PATRICK KING Promoter of Ideas
Patrick King loves talking about ideas. He came to the right place for that.
“OES was a great fit for me,” he said. “I felt it from the first day I visited. Tere was an edge of quirkiness and freedom to be who you want to be.” From a young age, Patrick has chosen who he wants
to be. In about the fifth grade, he decided he wanted to be Jewish even though neither of his parents were. He
started going to synagogue with friends in their family’s neighborhood in Los Angeles, and when they moved to Berkeley, he found a synagogue to attend there.
“My parents aren’t Jewish and they weren’t expecting it,” he said. “We have interesting conversations at dinner because my mom grew up Catholic. We get into little debates, but it’s always friendly.” Talking about morality and social justice
were part of what attracted him to Judaism. He feels that Judaism puts more emphasis on debate while Christianity focuses more on faith.
“Tere is less fear of disagreement in Judaism, which leads to dialogues. A lot of Judaism is talking about an issue. It’s nice to have that conversation and not just accept something,” he said.
Tat desire for discussion inspired him to create a student club called Jewish Union along with Ilana
W. ’14 and Max Abrams ’13. Te club has attracted a number of non-Jews, and the discussions are very broad. “We opened a dialogue to get people talking
about things from a religious perspective,” Patrick said. “For example, sometimes we talk about Israel and Palestine. One time we watched a TED talk about compassion and how different religions view compassion in different ways. Te speaker said that if you’re too compassionate, then you can’t think about yourself or your future. We talked a lot about that.”
His interest in ideas also propelled him to get involved with the Echoes literary program, and he was in charge of events including its participation in the book fair and organizing the Lower School Literacy Celebration. After experiencing the personal education at OES, Patrick wanted a similar experience at a small college, and he has decided to go to Pitzer College. He likes that it has programs in Hebrew and Arabic, and he may study both languages.
Patrick’s mother followed him to OES. The year after Patrick enrolled here, his mother, Dori, was hired as the teacher of the Primary class. Patrick is shown with aspiring writer Isabel P. ’23.
20 Oregon Episcopal School
“ Everybody else was going to synagogue and it looked fun. It felt right and my parents didn’t seem to have a problem.”
www.oes.edu
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