answers

It was meant to give a reflection

And reflection is confronting who you are Being honest with who you are Even if you don’t like it

Because the very things they point out, question, misunderstand— are the things that makes me different And “difference Is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.”*

—Scarlett Breslow

* Audre Lorde, “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House”

Aviva Markowitz

My Senior Premonition

What does it mean to be dead, and is it weird to say that I feel like I’m about to be? I’ve spent every day for the last four years at or thinking about this school. After I graduate, I’ll just be a memory. Reachable, sure, but finished with my time here. It’s weird to try to process.

I stand around during play rehearsal, looking at my friends and collaborators who I know I won’t get to see next year. I said it like a joke yesterday, but now I don’t want it to be true. Each drive to and from school puts me one day closer to having to say goodbye. I sit in class and wish time would slow down, so that maybe I’d never have to leave.

A fellow student might think I’m crazy for wanting to stay here longer. I see my friends letting senioritis kick in, but I don’t stop. I can’t. I know I have to savor every last moment, and that only makes it hurt more. High school has put me through so much, yet I love it. Despite all the stress and loss of sleep, this school has given me so many happy memories. I will never forget the community I found here.

As I get ready to go I see everyone else feel it too. They care that I’m leaving, and that makes it somewhat better. I know I’ll be missed just as much as I miss it all. So I walk through the halls knowing my time here is limited, but I can always come back. My tether here is too strong for me to think of this as goodbye.

—Cici Miller

My Top Five

Basketball court

Chadar (dining hall)

Back porch of the Shoafim (the second-oldest age group) bunk

Bruchim HaBaim (welcome) sign

Beit Knesset (prayer amphitheater)

While every place at camp is sacred, my favorite is the basketball court, where I’m surrounded by the happy chatter of campers playing sports, sitting on the rocking benches with friends, or walking up the gravel path to the Chadar. In the Chadar, the weekly magic of scream-singing Shabbat songs with everything we have is irreplaceable. There’s the back porch where I brushed my teeth every morning in Shoafim, the lake glittering, and where late at night, all the girls my age traded snacks and stories, finally bonding as a whole group after six summers of cliques. There’s the simple wooden Bruchim HaBaim sign that welcomes me home after a long year of waiting. And the iconic Beit Knesset, rows of benches facing the lake. I feel the most centered when we gather here every Friday night, singing to welcome Shabbat, the core of another perfectly imperfect week in my happy place.

—Odelia Krasner Friedman

Down the Dunes—A Sand-Surfing Story

Sand burns my eyes and adrenaline pumps through my veins as I tilt my board down. I don’t know how I am going to do this, but I am going to do better than my brother. Dad tilts up his phone to video my first epic fail. Hurried breaths thunder against my ribcage, my legs wobbling from walking up the steep dune. I feel woozy just thinking about falling off the board and into the sand. My brother pulls his board off the tracks and gestures, telling me he’s ready to see me fall. Slowly, I let myself go down.

—Yael Marlin

Blank Canvas

once vibrant now empty

a mural painted over in white a poem erased from a page a picture going up in flames

the paint has dried up the words have left my head the camera has shattered

All that's left: a blank canvas an empty room a pile of ashes

Exhaustion has replaced the blood in my veins

Guilt has replaced the heart in my chest

Anger has replaced the words in my mouth

Anxiety has replaced the thoughts in my head

Sadness has replaced the fibers in my bones

Acid has replaced the emotion in my soul

All that's left: An empty room A pile of ashes

Tree Tops

In the blowing wind

Sits a tall tree

Rustling gently and calmly.

From housing birds and critters of all sorts

In the summer breeze

To bearing fruit and shade

For the people who stumble upon it

Its leaves turn colors

Falling to the ground

Marking summer's end.

And gives apples to make cider

Marking the end of the harvest.

The tree stands bare

In the snowy air

All peaceful and quiet

Sleeping in the blanket made of snow

Once the snow melts

The tree begins to bloom.

Flowers and leaves start to grow

Robins lay their eggs

To start the season

Up in the treetops, I sit

Writing this letter to those who wish to read it.

—Sheyenne Abraham

Mollie Lachter

Juicebox Microphone

With a juicebox microphone in one hand and my Abby Cadabby doll in the other, I attempted my first impression… Cher. At the tender age of five, I threw myself into mastering her rich tone: Do you believe in life after love? I rasped, comedically out of place for a preschooler. When my parents laughed, I discovered the exhilarating feeling of bringing others joy through entertainment.

