Jewish camp – Page 2

There’s no place like Miriam

Judah Altman, left, Daniel Fine and Marina Levy all packed up for the bus. (photo from Camp Miriam)

Returning to Camp Miriam every summer is like going home. The kids shouting and laughing for joy, the bright smiles of the counselors, beautiful Gabriola Island – there’s no other place like Camp Miriam.

My first summer at Miriam was 2013. I’ve returned every summer since, more in love with the place and the people each time. I’ve grown up at Camp Miriam. I’ve grown up with the people; they are some of my best friends. I’ve grown up as a person; I’m always learning about myself and the world in ever-changing new ways. Most importantly, I’ve grown up at Camp Miriam having fun – summers at camp are what I look the most forward to most and I never want them to end.

photo - Left to right are “Visionaries” Daniel Fine, Marina Levy, Judah Altman, Mira Macnair, Kieran Macnair and Mica Hastings — Left to right are “Visionaries” Daniel Fine, Marina Levy, Judah Altman, Mira Macnair, Kieran Macnair and Mica Hastings. *(photo from Camp Miriam)*

I’ve been a camper, a junior counselor, a counselor and, last summer, a counselor for the leadership training program. Last summer was my favourite summer yet, and I can’t wait for this coming summer. To me, Camp Miriam has always been special for two reasons: the first is the activities, and the second is the people.

This summer, as chinuch (educational director) on our youth-led executive team, or mazkirut, I will be in charge of activities for the entire camp. I could not be more excited. One of the main reasons I continue to return to Camp Miriam is the unique options it provides for campers. There are the classic undertakings – like swimming, soccer, art and music. But then there are the programs that few other summer camps have, such as special days where all camp activities run around a surprise theme, ocean swimming as the sun sets, Jewish learning, and a focus on social justice.

I’m also looking forward to seeing the new and returning campers bond with their cohorts and with their counselors. I know firsthand that Miriam friendships last forever. The people I’ve met at camp will undoubtedly remain my friends for the rest of my life. These are the deepest connections I have.

photo - Judah Altman with friends Meital Smith, left, and Rakeea Chesick Gordis — Judah Altman with friends Meital Smith, left, and Rakeea Chesick Gordis. *(photo from Camp Miriam)*

After two years of COVID, these connections couldn’t be more important: for counselors like me, and especially for kids. Camp Miriam empowers youth and provides a space for kids to be themselves and to continue to discover who they are. It is a place to make new friends and reaffirm old ones. It is a place to talk for hours on end about all manner of issues, and to play and be silly without fear of judgment. It is a place to learn what true friendship means.

I am excited for the summer because, once again, I will get to meet new campers and counselors and help create the community that is the essence of Camp Miriam. I also can’t wait to see all the familiar faces. I can’t wait to run memorable programming for the kids that will be fun, while also empowering them to grow as people. Camp Miriam is the most important place in the world to me – I feel so fortunate that my parents have given me the opportunity to return summer after summer.

Judah Altman is a student at Columbia University, studying philosophy and sociology. He will be chinuch, or director of education, at Camp Miriam this summer.

Fun and safety during pandemic

In these uncertain times, JCC Camp Shalom set out to continue to be a constant source of fun and a safe environment for the whole community. For the second year, the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic demanded that the camp’s plans be reevaluated and adapted, as it partnered with King David High School to move the majority of its operations to the school’s building for last summer.

Camp Shalom is an inclusive Jewish day camp serving children, youth and teens from ages 3 to 18 years old, year-round, during school breaks and professional development days. Since the inception of the Inclusive Summer Camp Experience program in 2009, more and more children with diverse needs have attended Camp Shalom and participated in group activities, including overnight camping trips.

The number of children with diverse needs who attend Camp Shalom has grown from a handful to more than a dozen per summer – and the range of assistance provided for families has grown as well. Families are able to access more camp sessions and the camp can now support a wider range of ages and needs. Huge improvements have been made in accommodating campers in a true inclusion model and in providing opportunities for more Jewish programming beyond the summer, including Sunday Hebrew schools for those who did not have access to them prior to their experience with Camp Shalom.

photo - Camp Shalom offers an inclusive setting for all ages, abilities — *(photo from JCC Camp Shalom)*

Thanks to the contributions of the Diamond Foundation and the Snider Foundation, Camp Shalom is able to support more campers and staff with diverse needs by providing special training sessions, mentorship programs and one-on-one support for those campers who need it. Campers who were part of the first inclusive camp experiences are now teenagers and young adults who are still connected to Camp Shalom, and some are now camp staff. This past year’s biggest achievements included engaging about two dozen children, youth and teens with diverse needs and successfully integrating them into the general camp program alongside 120 to 150 other campers in the camp’s preschool, school-age and teen programs.

