Alumni

Ramah Marriages

Samuel M. L. Schafler & Sara Rita Edell
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1950
Year Married: 1951
Sam Schafler was a rabbinical student at JTS the year when I, Sara Edell, arrived from Toronto, Canada to NY to be a student at the Teacher's Institute. Before the camp season of 1950, the opening summer at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, we met for the first time at a pre-camp meeting in the second floor lounge of the Seminary building. Since Sam was the only one I did not know I introduced myself to him on the elevator after the meeting.

As it happened we both needed to be in New York on the first day off, he to get his glasses repaired and I to see my sister Ethel. We left camp by car with our music director Aharon Entin who dropped Irwin Feldman, Sam and me off at Sam's home to overnight. I slept on the couch in his living room and awoke to see his father walking back and forth with tallit and tefillin as he davenned.

For next day off Sam asked me if I would hitch hike with him to visit his mother, sister and aunt at their summer cottage, some 300 miles from camp. We did that enjoying one another's company. All the rest of the days off we spent together becoming good friends. We were counselors and teachers; each also headed one of the camp programs, I girls’ sports, he nature counselor.

Not long after our return to the Seminary Sam proposed marriage and set a date for my answer. Since I had a hard time making decisions of such importance, I brought my mother to meet him. He came to Toronto for Pesach and we were married in fall.

But what was most interesting is that Sam revealed to me that when he saw me at the Ramah pre-camp meeting the wild thought crossed his mind that he was going to marry me. We had a 40-year wonderful marriage and raised six children spending twenty-four summers in leadership positions in four Ramah camp sites with all or some of our children. Sam died in 1991 at age 62 from cancer while he was the acting president of the Hebrew College of Boston.

Neil Norry & Sharon Singer Seidman
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1954
Married: 1959
I am submitting this information on behalf of my sister and brother-in-law of blessed memory. I do not know how long they each attended the Poconos but all of their children and most of their grandchildren have attended Ramah.

Sylvan Donald Kamens & Rhoda Roth Kamens
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1956
Married: 1959
We met on the last couple of nights in August 1956 when I came up for just 10 days as a substitute madrich. We courted as I entered JTS and were married in 1959.

Marim D. Charry & Paula Spinrad Charry
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1957
Married: 1959
Since Paula and I married - after meeting in the Poconos - we served as staff members (with our children) in the following camps: Connecticut, Palmer (at two different times), Canada, and Berkshires. Our last summer as Ramah staffers was 1988, in Berkshires.

Benjamin Segal & Judith Moldavi Segal
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1957
Married: 1964
We met as campers, began "dating" at age 14, have stayed together since. Our children have been involved at the Jerusalem Day Camp.

Benjy and Judy Segal on
Yom Haatzmaut 5765 (2005)

Bart Axelrod & Charna Ockman Axelrod
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1960
Married: 1962
We actually first met in Israel in the summer of 1958. Bart was in Israel for the year and Charna came on the second USY Pilgrimage. We began dating at Ramah in 1960 and were married in 1962. Our son was a camper and counselor and doctor at Ramah Poconos and our grandson now attends Ramah Day Camp in Philadelphia.

Jonas Goldberg & Chelly Gilgore Goldberg
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1960
Married: 1963
We began our relationship at an LTF Kalla in Atlantic City in the fall of 1959 and by the summer of 1960 we were a couple. Since Jonas was on the Joint Program and then Rabbinical School, our real quality time was during the summers in the Poconos. We even made a "deal" with David Mogilner (z"l) that we would move our wedding date up to the beginning of June in order to spend the summer of 1963 at camp. David and Alex Shapiro (z"l) were two of the rabbis under our huppa. We are proud to count a number of other Ramah couples as good friends.

Arthur Cohen & Julie F. Silverstein Cohen
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1960
Married: 1965
We met at Poconos in 1960 and were "friends." We both lived in Brooklyn and started dating in the fall of 1960. We got engaged in 1963 and married in 1965. Our daughter went to Poconos from Tulsa, OK for one summer and spent one summer in Nyack. Both kids have been in Ojai, CA and now our granddaughter is a camper at Ojai. We have stayed in touch with many Poconos Ramahniks all these years and have served on the Board of Ojai.