Most people think impressions are just party tricks: something to make people laugh. For me, they’ve become my most powerful tool to evaluate, communicate, and lead. My impressions have taught me to observe closely, ask thoughtfully, and listen with intent as others share their truths, because the story is more meaningful if you can connect to the storyteller. Even still, when I slip into a Cher impression, flip my hair, and spark laughter, I recognize it’s ultimately still the same goal: to bring people together.

—Jillian Shwekey

How Cute

They were beautiful sandals, I had thought. Enough to warrant running barefoot across the mid-July sand to protect them.

“I’ll meet you there,” I shouted. My grandparents were busy preventing my cousins from jumping off the gazebo.

I ran.

My feet pounded the scalding ground, kicking up flaming-hot coals of sand. I screamed as if fleeing murder. Adults, chuckling, glanced over my form hurtling like a maniac across the expanse. How cute, a kid having fun.

Gasping, I collapsed into the waves and apprehensively beheld my blistered, blood-red feet. Muffled footsteps padded behind me.

“Here, Emma, you forgot your shoes.”

—Emma Nestlebaum

Sonnet

I always feel the footsteps walking by Like stifled heartbeats pulsing in the air And I imagine I can see the sky But it’s been ages since I’ve wandered there

And once, they laid me gently underground And cried their tears and sobbed their last farewells And now I lie without a sight or sound As still as death too long for me to tell

With ample time, once needed to be bought, Inside my rotting skull, my soul’s confined To wander aimlessly the paths of thought Ensnared within the boundaries of my mind

I wish I’d known what fate awaited me And found a way to live eternally Emma Nestlebaum

Rolling Conversations

My grandfather once told me the best conversations happen when you're not looking at each other. I guess that's why my dad always took a detour before work to drive me to the train station. For ten minutes, our hectic schedules were moving on the same path. The mornings definitely had their rough moments (we are all a little grumpy sometimes), but somehow, no matter how frustrated he was about my promise to “be out in a second” actually taking a few minutes, our morning rides became more than just a commute — amid yawns and rushed goodbyes, the car became a place where my voice was heard and mattered.

In ninth grade, I struggled to balance late-night dance and theater rehearsals, time-draining clubs, and exams that seemed to matter so much more than before. Suddenly, there were too many puzzle pieces to fit into my hectic schedule, and dance, where I had spent eight years of my life, no longer seemed to fit the way it once had. The older I got, the less in love with it I became as my passion slowly unraveled into endless echoes of instructors’ criticism and a heavy weight of fatigue. Anytime I thought about admitting it, my heart would race louder than my words, but something about the radio’s hum and the steady rhythm of the ride made it easier to spit out the truth. Rather than a sigh of disappointment, my dad met my confession with support and happily replaced talks of jetés and pirouettes with lines of Shakespeare repeated until the delivery was just right.

Our route stayed the same, but as the years and seasons changed, so did I. The car transformed from a Shakespearean stage into a Senate floor and supreme Sanhedrin for my yearly Moot Beit Din, a Jewish mock trial competition. Still, the car wasn't always the site of such lofty musings. Some days we simply enjoyed our favorite music. My dad declined my offer to serenade him with the newest song in my repertoire, but I was at ease when we agreed to play Ishay Ribo, Hamilton, or our favorite Billy Joel. Our car turned into Madison Square Garden as we spent hours translating Ishay Ribo’s Hebrew music into English, feeling elated every time I recognized the prayer woven into his lyrics. Or we traced the twentieth century through We Didn’t Start The Fire as the music carried us home.

Today, with coffee in one hand and my new license in the other, the songs that turned the car into a stage usher me towards my next venue. Jumping into the driver's seat, no matter how scary the merge onto the highway is, I know it is up to me to continue helping this car transform into stadiums, debate rooms, and a place where confessions and truths seem easier to voice. The car will always be my sanctuary to question and be authentically me without glaring eyes and judgment, but I’ve realized that looking someone in the eyes isn’t nearly as scary as it once seemed, and rolling down the window or stepping outside is only one gear shift away.

—Ariella Eisenstadt

How To Live Without You

My arm grows numb under the weight of my head. I haven’t moved in hours. Not since they left me here. I stare out my open window at the night sky and shiver when a breeze sneaks its way under my sweatshirt. My snot is dried on the grey fabric and the skin around my eyes pulls when I blink from dried tears. I wonder if they can still see me here, laying in the same fetal position they found me in. My stomach heaves at the memory but my mind is already back in that field with their hands guiding me further from my house.