JCC Camp Shalom likes to think of all youth as being in transition. It pays special attention to campers transitioning from childhood into teenagehood and those teens who are about to become counselors. Work experience is a huge milestone as they enter high school. At camp, they go from being campers to participating in the teen programs, to joining the staff team.

Regardless of their developmental stage and/or maturity level, and taking into consideration their diverse needs, these teens need more support and adaptations than any other group with which the camp works. Careful planning and consideration of their needs has resulted in a successful program that provides them with social and organizational education that will benefit them in the future, as they look for employment, as well as in other areas of their lives.

JCC Camp Shalom is the largest summer Jewish day camp for youth in Vancouver, but its responsibility continues, as the engagement with youth extends beyond summer camp to throughout the year. As teens develop, Camp Shalom recognizes their need for adults with whom they can connect, that they can trust and who can be positive role models. Staff from the summer teen camp programs are educated and qualified to sustain positive and appropriate relationships with youth as they age. The inclusion model of camp programming allows campers with diverse needs to have an unforgettable Jewish experience at Camp Shalom.

For more information about the Inclusive Summer Camp Experience or Camp Shalom’s teen programs, contact Ben Horev, camp director, at 604-813-4236 or [email protected].

– Courtesy JCC Camp Shalom

Back to camp, to being a kid

At summer camp, kids build community, take on challenges, become independent and develop leadership skills. (photo from Camp Solomon Schechter)

There’s a place where kids can simply be themselves. Where they build community, take on challenges, become independent and develop leadership skills. And, through it all, they think it’s just fun and friendships. That’s the magic of summer camp – a healthy dose of nature and nurture.

One year after sleepaway camps across the country were shuttered by the pandemic, many kids packed their shorts and hiking shoes once again, dug out their sleeping bags, and reunited with camp buddies to rekindle fond traditions.

We asked the directors of three Jewish summer camps in Washington state to share their perspective on the role camp plays in the social and emotional health of children, and how it was especially vital in the summer of 2021.

Welcome back to camp

“Welcoming the kids back this summer was extra special,” said Zach Duitch, director at Camp Solomon Schechter in Tumwater. “We could see it in their faces. After being online for a year-and-a-half, they were ready to be outside, with their friends, and having fun.”

Many parents were understandably concerned about sending their kids back to camp this past summer. Attendance numbers dipped somewhat, but families also recognized the value of getting their kids back to outdoor healthy summer fun, Duitch said. Away from everyday social pressures, camp staff works to create an environment that’s a safe place for kids to be their authentic selves.

“Parents trust us with their kids’ safety, security and health – and also with their spiritual and emotional needs. We take that trust incredibly seriously,” said Rabbi Ilana Mills, director at URJ Camp Kalsman in Arlington. “Camp is life-changing in so many ways. It’s an opportunity to grow as a whole person.”

Fun with lasting impact

When kids come home from one, two or three weeks at summer camp, the changes may not be immediately evident. In fact, many campers and counselors only realize as adults how much the experience has shaped them, instilling them early on with courage, compassion and independence. Kids can head off to camp as early as the summer after first grade. Many progress through the years to become counselors, taking on leadership roles as high school and college students, in what many describe as the “best job ever.”

Ask a kid and they’ll say camp is about boating, hiking, arts, sports, cookouts – and the thrill of a high-ropes course. Along with the fun, each camp has its own unique culture with familiar traditions passed down from summer to summer. Camp culture is what ties the community together with singing and celebrations, skits and games. Jewish summer camps also integrate religious observance and community into daily life.

“Camps are these bubbles – their own societies – where kids play a central role,” said Rabbi Kenny Pollack, camp director at Sephardic Adventure Camp in Cle Elum. “Our kids are immersed in the culture of camp, and it helps shape their identity.”

Healthy dose of silliness

When camp directors describe how their programs nurture kids, it can sound pretty serious. But one thing they take extremely seriously is fun.

“At Camp Solomon Schechter we do a lot of ‘shtick.’ Campers love seeing their counselors act silly,” said Duitch, as he explained a beloved trivia game that ends with participants messy and everybody laughing.

Mills described how “we really try to be as outside the box as possible. We push our counselors to teach their passion, be creative and try new things.”

She even got a chance to join the fun, playing a zombie during the culmination of their outdoor survival unit at URJ Camp Kalsman.

Leave real world behind

Kids leave their parents and their digital devices at home when they arrive at camp. There may be homesickness at first but soon their days are consumed by activities and friendships. And, since more and more camps are going device-free, campers get a break from their screens.

“Camp is a place where kids get to be their authentic selves,” said Pollack.

