Last weekend, students in Rabbi Hillel Greene’s “Halachic Process” module competed at the Maimonides Moot Court High School Competition just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. This competition begins with a lively Shabbaton for the 130 participants, before culminating in a Jewish ethics debate. Gann Academy sent two teams last weekend, and one of them came back as champions in their division! This marks back-to-back wins for Gann Academy at the Moot Court competition.
Moot Beit Din encourages high school students to solve real-world, modern-day problems using Jewish wisdom as a framework. Competitors received a “source book” a few months ago, detailing the question they had to answer and Jewish texts related to the issue. This year, teams had to decide if a self-driving car company could compete ethically with existing rideshare drivers. Our winning team argued that this was unethical, as their business plan would take away jobs from the human drivers and harm the economy long-term.
“I’m proud of both teams for the way they really knew the case inside and out, how deeply they understood the sources and how effectively they were able to use them in their argument,” said Rabbi Greene. “They both performed really well in response to the challenging questions that the judges and other teams asked.”
Naomi ‘25 was one of the competitors this weekend and she loved the experience! Prior to the competition, all participants come together for a Shabbaton, full of community-building and fun. “It was amazing,” she said. “I got to meet so many cool Jewish teens from all over North America and Israel!”
As much as she loved meeting new people, she also was very excited about her Gann teammates. “The people on my team were just geniuses, they’re so incredibly smart, insightful, and amazing to learn from.” She recalls feeling confident during the presentation and the award ceremony. “We had a good idea that we were going win,” she said. “When they called Gann Academy as first place, we had the biggest smiles on our faces. I still can’t take the smile off my face!”