(additional submission, 2011) We met in 1960 at camp on the bus. We were "friends" all summer. In the fall of 1960, we started dating and married after we graduated college in 1965. (Julie worked at Ramah Canada in 1961.) We have always maintained friendships with our Ramah connections - my oldest friend dates back to 1956. We just reunited with Don Rubinstein after 45 years. Our children have attended Poconos and California, and the grandchildren continue the tradition. We all have long term friendships. Last year we attended our 50th reunion in Philadelphia. It was amazing - Shabbat, davening, benching and our visit to camp were events we will not forget. We especially enjoyed talking to Machon kids explaining about Zionism and the evolution of Israel since the 1950's. We also explained we had no computers, email, Social Networking - we just wrote letters and occasional phone calls to arrange our Annual Thanksgiving Reunion in Philadelphia. Art & I were Founders of the Ramah Academy in Ojai - we somehow always keep our Ramah connection at home and in the Jewish community.

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)

Aaron D. Michelson & Rona Mager Michelson
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1961
Married: 1966
We met in the summer of 1961 and became friends. He went back to JTS in NY and I to high school in Philadelphia. We wrote each other over the years and married in 1966. We and our 5 married children and 21 (so far) grandchildren live in Israel.

Jonathan (formerly David) (former last name: Milgram) Rimon & Wendy Wolman Rimon
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1961
Married: 1975
We met at the Poconos in the summer of '61. We were six years old, and enjoyed the run of the camp. Some may remember Wendy's dad, Avi Wolman, as the head of nagarut and subsequently, as business manager. For years, our German Shepard spent her summers in the Poconos! Jonathan (then known as David) was accompanied by his older sister Shoshe, and their mother Roberta Milgram, who taught Hebrew. We were great pals for years as staff kids, and our friendship continued during our camper years. Wendy also spent one summer in Canada, attended Mador in the Berkshires, and returned to Poconos in 1974 as a counselor. The Milgrams made aliya in 1971. When Wendy made aliya three years later and renewed her friendship with Jonathan (who Hebraicized "Milgram" to "Rimon"), the relationship took a romantic twist. Our summers in Ramah provided our shared foundation of Jewish values and planted the Zionist seeds. We married in 1975, have 5 children, and live in a lovely town in Israel called Kochav Yair. In 2002, our youngest daughter Yael spent a summer in the Poconos, and Wendy came back as a yoetzet.

Shelly Dorph & Gail Zaiman Dorph
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1962
Married: 1964
I saw Gail across a crowded chadar ochel at the end of the summer. I lured her back to camp for a special training program. She came back and we worked in same edah. That fall we both went to JTS, and I stole her from her boyfriend that fall. Thank you, David August (z"l), who helped make the shidduch while we were at camp. The rest is history.

Nason Goldstein & Carole Orenstein Goldstein
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1962
Married: 1965

Robert (Asher) Freedman & Sharon Center Freedman
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1963
Married: 1965
We met at Camp Ramah in the Poconos the summer of 1963. I told my bunk that Asher Freedman surely was an example of what Ramah was about. On Friday he was teaching the girls in my bunk how to do sit ups, and on Shabbos he was reading the Torah for our edah. Who knew we would marry two years later!

Jeffrey Tigay & Helene Zubkoff Tigay
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1963
Married: 1965
Helene and I were students at JTS and had met briefly there, but it was at Ramah in the Poconos, where we were both staff members in 1963, that we got to know each other better and our romance began. Obviously the frequent opportunities to see each other fostered by the camp environment and the shared values that brought us there enabled our relationship to blossom much more rapidly than would have been possible in a different environment. It is one of the many things for which we are eternally grateful to Camp Ramah.

