The camp season has arrived, and Ramah camps are either underway or about to begin another incredible summer of growth and fun. Over 11,000 campers and staff members, the most in our 70-year history, will participate. This year is truly historic, with the opening of Camp Ramah in Northern California, “Ramah Galim” (“Ramah of the Waves”), in Monterey Bay, south of San Francisco.
Read MoreI’ve led Kabbalat Shabbat many times before, but this time is profoundly different. As I sing out the opening words to Yedid Nefesh, I hear only the voices of a handful of Ramah directors amid a sea of 250 people. I look around and see newly-minted Ramah Israeli staff members opening a Masorti siddur, hearing Carlebach melodies, and sitting next to co-daveners of the opposite gender, some for the very first time in their lives. By the second psalm, even though the words are still new, more and more people start to join in, humming and singing along. At one point, moved by the power of the music, shlichim start to get up and dance, forming concentric circles in the middle of our makom teffilah. This is the training seminar for summer shlichim, Israeli emissaries who come to Ramah camps each summer through the Jewish Agency, and I hold the heavy responsibility of being the first person to introduce them to Conservative Judaism in a real, tangible way – the way they’ll come to know and love Judaism at camp in just a few months.
Read MoreThe level of Jewish engagement and support for Israel on college campuses can be significantly strengthened by leveraging the incredibly positive Jewish experiences of the thousands of undergrads who spend their summers at Jewish camps. It is absolutely time for camp and campus leaders to work more closely together to harness this leadership potential to increase Jewish engagement and positive identification with Israel.
Read Morejust arrived in Poland for the fourth time, and each trip fills me with a range of divergent emotions.
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The first time was in 1982, on a brief stopover from Moscow as I returned from a two-week visit with Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Martial law had just been declared, the Solidarity anti-Communist movement led by Lech Walesa was gaining strength, and no one could predict the fall of the Soviet Union in just seven years. My three subsequent trips have all been with Ramah — initially with our teens on Seminar and now twice with a Reshet Ramah adult trip.
Read MoreMikayla, a rising 11th grader, wasn’t planning to return to Camp Ramah in the Poconos this summer. She was heading into the challenging junior year of high school and already had college on her mind. She thought it was time to start building her resume, to do the typical things that we think impress college admissions officers, like interning at a company or research lab, or volunteering in a faraway country. Then she thought again.
Read MoreI spent time this summer teaching at Ramah Nyack and Ramah Wisconsin, and very much enjoyed being at both camps and teaching staff. Even more than the teaching, talking to college students one-on-one outside the formal shiurim was even better. Quite a few of them wanted to talk to me about one thing or another.
Read MoreHarmony (noun): the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect. If I could describe my past week with one word, it would be harmony. It was not only the harmony of the musical notes that covered my skin with goose bumps and filled my heart with joy, but the harmony of the URJ (Union of Reform Judaism) and Ramah camps working as one.
Read MoreAmidst cheers, dancing, and singing, we just concluded the 2015 Mishlachat Training Seminar,which for the first time was held at the Givat Haviva Educational Institute, about halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. We are very grateful to our partners at The Jewish Agency who organize this four-day program and provide Ramah leadership with the unique opportunity to work with the 188 new Ramah shlichim joining us this summer. And unique it was: this was the first year that the training seminar began on Yom Ha’Shoah. Just minutes before the shlichim arrived, Ramah directors stood together and listened to the two-minute siren heard throughout Israel. As we marked Jewish time, it was not lost on us how interconnected memory and destiny are to one another. Minutes after the siren, the most idealistic young ambassadors of Israel joined us.
Read MoreShira spent her first summer as a member of our Israel delegation in 2006. Tall, energetic, and charismatic, Shira was the type of young woman who seemed to run instead of walk, always with a bounce in her step. She was and remains a passionate young educator, drama teacher, and baseball player.
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