New York, NY - Yeshiva Student In Class By Himself

New York, NY - Sammy Samuels can count the Jewish population of his homeland, Myanmar, on his fingers and toes - to the exact digit - and despite his current residence in New York, he includes himself in the count. "There are exactly 20 of us left in the whole country," he said , "and I'm the youngest." there are exactly eight Jews left in the capital, which has a population of 4 million.
Samuels, who is 25, took a subway to Madison Square Garden Thursday for the annual Yeshiva University commencement exercises - and as diverse as his 2,000 or so fellow graduates were, it is safe to say that Samuels belonged in a class by himself.

For one thing, he is the first Jewish student in school history from his country, which is known as Myanmar to its military rulers and as Burma to much of the rest of the world. For another, his application to attend Yeshiva, an Orthodox citadel in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, was smuggled out of Myanmar by a tourist from New York.

What makes Sammy run, he said, is a desire to become an international businessman and eventually to take his place as a leader of the small, shrinking Jewish community at home. He has taken the first giant step on both goals - his degree is in international business and, with a 3.89 grade point average, he was valedictorian of the James Striar School of General Jewish Studies, where he studied the Torah and Talmud.

Samuels is not ready to return home just yet. He intends to attend graduate school at Yeshiva, which will keep him in New York for another two years, and he hopes to gain some on-the-job experience in international business.