Miles P. Bunder & Alida Krovetz Bunder
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1964
Married: 1966
Miles was asked to drive the Baum Meat Truck from NY with luggage. As he followed the bus of staff to camp, two girls made faces at him from the back window of the bus. When he arrived at camp, Miles set up a fake registration table and when Alida approached, he asked her to join him at the "No PDA" talk that night. They dated until January, when Alida broke up with him. Miles then asked Rabbi Mogilner (z"l), a close friend, to arrange for Alida to be assigned to Poconos the summer of '65. Jack Gruenberg was asked to pick her up from the bus station, and while driving to camp, mention Miles. The rest is history.

Barry Levy & Cooki Rosenfeld Levy
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1964
Married: 1968
We met sitting across from each other in the hadar ochel in the Poconos. Barry was a machon counselor and Cooki was a Madornik. After the summer we re-connected in New York where we both went to school, and agreed that for the following summer, to give ourselves some "space," Cooki would switch to Palmer. A big mistake! Barry travelled on numerous buses to visit her in Palmer and Cooki travelled to the Poconos to visit Barry. The following summer we both returned to the Poconos, and returned the summer after. Right after the summer of 1967 we became engaged, married in 1968 and will celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary next week.

Ramah provided the opportunity for us to meet, to expand and develop common interests, to grow together Jewishly and to actively develop our common interests in education. The rest is history. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Barry's involvement in Jewish education and Cooki has a similar, though somewhat shorter, career in the same field.

Our oldest granddaughter will attend Camp Ramah in Canada this summer for the first time. (submitted 2011)

Jeff Blum & Cindy Goldfarb Blum
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1966
Year Married: 1975
The camp environment fostered natural and comfortable friendships across genders. This allowed us to become friends first, then, many years later, lovers, all within the context of Jewish values, living as respectful and moral people. Our relationship is built on this foundation and has sustained us for over 30 years of marriage. Not only as best friends to each other, we have retained our camp friends and other Ramahniks as the people we feel most connected to in our lives.

Steven Asher & Ina ("Louie") Elfant Asher
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1966
Married: 1979
We both started at Ramah in the Poconos when we were 12, and continued as madrichim while in college. We met only briefly; he was one of the big kids. Years later, when Steve was living in New York and I was living in Cambridge, we met again at a Connecticut Jewish weekend retreat. We married 3 years later. We have 4 children who have gone through Schechter and Akiba, and our son Jacob has spent the last 2 summers as a madrich at Ramah's Philadelphia day camp.

Billy Landsburg & Robin Sue Schwartz Landsburg
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1967
Married: 1971
Rabbi David Mogilner, z"l, told Robin Sue that he could see something special about the two of us. Forty years later we still have that special Ramah feeling in our lives. Our four sons all attended Ramah as campers and then as staff members. Other than meeting my wife, I thought the highlight of my experience was being Rosh Sport in 1970, but now that I am President of Poconos, I may need to reevaluate.

Noam D. Zelman & Susan Hirsch
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1967
Married: 1985
Good friends in 1967, a couple in 1968. Lost contact after a few years, until we met for a drink in Atlanta in 1984. Talk about bashert!! We married ten months later and are still going strong. Only from Ramah does a Philadelphia girl marry a Georgia boy and live happily ever after.

David Barras & Shelley Karp Barras
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1969
Married: 1970
I met David when he was training CITs in camping. We spent free time and days off together all summer and continued the relationship through the next year. When I wrote to my mother and said I had met the man I wanted to marry, she said I was too young. When I told her he was going to be a doctor and his father was a rabbi, she said fine.

Chuck Sherman & Leah Hurowitz Sherman
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1969
Married: 1979

Judah (Lakritz) Rand-Lakritz & Susan (Rand) Rand-Lakritz
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1972
Year Married: 1981
We first met when I was in the oldest edah (Havurah at the time) and Judah was a counselor. No camper-staff relationships! We met again a few years later when we were both on staff. No staff-staff relationship... (I thought he was cute; he thought I was too square.) In December 1979 I called Paul Messinger, another Poconos friend that I had been on staff with during the summer of 1978 and who was home on leave from the IDF, to see if he wanted to do something. He said fine, but he had already made plans with Judah Lakritz, who had returned to Philly after completing his IDF service - Would it be OK for the 3 of us to go out together? I said sure, and the rest is history. Former Poconos director Rabbi Archie Ruburg performed our wedding and Paul Messinger was one of the witnesses. Since 2002 we have been going back to Poconos. Two of our 3 children, Shira and Eytan, have come along. As I write this, the third, Keren, is interviewing for a position with Ramah seminar!

