Camp is a part of Jewish education

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

More than 90 per cent of parents who attended Jewish day schools through high school enrolled their own children in day schools. Parents who attended day schools also were most apt to send their children to programs of informal Jewish education, such as summer camps, youth groups and trips to Israel.

These are just two of the findings reported in Linking the Silos: How to Accelerate the Momentum in Jewish Education Today, by Prof. Jack Wertheimer of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Wertheimer's six-member research team on the 2005 study included Prof. Riv-Ellen Prell of the University of Minnesota, who will deliver the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture next month. Her topic will be North American Jewish Summer Camping: How a Youth Culture Transformed American Judaism. According to Prell, in the postwar years, the influence of camp on Judaism has been great.

Linking the Silos concluded that education, including that learned at Jewish camps, "is integral to how American Jews live today.... Overlapping circles of learners, parents, members of extended families, fellow synagogue congregants, peer groups, educators and communal leaders all interact with one another in the activities of Jewish education. This means that beyond the cognitive knowledge and the skills they teach, Jewish educational settings are central to the way American Jews construct their lives and communities today."

The study's title is derived from the finding that Jewish education is provided by autonomous institutions, each operating "as a silo ... vertically organized operations, divorced from constructive, horizontal interaction with others."

The report states that, "The current challenge in the field of Jewish education is to link the silos, to build co-operation across institutional lines and thereby enable learners to benefit from mutually reinforcing educational experiences and to help families negotiate their way through the rich array of educational options created over the past decade and longer."

Linking the Silos notes that few alternatives to the synagogue supplementary school were available to Jewish parents half a century ago. Now, "communities have developed multiple options. Day schools of various stripes are available, as are Jewish early childhood programs; teens have the opportunity to participate in youth groups, travel to Israel and attend overnight camps." It notes that proportionally more parents are engaged in serious Jewish study than was the case 50 years ago and that today's parents "feel a greater sense of responsibility to reinforce Jewish education than was the case in the past." Linking the Silos states that, if the Jewish schooling of parents is arrayed "on a continuum from less to more intensive experiences in their own childhood and adolescent years, we find increased utilization of all forms of Jewish education – formal schooling and informal educational programs – among the children whose parents were educated more intensively, a pattern that is especially dramatic among parents who attended day schools for seven years or more.... Similar patterns are evident when we examine the exposure of parents to various forms of informal Jewish education. Those parents who participated in Jewish summer camps, youth movements and Israel trips are more likely to enrol their children in such programs, too."

For both young people and parents, Jewish education reinforces Jewish engagement or community involvement. For youth, "those who participate in more intensive forms of Jewish education tend to be more actively Jewish in their religious observances and likely to befriend other Jews. They bring with them to the classroom, group, bunk or Israel trip higher levels of familiarity with and commitment to things Jewish, which, in turn, engage them in Jewish life far more than those who are exposed to less intensive forms of Jewish education.... Second, more intensive and extensive Jewish education of one type is also associated with other forms of Jewish educational activities. Participation in youth groups, overnight camps and Israel trips generally increases with the intensiveness of Jewish schooling."

For example, eight per cent of Jews with no formal Jewish schooling report having attended a Jewish summer camp, compared to 31 per cent of Sunday school attenders and 43 per cent of supplementary school students. Participation in one form of informal Jewish education often translated into participation in other types of programs: for example, children who went to Jewish summer camp were more than twice as likely as non-campers to attend a Jewish youth group and almost seven times more likely visit Israel.

The study ends with several questions, including, "How can we educate and cultivate future federation leaders and others to appreciate the importance of exposing young people to a range of educational experiences?" A question that someone may wish to ask Prell when she speaks at King David High School on Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information, call Betty Nitkin at 604-257-5116.

^TOP