On October 23, thirteen Ramaz honors math students participated in the first round of the Ulpaniada, an all girls math competition for Orthodox high school students. The contest is run by Michlalah in Jerusalem and consists of three rounds. The first two rounds happen at Ramaz, and the third round occurs in Israel in February.

“Ulpaniada is a high level math contest sponsored by Michlalah in Israel, and it challenges math students to reach their full potential,” said Rabbi Stern, who is organizing the contest at Ramaz. Rabbi Stern stated that the goal of the competition is to make each participant challenge herself and to test if a participant “can try something different, something that she did not know beforehand.”

The first round was lasted one and a half hours and consisted of 14 multiple choice questions. Nine of the fourteen students qualified for round two: Natalie Kahn ‘19, Yaara Kaplan ‘20, Sophia Kremer ‘20, Josephine Schizer ‘20, Natalie Trump ‘20, Isabel Elmann ‘21, Anna Braun ‘22, Finley Horowitz ‘22, and Sally Neugarten ‘22. On December 19, after davening, those nine students sat for round two: a three hour and twenty minute test, with no breaks, comprised of 10 multiple choice questions and two long answer questions.

“I really enjoyed participating in the Ulpaniada,” said Natalie Trump ‘20. “I only decided to participate in order to get extra credit in my math class, but I ended up really enjoying the first round and even making it to the second round.” Trump stated that “the second round was a lot more challenging,” but that “the questions were interesting and fun to try and solve.”

Students who qualify for round three will need to travel to Israel in February. Although the results are yet to be released, a number of those who participated in round two have expressed interest in travelling to Israel for round three if they qualify. For instance, Finey Horowitz ’22, who qualified for round two, stated,  “I love the idea of getting to participate in a competition with people around the world and getting to go to Israel.”

The Ulpaniada Math Competition proved to be an intellectually interesting, and even Judaically unifying, event. Natalie Trump stated that she “thought it was really cool to partake in an international Jewish girls’ math competition,” and that she felt like she “was part of something greater than just a math class” while taking the tests. Who knows – with luck, perhaps all nine of those students who sat for round two will allowed to travel to Israel and sit for round three.