Susan and Judah in 1981

The Rand-Lakritz Family in 2006

Michael Goldberg & Sandra Polin Goldberg
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1976
Married: 1987

Barry Blum & Amy Cohen Blum
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1978
Married: 1981
Both of us had been campers at Poconos, but it wasn't until we were on staff and found ourselves shooting some hoops together, that we recognized how much we enjoyed each other's company. Not only did Ramah give us a lifetime of incredible experiences, but it also gave us our life partners. Now our son is carrying on the tradition, serving as a madrich at Poconos, after having spent 12 years at Palmer, (where he was joined by his sister who was a camper and us as sports specialists) and 2 others at Poconos, where we recently returned after 25 years, to work for part of the summer. It was definitely like returning home...with great memories!!

Jonathan Hersch & Julie Lipson Hersch
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1979
Married: 1990
Julie and I met in Halutzim in 1979. From the moment I met her, I thought she was the cutest girl at camp, but we didn't "go out" until Machon in 1981 (for almost 6 full days). We kept in touch through high school, but lost contact in college. In February of 1989, we bumped into each other at a water fountain in Boston. We were engaged that fall. Our three children have visited or attended Ramah every year of their lives!

David Apothaker & Carol Mendelsohn Apothaker
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1978
Year Married: 1985
We met as staff working in the same edah.We did not begin to date each other until years later when we ran into each other again.

Andrew Barnett & Vivian Matusow Barnett
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1980
Married: 1989
We originally met as campers but did not really date until we were reunited as Ramah staff. Ramah has shaped who we are as individuals and as a couple. Both of us are very active in our Jewish community and comment often how this is a direct result of our Ramah experience. Ramah laid the groundwork for our relationship as we both had the same hopes and dreams for ourselves and our children from the start. We send our children to day school because of Ramah and our strong desire for Jewish continuity. We have three children and the oldest has now begun to attend Ramah and it is our goal for our other two to do the same.

Barry L. Magen & Cheryl Skolnick Magen
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1981
Married: 1984
We met at camp when Cheryl was in training to become director of Ramah Poconos. Ramah has played a significant role in our relationship and our friends.

Sheldon M. Levin & Nita Polay Levin
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1982
Married: 1983
We had met a few times before, but it was definitely Ramah that brought us together!Both of us were specialists and wherever I was, there was Sheldon! For example, I had been in the staff choir for four years before he was Rosh Musica--that was one way. We both went Israeli folk dancing on Friday night with the edot, all the plays, and we seemed to attend the same staff activities. Then he came to Omanut and asked if there was someone on staff who could teach him to crochet a kipah! After twenty-two years of marriage, he still won't tell me if that was a line or not--but I did give him private lessons! Ramah enabled us to enjoy these activities in a casual, individual way and experience each other without pressure, discovering that we had the same interests and dreams for life, including sending our kids to Ramah!

Alan Goldman & Missy Stein-Goldman
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1983
Married: 1992
Summer of 1983. I was finally in the oldest edah, Gesher. It was Alan's first summer at camp as a counselor. However, it wasn't until 1987 that we truly fell in love. Summer of 1991 we went back to Poconos. As we were both living in Israel, our parents had never met. Alan and I got engaged on visiting day when our parents finally met each other on the volleyball court.

