Ramah does WHAT?? Rabbi Mitch Cohen, National Ramah director, says that he often hears, "Wow, I had no idea that Ramah was doing that!" Everyone knows that Ramah runs outstanding day and overnight camps, some of the best and most inspiring Jewish educational organizations in the world. But did you know...
Read MoreThe 2018 National Ramah Winter Leadership Training Conference, held January 4-7, was a tremendous success. This year’s gathering took place at Camp Ramah in Ojai, California. The four-day conference featured several tracks, including an expanded Bert B. Weinstein Institute for Counselor Training for college freshmen, as well as training for counselors of campers with disabilities (Tikvah), veteran staff (“vatikim”), division heads (rashei edah), and year-round Ramah Service Corps Fellows and Ramah College Network Fellows.
Read More...people with disabilities are very capable of connecting in a meaningful way with Jewish ritual, practice, and knowledge, and with Israel. When our summer camps, synagogues, youth groups, schools, communities and Israel trips open their doors to include everyone, the payoff is as clear as the beautiful sky we saw from Jaffa on the last night of our trip of a lifetime.
Read MoreA group of thirty participants at the January 2018 Bert B. Weinstein Institute, Ramah’s winter leadership conference, wrapped up their time in California with a brand-new Ramah experience - at Disneyland! This incredible four-hour Ramah Disneyland leadership training, entitled "Cultivating a Leader’s Impact,” was a highlight for the group, whose members represented our cohorts of “vatikim” (college sophomores), Ramah College Network Fellows, Ramah Service Corps Fellows, and rashei edah (division heads).
Read More“Israel is just as important to the Tikvah participants and their families on this Birthright trip as it is to all those Jews who view the Land of Israel and the State of Israel as their Jewish homeland,” said Herb Greenberg, who founded the Tikvah program with his wife, Barbara, in 1970.
Read More“When you go out into the wilderness, you just become open to all sorts of change,” said Rabbi Eliav Bock, director of Ramah of the Rockies. “When you go into the wildness, you strip away a lot of the noise we have around us — family, drugs, bad influences. You take somebody out of normal circumstances and force them to confront who they are as a person, what their core values are.”
Read MoreBaMidbar Wilderness Therapy, an experiential outdoor education program for young adults struggling with emotional, behavioral, or academic challenges, will launch on January 24. BaMidbar is a program of Ramah in the Rockies. The therapeutic program includes four-day wilderness treks, with Shabbats spent at Ramah’s base camp. At base camp, participants will also have individual, group, and family therapy.
Read MoreTo be a member of the Ramah kehilla (community in Hebrew) is a beautiful gift. We learn how to accept and love others for their weaknesses and not just their strengths....We learn how to ask for forgiveness and to forgive, to embrace our differences, to celebrate with immeasurable joy during the good times, and to comfort each other with endless sympathy during the hard times.
Read MoreA variety of Washington-area day camps offer activities for campers to discover abilities and interests they didn’t know they have. Ramah Day Camp of Greater Washington, in Germantown, MD, allows kids to take three electives per week in addition to swimming and activities like Israeli music and dance. Electives include candle-making, cooking, robotics and engineering.
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