Ramah Tikvah Programs: New Initiatives and Year-Round Activities

Since the first Ramah Tikvah program opened in 1970, the Ramah Camping Movement has continued to be a pioneer in the inclusion of Jewish campers with disabilities. Tikvah programs now operate in all Ramah camps across North America, offering the inspirational Ramah experience to Jewish children, teens, and young adults with learning, developmental, cognitive, and social disabilities.

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2016 National Ramah Winter Leadership Training Conference

The 2016 National Ramah Winter Leadership Training Conference, held from January 4-7, was a tremendous success. This year’s gathering took place at Camp Ramah in California in Ojai under a mix of sun and much-needed rain. The four-day conference featured several tracks, including the Weinstein Institute for Counselor Training for second-year madrichim, as well as training for counselors of campers with disabilities (Tikvah), veteran staff (“vatikim”), division heads (rashei edah), and Ramah Service Corps Fellows. The 105 attendees at this year’s conference also included camp directors, assistant directors, and programming staff. Eleven Ramah camps were represented, including our newest camp, Ramah in Northern California. Kayla Levy, one of Ramah NorCal’s first staff members, shared that the inspiring week “embodied the innovation and ruach of camp that makes Ramah more than a two-month experience.”

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Hebrew Immersion in Camp

There’s a small buzzing slice of Israeli culture right in the heart of Rockland County. Up the winding country roads of Nyack, on a sprawling green estate, it’s 8:30 AM, and Israeli music is blasting. Hundreds of children in colorful T-shirts, shorts and sandals are running towards the central field to dance to Tel Aviv’s latest hits. Welcome to Sha’ar, Camp Ramah’s Areivim Hebrew at Camp program: seven weeks designed to instill Hebrew language fluency in young children through full language immersion. Here, roughly half of the campers are from day school, half are from public school, and some are from charter schools. Their knowledge of Hebrew is varied: some come from Israeli homes, while others don’t know a word of Hebrew when they first enter camp.

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Announcing the Camp Ramah/Synagogue Initiative for the Bay Area

NEW YORK, NY (January 13, 2016) – The National Ramah Commission has received a new grant from The AVI CHAI Foundation to deepen the connection between Ramah camps and Conservative congregations. This grant will support a pilot initiative between the newest Ramah regional overnight camp, Camp Ramah in Northern California (Ramah NorCal), and a select number of synagogues in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Ramah is beloved tradition for Tucson family

Tucsonan Lisa Goldberg’s connections to Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., run deep. She’s been a Ramahnik since she first attended camp when she was 8 years old, having “inherited” Ramah from her mother, Mimi Dinin Sisk, who was one of the first campers at the California location, and her grandfather, Samuel Dinin, a noted Jewish educator who helped the camp get its start back in 1956. Goldberg’s three children, Elana, Lily and Samson, have all spent summers there.

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Ramah and Ruderman Family Foundation Announce Video Contest Winners

The Ramah Camping Movement and the Ruderman Family Foundation have announced the winners of “TIPTOE (The Inclusion Project: Through Our Eyes),” an inclusion-themed video contest for participants from all Jewish camps. The goal of TIPTOE is to increase awareness of the inclusion work happening at Jewish camps across North America. The Ruderman Family Foundation will award a cash prize to the winners and make donations to the inclusion programs at the winners’ camps.

The winning videos can be viewed at http://bit.ly/1mcDnYf

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