I can still feel the warm night air laying like a blanket over my pajamas, looking into their eyes that held so much possibility. Faces so beautiful that they sparked fear deep in my chest. I recall their cold skin and how it, to this moment, creates a permanent chill in my body similar to the feeling of coming inside after playing in the snow. Their faces radiated calm and empathy. Was I not worth it?

I stare at the moon until I finally gather the stamina to crawl out of bed. A part of me that I can’t hush echoes that I can’t end here, helplessly laying in my bed like the pathetic girl they found.

They’ll never come back for me if they see me like this.

I’m embarrassed at the thought.

I leave my house, taking in the summer air, and walk to the gas station. Cicadas sing from their hiding spots in bushes and grass. I fold my arms over each other to keep myself warm even though a sweat has started to form on my back. The walk is desolate. In such a small town, the main dirt roads have no attractions other than signs of the next rest stop. My slippers pick up dust with each step and I sneeze. A few tears drip down my cheeks.

The fluorescent lights of the gas station are a punch to the gut. My mind flashes to the warm glow of their ship. The smooth white surfaces that didn’t give off a medical atmosphere. I look down at my shaking hands and force myself to walk around. I grab a bag of peanut M&M’s from the shelf and pop a few in my mouth. As I stroll down the refrigerator aisle, I grab a gallon of milk, wincing at the cold touch. My hands still shake and I can’t take my eyes off the beverage. The milk drops, or I drop it, I can’t quite remember. Suddenly, there’s white all over the floor, and I’m back with them.

They guide me into a pool of creamy white liquid, but I trust them. A vibration hums off of them as I sink in. Hands in my hair, they make me feel like I belong.

“Excuse me.” I look up and realize I’m kneeling in the milk, crying. A girl with purple hair and bangs holds a mop in one hand with a bored but confused face. “I need to clean this up.”

My throat is too raw to respond. I get up and quickly walk out of the store. My brusque walk turns into a run. What did they do to me?

My legs carry me to that open field where you can see all the stars in the night sky. I fall to my knees and let out a sob.

Why was I not enough?

—Aviva Markowitz

Seen from the Outside

“Delayed until 4:41,” I read from the train status board. I should feel irritated, at least inconvenienced, but I’m not. It just gives me more time. I claim my usual spot in Newark Penn Station. A corner section, to the left of the ticket counter, far enough to avoid the rush but close enough that the homeless man, who is most definitely not sober, will leave me alone. I settled in, anchored, scanning the restless station. The station exists in a constant state of departure. No one lingers. No one is meant to. Men in suits weave through the crowd, sidestepping children scattered across the path to the tracks. Hundreds of voices fusing into one. Calls to mothers, pep talks, and unfinished conversations, fading into the background in a dull hum. As I reach for my laptop, my gaze catches on a bench. Two people, two stories, too many tears. It felt intrusive to watch, but I recognized it too well to look away. The train hadn’t even arrived yet, and the goodbye had already begun. “One hundred and eighty-two days,” I read on his lips as he held his wife’s hands, like he can keep her here. No, not wife. His girlfriend.

She’s leaving for college across the country, and then for the summer. Six months before she’s back. They rehearse a new routine: more calls, fewer arguments. He tells her he loves her and that he believes they’ll survive this like they always do. He means it. She says the same, but doesn’t. I can tell, I recognize the distance in her voice. I’ve heard it before. He searches her face, hopeful. She stares past him, already somewhere else. Soon, he’ll be the name on a box of sweatshirts shoved to the back of her closet. He tucks a strand of hair behind her right ear, instinctive, practiced. They kiss like it’s the last time. Maybe it is. I’ve seen this before, the way love makes everything feel permanent right before it isn’t. I can already see what love blinded them to: the late night phone calls that get shorter, the missed texts that stop feeling accidental, the arguments that end in silence instead of resolution. I’ve watched the love and hope turn into hatred and resentment firsthand. And worst of all, I could see the timeline. It doesn’t make it to one hundred and eighty-two days. I wish I could warn them. Slow it down. Spare them the quiet unraveling and the months of feelings haunted by lingering sadness. But I can’t. It isn’t my love. It isn’t my story

