Yeshiva University Observer

Issue date: 11/24/08 Section: Features

The Observer: Hello, Aliza. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Although we at The Observer know who you are, could you give us some information about you, to introduce you to the rest of the student community?

Aliza: My name is Aliza Stareshefsky. I am the Director of Student Programming at Bruriah High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I live in Passaic, New Jersey.

The Observer: I understand that you had an eating disorder at some point in your life. Could you tell The Observer about it?

Aliza: I did suffer from an eating disorder in high school. I suffered from both anorexia and bulimia.

I am the youngest of three daughters (I also have a younger brother). The oldest was the the easy child, the next one was very popular, but a bit difficult. I was the "happy and funny" one. Always willing to do whatever I could to make people smile.

I had gone to a very closely-knit elementary school, one where I had known everyone in my class very well, and more so, my parents had known everyone else's parents. There were only eleven children in my grade. From this elementary school, however, I went to a large high school and found it very hard to make friends, and handle the workload. I never really seemed depressed or unhappy around the house, because I was the performer, the one who smiled and amused others. But in truth, I lacked coping skills- and I was thrust into the ultimate training ground, high school.

There I realized that my elementary school education had not been that good, and I was failing classes miserably. But not only was I failing my classes, I was suffering from tremendous culture shock. From a close-knit community of eleven to a grade of eighty, I again felt lost, invisible, forgotten, a loner who lacked the ability or capacity to make friends. There was no way for me to interact with the other girls in my grade- I did not know what to say, how to act, what to offer them. Luckily, my second-oldest sister was in high school with me as well, so for a time I hung around with my sister's group of friends. But then the inevitable happened- my sister graduated, and went on to attend a seminary in Israel. I was shattered. Now I was truly alone, one sister in Israel, the other one attending college.

Continued...

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