For the ninth year in a row, the Model United Nations team at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School in Deerfield has earned top team honors at the prestigious annual competition in New York City.
After nearly a decade of remarkable success, one can liken Rochelle Zell Jewish High School’s run to historic feats accomplished by some of the most impressive dynasties in American sports, from the Michael Jordan-led Bulls of the 1990s, with two NBA three-peats, or Alabama football’s five national championships from 2009 to 2017.
But even the Connecticut women’s basketball program, with all the glory accompanying four-straight national championships from 2013 to 2016, cannot best the nine-year dynasty built by high schoolers at a school of fewer than 200 in suburban Illinois.
“My mom still has no idea what we actually do for a week in New York every single year,” Rochelle Zell senior Elan Lerner said. “I try to explain the (competition) and the committee sessions, and she has no clue.”
For those similarly unaware about Model United Nations’ competitive format, Lerner explains that the annual New York conference is the culmination of many hours of public speaking practice, research about different countries and collaboration by high school teams from across the United States and in more than 30 countries. Each team received a country whose interests they were to represent in conference committee sessions, and Rochelle Zell’s team was assigned Poland.
Then, as the senior and Rochelle Zell Model UN co-president said, participants dive into researching their country, the issues facing it at the moment and then draft an in-depth position paper outlining policy stances. Each team was evaluated on its paper, but also for how its members performed afterward in debates and committee sessions simulating how matters of policy are discussed before the United Nations.
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” (The conference has) an incredible amount of people, and it’s people who I never would have come in contact or had conversations with if it wasn’t for this opportunity,” Halivni said. “You meet all kinds of people with very passionate views on whatever issue or topic you’re discussing.”
Halivni said she enjoys the excitement that builds up as the competition approaches and the process of drafting the position paper, which she said are typically about 10 pages and require in-depth research.
“That’s a lot of work,” Halivni said. “But it’s really rewarding to see the little freshmen, sophomores who we’ve worked with, control a room in front of hundreds of people in New York.”
The conference also provides invaluable opportunities to meet representatives of members of the United Nations. Rochelle Zell’s team was able to discuss current events and policy with Poland’s ambassador to the United Nations, as well as hear from Malta’s representative, who has recently presided over the UN’s Security Council.
“We just asked questions about what’s it like representing Poland?” Halivni recalled. “What’s it like to be a Polish person in America and seeing how like the media represents everything going on? And so that gave us really, a firsthand personalization of issue, as opposed to like, the more broad, facts face of the issue.”
Lerner, who will attend Stanford University this fall and expects to study public policy, said what has set Rochelle Zell apart from the crowd is its program’s “holistic development of a delegate.”
“A lot of schools focus either on simply preparation for the actual conference, through a table of facts and research,” Lerner said. “Others focus more on writing position papers and preparing more behind the scenes rather than presenting at the conference. But what we really focus on in the RZ Model UN classroom is both. We really work with all students on the team to ensure they are proficient speakers and collaborators and also very strong writers, which comes in handy before and at the conference.”
Rochelle Zell Dean of Faculty Stu Jacobs said their students are “naturally competitive” and are motivated to do really well in the competition, and that staff and the faculty advisors regularly remind participants that the biggest benefit is, “more about the value of the experience they have.”
“Our students have been noticed to always be the ones that are bringing in people who may not be speaking as much, noticing the delegates in the room and maybe approaching them and seeing what their ideas are,” Jacobs said.
The experience has been an empowering one for both Halivni and Lerner, who spoke of bringing out the best in their teammates and the value of the chance to meet people from around the world with different views and who have drastically different everyday issues at hand.
Halivni, who is set to study history at the University of North Carolina this fall, is ready to take what she’s learned in school and Model UN to the real world. She has plans to work as a lawyer, and one day wants to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States and win the presidency.
She said participating in Model UN has been “an incredible opportunity” she and Lerner are grateful to have had, and one that has prepared them well for their future endeavors.
“The Model UN team has really instilled a love for, not debating to tear down the other side, but to work toward collaboration from both sides,” Lerner said. “And that’s a value I’ve really come to love because of my work on the model UN team, and what I really hope to bring to the real world especially as we see so much polarization in politics.”