After we married in 1992, we moved into our first home—at the Goldstein Youth Village, a.k.a. "The Havah." We were counselors for TRY Akiba and TRY Australia. We haven't had such a luxurious home since. We are still in touch with our Ramah roots both personally and professionally. (Submitted 2009)

Joshua Skoff & Ilana Hoffer Skoff
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1985
Married: 1986

We had each been campers and staff at different Ramah camps for years, as had our siblings. We had each been in Washington, DC in 1983, going to the same shul, at different times of the year, and not met. We had actually both worked at Ramah Poconos in 1984, and not met!

In the summer of 1985, we met during staff week and fell in love before the campers arrived. We were introduced by our mutual good friend Rebecca Davidowitz Kaplan. We were engaged during camp, actually a month after we had met, and married six months later. We have two children, Jared, born 1993, and Eden, born 1994. After living in Los Angeles, Jerusalem, and Manhattan for school, we have been living in Cleveland, Ohio since 1990. We have registered in this directory in honor of our 25th anniversary. Last year we visited camp with our kids in honor of the 25th anniversary of our meeting. (Submitted 2010)

Craig Caplan & Harriet Goldner Caplan
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1985
Married: 1990
We were staff in the same edah in the summer of 1985 at Ramah Poconos. Harriet, who was from Baltimore, was a counselor and I was a junior counselor from Dresher, PA. If it hadn't been for Ramah, we would have never met. We both had a love for Ramah, which still continues to this day. Harriet later came back there to work as a nurse. Our two girls, Shana and Rachel, have spent many summers there and have grown to love it too. (Submitted 2009)

Steven Sietz & Ephie Brand Sietz
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1985
Married: 1990
Ephie and I met by chance at a staff basketball game one summer evening in 1985. We spent the rest of that summer getting to know each other and continued a long distance relationship (letters, phone calls, etc) over the next two years (Ephie in TX, and myself in NJ). Ephie then moved to Philadelphia to attend Gratz College in 1988 while I went to Rutgers in New Brunswick. In 1990, after graduating from college, we were married. We now have two boys, ages 8 and 12 and are expecting another child this summer. The oldest attends Ramah and will be in Halutzim this summer. Spending guest weekends at Ramah, Ephie and I relive the magic that started with that simple "chance" encounter. We will be celebrating 20 years together (15 years as a married couple) this summer (2005). The unique Ramah experience is clearly responsible for our happy marriage and growing family. We hope our children may too experience a "chance" encounter that will last a lifetime.

Offer Isseroff & Nava Zwi Isseroff
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1986
Married: 1987

Todd Goodstein & Alisa Rubin Goodstein
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1986
Married: 1993
Alisa and I met first met at camp when she was in Gesher and I was attending my first year at Ramah working in the kitchen (influenced by Barry Magen thru USY). Alisa did not come back the following year but then came the year after as a counselor and we started dating that summer. We continued to date while I was at Penn State and she was at University of Delaware and then got married right after college graduation. We would have never have met if we didn't both go to Ramah! (Submitted 2009)

Bruce Lipton & Meryl Sussman
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1987
Married: 1992
We were engaged around Thanksgiving 1991, and married on Hanukkah in 1992. Cheryl Magen, our chadchanit, made our ketubah and was one of our witnesses. Our other witnesses were Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom (my home rabbi) and Rabbi Arthur Ruberg, director of Camp Ramah in the Poconos, 1976-1980. We had wanted Rabbi Eli Havivi, director of Camp Ramah in the Poconos, 1981-1984, also to be a witness. Unfortunately he was not able to attend our wedding because he was in "eivel" (mourning for one of his parents). Every year of our marriage we visited camp for a Shabbat, usually during alumni weekend. In 1998 Bruce became the Director of Finance and Operations for Camp Ramah in the Poconos, so now we have been back to camp every summer since then.Summer 2005 will be our 8th summer as a family. Our daughter Rachel (11/27/95) has all but two summers of her life at camp. Our son Avi (3/22/98) has spent every summer of his life at camp. He started at 3 months!! What is fun now is that every summer Bruce and I present a peulat Shabbat to an edah, either Machon (entering 9th grade) or Shoafim (entering 10th grade) about our relationship, which is really about making choices. We call the peulah"Al Tistakeil BaKankan Elah b'ma She'yesh bo" -- Don't look at the pitcher but what is in it -- don't judge a book by its cover. We use this name because of the assumptions we made about ourselves in 1987 and then learned differently in 1989.

