Alumni

Ramah Marriages

Stuart Kelman & Vicky Kolton Kelman
Program Attended: Mador
Met: 1959
Married: 1964
We met in the first Mador (the summer of '59) at Ramah in the Poconos. Although I had gone to the Poconos all along, Stuart was from Ramah in Connecticut (a predecessor of Ramah in New England). We were not even friends that first summer - we ran in different crowds. Then Stuart went off to Israel and I started at Cornell. We re-met 4 years later in the fall of 1963 when I was a grad student at JTS and he was a senior in the Joint Program. We married in December 1964 and moved our Poconos/Connecticut 'mixed marriage' west in 1969. We've been at Poconos, Palmer and Ojai. The rest - as they say - is history... at Ramah in California! All of our children have been staff children, campers, counselors, unit heads, and specialists at Ramah in Ojai.

Norma Shifrin Blecker & David Blecker
Program Attended: Mador
Met: 1965
Married: 1971

Elliot Dorff & Marlynn Wertheimer Dorff
Camp Attended: Mador, Poconos, Wisconsin
Met: 1961
Married: 1966
We were really a mixed marriage because Elliot grew up Milwaukee and the Wisconsin camp and Marlynn grew up in Philadelphia and the Poconos camp. We met in Mador, which at the time was a national program for training counselors. Marlynn's parents had sent her there specifically to meet someone from Philadelphia, but instead she met someone from 1,000 miles away who took her 3,000 miles away to California to live. As the Yiddish has it, man tracht und Gott lacht -- man plans and God laughs! Elliot told his parents as he left them at the airport on his way to camp that summer that he might meet his future wife there because Mador was a place where people came who shared his desire to be both serious about Judaism and part of the modern world -- and who knew how to integrate the two. We met in the Mador program in 1961, which at the time was a national program. Marlynn followed Elliot back to Wisconsin for the summers of 1962-64 and 1966, with 1965 spent back in Poconos camp on the Bekhir program for training Roshei Aidah. When we moved to California, we spent every summer between 1972-1986 at the California camp except for 1978, when we staffed the Ramah Israel Seminar, and returned in 1991. (Submitted 2009)

Martin Jeffrey Berman & Marylin Gottlieb Berman
Met at Israel Seminar
Programs Attended: Mador, Wisconsin
Met: 1967
Married: 1971
On our way up to Mt. Carmel, Marylin was saying how she could not stand Southern accents and Danny Berger, an old friend from Ramah Wisconsin said meet Marty Berman from Jacksonville, Florida. Marylin said would you believe - a strong Southern accent? We went to Mador and then Wisconsin for two more years and then got married.

Gershon Schwartz & Shuly Rubin Schwartz
Camp Attended: Mador
Year Met: 1970
Year Married: 1973

Paul Neustadt & Barbara Mencow Neustadt
Camp Attended: Mador, Nyack
Year Met: 1968
Year Married: 1977
We met at American Seminar in Nyack, NY the summer of 1968. We were in the Mador Program at NE Ramah in Palmer, MA the summer of 1969. We had a wonderful group of friends that continue to this day to share our life experiences. Paul and I were close friends until 1974 when we started dating. Our wedding was June 26, 1977. We celebrated our 30th anniversary this year.

Jeffrey Hoffman & Laurie Mark Hoffman
Camp Attended: Mador
Year Met: 1973
Year Married: 1979
I first saw Jeff on the steps of JTS leaning on his guitar.We were on our way to Camp Ramah in the Berkshires for the Mador program just out of high school.I flew in from Minnesota, and met awesome people in Mador! It was junior year on the one year program where we really got together, and spent many years at Ramah in Wisconsin after that.Ramah has had an impact on us that cannot be quantified and we both are very happy that we chose to spend the summer of '73 at Ramah!

Laurie and Jeff in the 1970s

Laurie and Jeff with their children Shaia, Shulie, and Yossi,
all of whom have worked at Ramah Nyack