It was an inspirational and magical summer for campers and staff all across the Ramah Camping Movement. Enjoy reading about these highlights!
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For the past four summers, Kaspar has been a camper at Ramah Outdoor Adventure (ROA) in the Colorado Rockies. Kaspar has participated in ROA’s Tikvah Program for campers with disabilities, both as a participant in the Amitzim edah (division) for campers with disabilities and, most recently, as part of the camp’s inclusion program.
Ramah Outdoor Adventure has become her second home and, according to her parents, has been a big part of her everyday happiness and success. Kaspar hopes someday to become a member of ROA’s tzevet susim (“horse staff”). Below is her take on life at Ramah Outdoor Adventure.
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Last Wednesday, I headed to family camp with Max for five days. I figured we'd have fun; I had no idea how meaningful our time there would be. It was full of firsts for Max—and the discovery of a whole other kind of holy land.
As a a teen, I was a counselor at two Camp Ramahs in New York and loved it. After I found out that the Ramah in the Poconos had a five-day Tikvah Family Camp for kids with developmental disorders and social learning disorders, I signed us up. (The Ramah Tikvah Network offers family, day and overnight camps at nine locations.)
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During the first week of August, a team of five from the Autism Institute at Mailman Segal Center headed for the mountains of Northern Georgia to help 26 families enjoy a week of summer camp.
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Camp is seen as an escape for many campers and a way to leave their busy lives behind, but for Asher Brown it is also an opportunity for him to improve his social skills as well as his work skills. Asher is a great example of how the Avodah Program at camp benefits all of the campers involved. Asher has been a camper at Camp Ramah in Canada for six years and has been active participant of the Tikvah Avodah Program for the past two summers.
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he campers and staff of Camp Ramah in Nyack danced with the crazed enthusiasm of people who had just won a $100 million jackpot. It was just past 9 a.m., the last Friday of camp in Rockland County, New York, and the Hebrew song playing was fittingly called "Lo Normali." I could not help but think that this amount of energy was freakish.
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In a first season episode of the HBO series “Girls,” Shoshanna Shapiro (Zosia Mamet), a student in her early 20s, is strolling down the streets of Manhattan when she hears: “Shoshanna! Hey, remember me? It’s Matt. Matt Kornstein? Camp Ramah? You led the most intense kitchen raid I ever saw in my time as a junior counselor.”
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After celebrating my Bar Mitzvah in June 1998, I joined the first ever session of “Taste of Tikvah” at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, which laid the foundation for six wonderful summers in the Tikvah Program. During this time I made many lifelong friends from the fellow campers, counselors and Israeli Shlichim that I interacted with. In 2004, I was lucky enough to participate in the new Atzmayim Tikvah Vocational Program, which enables former campers to learn independent living skills and get vocational training. In my role, I worked in the camp’s kitchen, where I helped stock and organize the necessary items, clean appliances, serve food to the guest tables, and help the chefs with food preparation.
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The ongoing war, misery, and anxiety in Israel and Gaza stand in sharp contrast to the incredible joy appropriately taking place at all of our camps.
Sandwiched between both these worlds are our 250 shlichim and our 250 participants on Ramah Seminar in Israel. Our shlichim are doing an incredible job continuing to plan programs, teach, and share their love for Israel with our campers, even as they closely monitor their families' safety under missile fire and the lists of the dead and wounded IDF soldiers who may be their friends, comrades, or relatives.
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