For many of the top students at yeshivah high schools all over the country, YU National Model United Nations (YUNMUN) is the climax of their year, a time to test their knowledge and skills against the best. Each school is assigned one or two countries, and its delegates are assigned each to one UN committee. The goal of the Model UN is to seriously address issues of concern in the world, work together with delegates from other countries, and pass resolutions designed to solve or at least mitigate the world’s problems.
The MTA YUNMUN team spent months preparing for the conference, under the able leadership of Junior Amir Gross. Although the team had no seniors, and was further handicapped by the fact that seven of its 12 delegates had never before been to a Model UN, the students worked hard in their preparation and performed well. The preparations consisted of four parts: 1) Learning about their assigned country and its policies and goals at the United Nations (delegates are expected to be in character throughout the event and truly represent their country), 2) Learning about the UN itself and the role of their particular committee, 3) Learning about the two issues their committee would be addressing, and 4) Learning the rules of parliamentary procedure and how the UN actually works.
All four of these were necessary for a delegate to be recognized by the conference’s leaders and judges, and indeed captain Amir Gross was so recognized by the Committee on the Status of Women. In addition, two other MTA delegates were recognized for their contribution to the general morale of their committees, Amir Glaser of the Commission of Science and Development and Akiva Cohn for Counter Terrorism Committee.
More important, however, was the experience gained by this very young and untested team, where all 12 delegates are now excited to redouble their efforts and win awards next year. Many of the Committee chairs reported that these younger students were able to improve their skills even over the course of these two days.
Even more important was the way the students demonstrated their identity as MTA students, prioritizing davening and learning above all else. MTA’s 12 delegates made sure that despite the pressure of the schedule and long days of work (the academic parts of the schedule had to be compressed because of the Super Bowl on Sunday evening), they attended all t’filos and were often called upon to be the chazan. Similarly, on Monday night at the end of five exhausting committee sessions totaling more than eight hours of work, many team members had a night seder of learning that extended to almost 1:00 a.m.
The MTA delegation both thoroughly enjoyed and academically gained from YUNMUN 2024. The delegates are committed to representing themselves and their yeshivah even more strongly in 2025.
