Daniel Libeskind '65

Encompassed – Bronx Science Stories

“My sister was three years older than I am, so she had been in the country only a few minutes. We were going with someone from our housing project on a bus, and my sister asked her in yiddish, ‘What is that building? It looks different.’ And this woman said ‘that’s not for you. That’s a very special school, you can’t get in there because you’re an immigrant.’ My sister walked into that school with hardly any english and met Mr. Kopelman. He spoke yiddish to her and said, “you can come if in one month I can see that you can fit in here. If not, you have to go to another school.’ My sister, within one month, learned English, showed her ability in science. She’s the only student I know of who ever got into Bronx Science without taking the test. She was a brilliant student. But i think, when you ask me about Bronx Science, that school had a soul. It wasn’t just a technical entry exam–it had people there who had a kind of life experience, motivation, and a profundity about human beings, and that’s what made that school very special. It’s kind of the beauty and also the charisma of that school.”