Each summer, as kids are reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, they’re also connecting across borders. Increasingly, camps are bringing counselors from international locations to supplement the programming with games and traditions from their home countries.

“As much as kids love their parents, camp is a great opportunity for them to learn from other role models,” said Duitch, explaining how the camp experience broadens kids’ viewpoints and connects them to lifelong friends.

Many parents, kids and camp staffers found it heartbreaking to cancel camp in 2020. That’s why camps throughout Washington banded together, lobbying the state government to make sure that camp happened in 2021 and that it would be a safe and extra-memorable summer. In the end, it may be difficult to measure the social and emotional impact of returning to camp after a trying year. But parents could no doubt see it in the hugs, the joy and the happy exhaustion as they picked their kids up at the end of camp this past year.

This article, courtesy Camp Solomon Schechter, comes from the Samis Foundation, which was established in 1994 by Samuel Israel, z”l, and is the largest Jewish philanthropy in Washington state. Grantmaking is focused on the foundation’s mission of supporting local Jewish education and initiatives in Israel. Samis is honoured to support the three Jewish overnight camps located in Washington state, working to keep Jewish children and teens engaged in their culture, religion and communities.

Meet at camp, get married?

Dan and Jen Silber met at Camp Moshava. (photo from Silber family via jns.org)

Eighteen-year-old Bernie Kozlovsky spent from sundown to sunrise on a boat with 16-year-old Sonia Rosenbaum in the summer of 1972.

“We talked until dawn,” Kozlovsky recalls about that summer at the Orthodox Jewish NCSY overnight camp in northeastern Maryland. Kozlovsky worked in the camp kitchen. Rosenbaum was a camper. From that summer forward, neither dated another individual. Forty-three years later – including 39 years of marriage, six children and seven grandchildren – Kozlovsky attributes his successful relationship to the spark that formed during his summertime experience.

Not much has changed.

Today, the (camp) fire is still burning at Jewish summer camp. Dating and marriage are byproducts of summers spent banging on the table during Birkat Hamazon (Grace after Meals), engaging in loud and intense games of color war, and celebrating Jewish culture with Hebrew plays and folk-music campfire sing-alongs.

No one is pushed to date at Jewish summer camp, said Lauren Ben-Shoshan, who met her Israeli husband, Alon, as a counselor at URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) Camp Harlam in Kunkletown, Penn., in 2004. The couple now lives in Israel.

“Camp is a positive place for Jewish learning, physical activity and connecting with the outdoors. No one wants campers to feel bad because they didn’t find their spouse when they were 15, 19 or 22. But there is a covert understanding that [marriage is] a nice byproduct of Jewish summer camp, when it happens,” said Ben-Shoshan, who is also a Jewish educator.

It occurs more often than many realize. According to Camp Works, a report released in 2012 by Foundation for Jewish Camp, Jewish adults who attend Jewish overnight camp are on average 10% more likely to marry within the Jewish faith than their peers. The 2000-01 National Jewish Population Study found that number to be higher, with 78% of individuals who attended Jewish summer camp in-married, as opposed to 62% of their non-camper peers.

What’s the secret sauce? Is it that romantic Shabbat at sunset by the lake or in the secluded woods? That’s part of it, but it is more likely a result of the “intensity” of the camp experience, Ben-Shoshan believes.

“The days last forever, but camp feels like it only lasts a minute, so even if camp is only two months, these are two very intense months,” she said. “You see the campers and counselors in stressful situations, how they interact with peers and with the kids, the meals, how they interact with co-workers. It is all these things that happen in life, that could take several months in the ‘real world,’ you see within a week at camp.”

Jewish summer camp focuses heavily on community-building, noted Aaron Bogage, who attended the BBYO International Leadership Training Conference for several summers and now works at the overnight BBYO Chapter LTC. He said there are always “quite a few couples per session,” explaining that these relationships form because everyone is “extremely open” with each other and open to meeting new people. “Everyone is genuinely excited to get to know the rest of the teens.… There is a sense of community that comes from camp,” he said.

One can start to pinpoint new couples, according to Bogage, by looking at who sits where during meals and what campers do during free time. Bogage has not met his significant other through camp, but his good friend met a girl last summer from another state. They are still together despite the physical distance between them.

Jen Silber, executive director of Habonim Dror Camp Moshava in Street, Md., said there is a focus at camp on building healthy peer relationships. “We want [campers] to learn about communication, how to express their needs in relationships, feel confident being themselves and develop trust,” she said.

Silber, who met her own husband as a camper and then staffer at Moshava, argues that friendships and romantic relationships that people form at summer camp tend to be “deeper” and more authentic than those forged at school or in other environments. Campers and counselors feel accepted for who they are, she said.