HAFTR seniors are honored scholars

The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway High School had two seniors — David Lederer and Jennifer Rabinowitz named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program, and two other 12th graders Alexander Kaufman and Jeffrey Wolberg were named commended students in the scholarship program.

Roughly 16,000 high school students nationwide are competing for 7,600 scholarships worth more than $31 million in the 65th annual program from a pool of more than $1.5 million students who took the 2018 Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. Roughly 15,000 will advance to be finalists. They will be notified in February.

Students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies are recognized through the national program. Lederer and Rabinowitz are among the highest-scoring entrants in New York state and will continue in the National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s competition to advance to finalist status.

HAFTR High Principal Naomi Lippman noted that each of the students is “an extraordinary scholar,” and that all four students took part in rigorous original science research this past summer. Lederer and Wolberg participated in the Garcia Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University, and Kaufman and Rabinowitz attended the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

A public research university in Haifa, Israel, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology was established in 1912 during the Ottoman Empire and more than 35 years before the Jewish state. The institute is the oldest university in the country, and ranked best university in Israel and the Middle East.