Joel Seltzer & Eliana Katz Seltzer
Camp: Poconos
Met: 1988
Married: 2005

Larry Schachter & Phyllis Blyweiss Schachter
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1989
Married: 1992
We met the summer of 1989, and were thrown into a two-and-a-half-year long distance relationship. I (Phyllis) continued working at camp until our wedding in 1992. This year our son spent the whole summer at camp. We have never been more jealous of our child. We are reliving our past through him. Our love of Camp Ramah has been officially passed to the next generation.

Aaron Soffer & Hannah Bloch Soffer
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1991
Year Married: 2004

Marshall Gilinsky & Lisa Gertsman Gilinsky
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1992
Year Married: 2004
We were both campers for many years at Ramah Poconos but since we were four years apart, we did not know each other well. We had our first real encounter one oneg shabbat in the summer of 1992 when Marshall was visiting camp and Lisa was a JC. We kept running into each other over the next several years, in Washington DC and then in NYC. We had dated briefly in 1999 and remained in sporadic touch until December 2001 when we began dating seriously. We were married in May of 2004 on a lake in Vermont, where friends of ours from camp performed the ceremony. We recently gave birth to our daughter, Dahlia Cairn.

Josh Menachem Kulp & Julie Beth Zuckerman
Met at Israel Seminar
Camps Attended: New England, Poconos, California
Met: 1995
Married: 1996
We originally met through our involvement in international USY, but we "re-met" in the summer of 1995, when we were both group leaders for Ramah Seminar. We had led fairly parallel Ramah & USY "careers" until then, both serving as roshei edot at our respective camps (New England - Julie) (Poconos & then Canada - Josh). We spent a lot of time together during the staff Shabbaton before Seminar, and went out on our first official date on that motzei Shabbat. By the time Seminar officially started, we were already an item, and despite being in different hativot, we managed to see plenty of each other. The campers only found out in the last week or so. We got engaged a few months later, and we've been living happily in Israel ever since!

Ricky Gratz & Sarah Weinberg Gratz
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1995
Married: 2003
During the summer of 1995, we met for the first time as Shoafim campers at Ramah Poconos. Sarah was returning to Ramah for her fourth summer, while Ricky was brand new to the Ramah scene. A mutual friend from Ricky's bunk happened to ask us separately if we both thought the other was cute. We each agreed, and the relationship lasted an entire week, a whole eighth of the summer! For several years after that magical summer ended, we stayed in touch with each other through our close friends in our eidah. It wasn't until the summer of 2000 that we ran into each other at the Y100 Feztival in Camden, NJ. Sarah happened to be working in Cherry Hill, NJ for the summer while Ricky was working in Philadelphia. Our meeting at the concert was beshert and we decided to start dating again. This time, our relationship blossomed and we married in September 2003.

Ramah Poconos holds a special place in our hearts. As dedicated Conservative Jews, we hope one day to send our children to Ramah so that they too will enjoy the unique experiences that Ramah has to offer.

Joshua David Abrams & Rachael Schultz Abrams
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1995
Married: 2004
Rachael and Josh met during the summer of 1995 as junior counselors. The following summer, they were counselors for Shoafim and became friends. After staffing family camp during the summer of 1999, they did not see each other for several years. They ran into each other in New York City during Simchat Torah at their friend Hillary's apartment. Rachael was working in New York City at the time, but for one assignment traveled two days a week to Philadelphia, where Josh lived. They exchanged emails and planned to meet for lunch. Lunch led to long-distance dating and it was two years before they ended up living in the same city. They were engaged in May 2003 and married in Baltimore, Maryland on August 8, 2004, celebrating with many Ramah friends. Ramah is extremely important to both of them and they are grateful that it led them to each other!

