Street: So what does it mean to be president of Hillel?
Alon Krifcher: It means a lot of emails. It means a lot of meetings. But much more importantly, it means that I’m a face that people can put to the Jewish community and to the Hillel community. I’m there when people have questions.
Street: What’s your favorite thing about Hillel?
AK: The food. The dining hall is really unbelieveable. Chef Ozzy is really one of the most amazing people in the building.
Street: What did you do this summer?
AK: I was coding for a tech company called betaworks and had a blast. It was in New York...I was able to take a program from start to finish and I learned a lot...They create apps.
Street: What type of apps?
AK: They do game apps...and they have a company called Giphy, which basically stores and is a search engine for gifs. Giphy’s amazing.
Street: What’s your favorite gif?
AK: Too many to count. I’m a huge sports fan, so most sports funny gifs are my favorite...SB Nation runs a gif tournament every year. They take 64 of the funniest sports gifs of the last 6 months or something, and they create a bracket. The greatest gif of all time is the gif champion. [Eds’ note: check out the winner here ]
Street: What are your favorite apps?
AK: Mailbox is the best mail app you could possibly use. I think Tweetbot is a great Twitter app that’s not the main one. Dots and Two Dots are the best games ever. They’re better than Candy Crush. I dare everybody to tell me that’s not true.
Street: What song do you get ready to?
AK: I actually don’t get ready to music, but I have tons of playlists on Spotify, which I listen to non–stop. One time I created a playlist when I was really drunk, and didn’t know what I was going to call it, so I just called it TBA.
Street: Here’s your chance, name it now!
AK: Uhh...Don’t Get That Drunk Again.
Street: Did you have a Gameboy growing up?
AK: Yeah, I played a lot of Pokemon. My first screenname was alonpokemon.
Street: Did you have Pokemon cards?
AK: I did, but I never really understood how to play them. So I just collected them, and I was like, “Oh cool, I have shiny Charizard!”
Street: What would your superpower be if you had one?
AK: I wish I could take stress away from people...So much of stress that people have here is self–imposed and I hate it.
Street: Do you have a spirit animal?
AK: I love my dogs, they’re definitely my spirit animal. They’re the cutest little things in the world and I wish we all acted more like dogs because dogs just sleep and chill and eat and give love and they don’t care about anything except when they are getting their next meal and attention and I wish that happened more.
Street: If you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be?
AK: People who created fire. It would just be like “What were you doing? How did that happen? Tell me!”
Street: What’s the last thing you bought?
AK: This clay stuff called sugru. It’s like this air dry clay that you can basically do anything with...My phone cracked, so I put some clay in there and it dries up and it keeps it safe.
Street: Who is your current celebrity crush?
AK: Natalie Portman has pretty much always been my celebrity crush, not just current. She actually went to my high school. We had the same second grade teacher. I’m in love with her.
Street: What’s your guilty pleasure?
AK: Mixed drinks are definitely my guilty pleasure, but I’m not even guilty about them. If you’re drinking alcohol and getting drunk and it tastes delicious along the way then why does it matter? I’m not taking crappy shots of Vladimir vodka, I’m drinking delicious drinks that have more alcohol in them than your shot.
Street: What house would you be in in Harry Potter?
AK: Gryffindor for sure. Harry Potter is a big love of mine—I’m still waiting for my letter.
Street: Which was your favorite book?
AK: Okay. It goes four, seven, three, six, one, five, two. I hated the second book.
Street: Tell us about your first kiss.
AK: It was seventh grade, fairly spontaneous, sort of peer pressure-ey. Lots of people were watching and giggling and then it was over.
Street: If you are what you eat, what are you?
AK: A lot of chocolate, and a lot of gummies. The thing that I miss the most about Israel is that all the gummies there are kosher. Whenever I have family or friends that go to Israel I’m like, “Please pick me up six kilos of gummies, that’s all that I’m asking for!”
Street: What was the first concert you ever went to?
AK: I went to a Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park concert...A lot of goth, a lot of death metal people. It was me and my younger sister and my dad, and none of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into.
Street: Can you tell us a joke?
AK: I love puns. What do you call a fake noodle? An im-pasta...What did the guy who invented the doorknocker get?
Street: What?
AK: A No-bell prize. [Eds’ note: still lol-ing]
