For Bay Area native Deborah Hoffman Gonzalez, it was a succinct checklist that inspired her to bike through Israel last month: the country itself, a love of cycling and helping kids with special needs.
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At the annual four-day National Ramah Spring Leadership Training Conference (“Winer”) last month, incoming rashei edah (division heads), Tikvah (special needs) staff, and Daber Fellows (Hebrew facilitators and ambassadors), came together at Ramah New England to train with Ramah professional staff, plan for the summer, and do a little rikud as well.
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Based on research conducted for the National Ramah Commission by Professor Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion and the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University. This study was supported by generous funding from Eileen and Jerry Lieberman.
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One of the more remarkable things we do as a Ramah movement is bring nearly 300 young Israelis to our camps each summer. I always knew that shlichim were a great part of camp, but until I first attended the Summer Shlichim Training Seminar in Israel, sponsored by the Jewish Agency, I didn’t realize just how impactful the mishlachat program is.
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“Young American Jews and young Israelis form long and enduring relationships that extend well beyond the eight- to nine-week summer experience they share together,” Amy Skopp Cooper, director of Camp Ramah Nyack, north of New York City, and national associate director of Ramah, says.
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When you go to Ramah Darom, magic starts to happen, said Fred Levick, the CEO of the retreat and camp facility in the North Georgia mountains in the Clayton area.
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Frigid temperatures and blasts of wind weren’t enough to keep area residents from running for a worthy cause Sunday morning.About 200 runners braved the cold for a one-mile loop beginning at Congregation B’nai Israel. The Purim 5K is organized by the Sisterhood of the Fair Lawn Jewish Center at Congregation B'nai Israel. Proceeds support the Tikvah program of Camp Ramah, a network of nine overnight summer camps in the United States and Canada for children with disabilities.
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A sure sign, according to Karen Alford, a sleepaway camp consultant, is that he or she has grown tired of day camp.
“At 9 [or going into fourth grade], you’ve probably been doing day camp for several years, and there’s just a natural progression to sleepaway camp,” she told JTA.
Of course, Alford added, some kids aren’t ready until they’re older.
“You have to know your child and what they can handle,” she said, adding that “some parents with kids who have trouble separating find camp even more helpful at a younger age because it builds independence.”
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In the summer of 2010, with just hours to go before campers arrived for the first day of the first season of Eden Village Camp, director Yoni Stadlin got some bad news from the health department: A procedural issue had delayed the issuance of a permit and the camp could not open as scheduled.
Luckily, another camp near the Jewish environmental camp’s Putnam Valley, New York, home offered a temporary space, but staff members were still forced to scramble. One put on a Moses costume and declared that, just as Jews took a circuitous route on their journey to the Promised Land from Egypt, Eden Village campers would take the long road to their summertime home. Daily programming was improvised on the fly. Supplies were whatever could be rustled up. Programs were held in a field or the forest.
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