Michael Schwab & Erica Gross Schwab
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1995
Married: 2004
We met at camp and in USY. Ramah was the perfect place for a relationship to develop between two young Jewish people. We are grateful to Ramah!

Eli Lipsky & Rinna Hoffman Lipsky
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 1996
Year Married: 2005
We met in the omanut building, where I was a CIT. When Rinna came in and sat down it was love at first sight (for me, anyway). I was able to pull myself together enough to talk to her, and we became friends. It was 5 years before she agreed to go out with me, but well worth the wait. We began seeing each other when she was at Tel-Aviv U. for a semester, and I was in my last year in the IDF. We were married in Cherry-Hill, NJ in August of '2005.

Daniel Relles & Dina Lucas Relles
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1996
Married: 2005
When we first met, we were friendly, and then kept in touch for a few years. We started dating the night of a Poconos alumni reunion (after a friendship of seven years), and the rest is history!

Newlyweds Dan and Dina Relles along with parents
Edy and Rabbi Alan Lucas and Nathan and Mary Relles
at the Ramah Poconos annual Gazebo Zugot dedication

Geoffrey Menkowitz & Elana Genut Menkowitz
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1997
Married: 2002
Elana and my sister grew up in the same edah at camp. In the summer of '93, I was Elana's younger brother's counselor. But we didn't really get to know each other until years later... In the summer of '97 we started "dating" - if you can call it that in the camp environment. After camp though, Elana went to Israel for a year. We didn't see each other at all and kept in touch sporadically at best. She was only able to visit camp for one day the following summer. We finally reconnected at the Hillel Leader's Assembly (held at Camp Moshava, a stone's throw from Ramah Poconos) in August of '98. Later that fall, I went up to visit her in Boston (using the Head of the Charles as an excuse) and the romance blossomed. We returned to camp the next two summers both working as rashei anaf. We got engaged in 2001 less than 24 hours before heading up to camp to serve as roshei edot (Elana was Rosh Bogrim, I was Rosh Gesher). That summer was our last at Ramah Poconos because, after finishing graduate school and getting married (chronologically ordered, not listed by importance), we moved to Georgia where I became the assistant director of Ramah Darom. This will be our first summer not at Ramah (in my case since 1987) as we are expecting our first child - and future Ramah camper! God willing, we'll all be back at camp next summer.

Eric Scott Yanoff & Dava Wiener Yanoff
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 1998
Married: 2003
Eric and I met for the first time the summer of 1998. It was my first year on staff and his first year as a rosh edah. We connected instantly and actually hugged each other the first time we met for no explicable reason. Before the end of the summer we knew this wasn't just a "camp romance". We dated long-distance for 3 years, (I was in college in PA and he was in rabbinical school in Manhattan) spending long hours on the phone and commuting to see each other via Amtrak. For the next three summers we came back to work at camp. After graduating from college, I moved to New York and a little over a year later we were engaged. We got married in September of 2003 and celebrated with many of our Ramah friends. We look forward to sending our future children to Ramah and continuing the tradition.

Ari Saks & Rachel Einhorn Saks
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 2000
Year Married: 2006

Yoni Shear & Michal Raucher
Camp Attended: Poconos
Met: 2002
Married: 2006
We met at USY Encampment, but the aura of being at Ramah contributed to our relationship. We returned the next summer and our relationship blossomed. We love making every day count at camp and taking that with us for the rest of the year. Every year that we return to camp, we feel like we meet each other all over again.

Matthew Seltzer & Stacy Lipschutz Seltzer
Camp Attended: Poconos
Year Met: 2002
Year Married: 2007
We met at Camp Ramah in the Poconos in the summer of 2002. Matthew was a counselor, entering his sophomore year at the University of Maryland and Stacy was a junior counselor, who had just graduated high school and was preparing to attend Muhlenberg College. The Ramah community fostered our relationship by allowing us to discover just how many core values we share and opened our eyes to what our lives together could create. We could not have met at a more magical place than Ramah and we look forward to sending our future children to this wonderful place.

Ramanhiks at Stacy and Matthew's wedding in 2007