A blur of motion pulls me away, a girl sprinting into an older man’s arms. His “Welcome Home” sign slips from his hands. Her father. They cling to each other, overcome by relief. It’s been too long. Gone for months, maybe even years. There’s a predictability to distance like this, how it stretches people into something thinner, something harder to hold onto. Loving from afar isn’t an easy task. It’s birthdays in voicemails, celebrations in group chats, goodnight kisses flattened into screens. Each notification is a painful reminder of what’s missing. She’s been volunteering in the Peace Corps, teaching English to underprivileged kids in the Dominican Republic. She becomes a mother figure to many. But hers is gone. Hence her unrivaled connection with her father. I study his face. Pride, yes, but beneath it, exhaustion. It’s not easy living in solitude when your only company is the vivid memories paired with grief. Trust me. It’s going to be okay, I want to tell him. His little girl is home. But how can I when I am still so unsure. She isn't my daughter. This isn’t my story. I check my watch. 4:40. I grab my things and head for Track three, wondering if I’ve become just another man in a suit, leaving a moment too late. I make it with seconds to spare. From the window seat, I watch the platform drift away. For a moment, I think I understand them. Their endings, their distance, the loneliness that lingers after love loosens its grip. And then I stop myself. It’s not my story. And it isn't theirs either. Love has a way of feeling different when you’re only ever on the outside of it. I don’t just observe people, I reshape them. A countdown becomes a break up. A father becomes grief held together by pride. I take what is real and bend it into something that fits what I already believe. Maybe that’s why every story feels like it’s ending. Because I’ve only ever seen it from the outside. I am part of every story, and yet belong to none of them. “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”*

Scout Spivack

* F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The Girls On The Bench

Tugging at the hem of my ill-fitting dress and scalp-straining braids, I struggled through the Hebrew words of the Friday night prayer service at my camp. I longed to dance and harmonize as effortlessly as the older kids. But when I tried to sing, the words merely hovered on my tongue. After a summer of listening to the prayers, something clicked. Finally, one night, instead of observing the concentric circles forming, I joined in, and I fell in love with the dance. As I grew older, I wanted others to experience the joy I found. I started watching the kids on the bench, hesitant to join, and would beckon them forward, offering my hand as encouragement.

This year, as a counselor, I waited all week for Shabbat services, but as it began, I noticed a bench full of campers glued to their seats (despite welcoming hands in the middle), so I joined them, swaying and adding to the ruach (spirit) even from afar. The magical songs of Shabbat flowed through the amphitheater even when my voice wasn’t the loudest. Beaming campers beside me, I realized that I could inspire change in quiet conversations, wellplanned activities, or by simply holding someone's hand until they were ready to let go. As I stood there watching the concentric circles spiral, I saw a new generation of leaders dancing in the center and beside me on the bench.

—Ariella Eisenstadt

Tipping Point

can i stand at the tipping point?

sun rising and setting sea choppy and calm lights dim and bright air warm and cold can i sit on a cloud?

watching as the city wakes up and goes to sleep as the kids laugh and the adults cry as the children work and the parents go out with friends as the people drown and the fish suffocate can i drift in and out?

not wanting to make a choice not wanting to progress not able to start scared of change can i sit on the railing? dipping my feet in the waves watching the sun rise and set light disappearing into the water can i take a breath?

remembering what it is to be human feeling wind on my face feeling sunlight in my eyes feeling grass below my feet before i must go before things must change before my soul gets crushed and squeezed out of me before everything disappears into infinity can i stand at the tipping point? can i stand there forever?

Five Very Strong Boys

I need five very strong boys

To carry all the chairs, That’s what my third-grade teacher said

“I need five very strong boys!” Her voice was loud in clear Like strength belonged only to them And not to the girls sitting right with me

So I carried three— Not because I had to, But because I thought I had something to prove, As if being a girl meant They'd decided I couldn't do what they could Like strength was theirs by default And mine had to be earned Just to be believed.

And when he pushed and said mean things She laughed like it was funny

She said, “He’s mean because he likes you, Boys will be boys, sorry honey.”

At least I got the sorry— That's all expected by that point As it wasn't the first time

She dismissed and absolved the boys, Let their roughness slip away, While quietly dissolving us— The girls like we had less to say.

But maybe strength is quieter— Or maybe it’s louder than that room ever allowed. And maybe kindness shows who’s tough And maybe “mean” is plain mean— Not flirting. Not fate. Not cute. And I was strong long before I ever lifted those chairs

To refute it.

—Scarlett Breslow