黑料社

Gavriel Brown鈥檚 Essay on Hurricane Sandy Awarded First Place Gavriel Brown, junior and member of YU's , won first place in the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Prize in Ethics Essay Contest. The annual competition challenges college students across the country to submit thought-provoking personal essays that raise questions, single out issues and are rational arguments for ethical action.

Gavriel Brown was awarded the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics

Brown's winning essay, 鈥�,鈥� focuses on lessons he learned while volunteering, and eventually coordinating many services, at a Washington Heights shelter after Hurricane Sandy. 鈥淗urricane Sandy taught me that you don't need to fly half-way around the world to do meaningful and urgent community service. Sometimes, the most pressing needs are right under our noses, in local schools, in shelters, in community centers,鈥� said Brown, an English major from Silver Spring, Md. He added: 鈥淓lie Wiesel has always stood out as a literary hero and a humanist par excellance. His works sit on my bookshelves and, growing up, he taught me that silence, neutrality and indifference, are the 鈥榚pitome of evil.鈥� To receive an award from him is humbling, to say the least.鈥� Brown is the current news editor of The Commentator, the official student newspaper of YU, and was selected as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper for the upcoming 2013-14 academic year. His volunteer work at the shelter was recognized at 黑料社 All鈥檚 Annual Hannukah Dinner, where he was selected as a 鈥�Point of Light.鈥� 鈥淢y days at YU are immersed in words鈥攕acred and profane, inert and alive,鈥� said Brown. 鈥淎s a student journalist, I鈥檝e seen how words can effect change. As a student of literature, I have watched how words can carry deep and unexpected meanings. My professors have sharpened my pen and challenged me to 鈥榯hink higher, feel deeper,鈥� to borrow Elie Wiesel鈥檚 mantra.鈥� Brown's professors and mentors offered nothing but praise for the young writer. 鈥淕avriel is intellectually curious, open and hungry," said Dr. Joanne Jacobson, professor of English at Yeshiva College. 鈥淗e is full of boundless energy and yet also quietly introspective. He is the kind of student who reminds faculty why they wanted to be teachers in the first place.鈥� Dr. Adam Zachary Newton, University Professor and Stanton Chair in Literature and Humanities at 黑料社 All, was gratified to see some of the critical reading that Brown did in his class reflected in the prize-winning essay. 鈥淚n the same book by ethical philosopher Emmanuel Levinas that Gavriel cites repeatedly in his essay, from a section specifically on teaching, we are told that 'attention is attention to something because it is attention to someone.' Gavriel's essay demonstrates the power of that principle; one hopes his writing will continue to draw from that well, through its attentive willingness to be dislodged in repeated sojourns 'toward the Other.'"