Originally published August 1, 2024
The 14 summers I spent at Jewish summer camp were a core part of my childhood and the formation of my Jewish identity. At the URJ’s Eisner Camp in Massachusetts, I met Israeli counselors and campers and learned what it meant to be a Zionist. I found independence, and what it meant to participate in Jewish life and community on my own terms, not relying on my parents to dictate what that looked like. I discovered a vibrant spiritual life, meaningful prayer (compared to the “boring” synagogue services of my childhood), and that I could find God in nature, in relationships, and in stretching my own limits.
Historians of the North American Jewish experience teach us that the first Jewish summer camps, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had the primary goal of “Americanizing” immigrant Jewish children. They brought children out of the hot, disease-filled tenements of the cities of the northeastern United States, to camps in the Poconos, Catskills, and Berkshires, with names drawn from Native languages, to assimilate the next generation of American Jews. But rapidly, the focus shifted to developing campers’ Jewish identity – and this is the reason many Jewish families, my own included, send their children to Jewish summer camp today.
I was lucky to spend this past weekend at Camp Ramah in Canada, where I got to visit with some of our Temple Shalom kids who are spending the summer there, and see what my own kids have been up to. Jewish summer camp is a place where everyone who comes can get an infusion of joyful Jewish life – a place where the schedules run on Jewish time, where Hebrew and Jewish ritual are woven into every day life, where the popular songs are not sung by my girl Taylor, but by Israeli pop artists, both recent and classic. If only we could all spend a Shabbat at camp! Since we can’t, I am inspired by the idea that in these times, every Jew should be 5% more Jewish. Create your own infusion of joyful Jewish life by choosing one Jewish action to do each day – be it reading Israeli news, listening to a Torah study podcast, finding a moment for prayer in the morning, before a meal, or at bedtime, giving tzedakah, or volunteering with Temple Shalom. Even though the summer period is often a quieter period of communal Jewish life, before the busyness of the High Holiday season, it doesn’t mean that our Jewish souls go dormant. Let me know how you’re upping your JDV – Jewish Daily Value – and increasing the Jewish nutrients in your life!
Rabbi Miriam Farber Wajnberg
