|
Gilad Shalit
Today, June 25, marks 4 years since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas. We will be marking this moment in camp and we encourage the larger community of Camp Ramah in California to remember Gilad and to let the world, and the Shalit family, that he is not forgotten. Here is a message from the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY) with how you can help:
JCRC-NY will bring your message, along with thousands of others, to the International Committee of the Red Cross and demand that Hamas allow the ICRC to visit and deliver the notes to Gilad in accordance with international humanitarian law. Since he was abducted in 2006, all such requests have been denied. We cannot remain silent in the face of Hamas' cruel violation of Gilad's human rights!
Send your message here:
http://jcrcny.org/gilad/messagetogilad.html. (If this doesn't automatically take you to the website, please copy and paste the link into your Internet browser window.) We will also be sending a copy of your messages to Noam and Aviva Shalit.
|
|
|
|
 Shalom! Kayitz 2010 is off to a fantastic start! After months of preparation and anticipation, we are so thrilled to finally welcome session I and Gesher A campers, as well as our Ezra staff. The sights and sounds of campers learning, playing, singing, making friends and much more fill our beautiful camp to the brim, and we look forward to spending the next weeks with your amazing children. As humans, we crave both sameness and change. Returning campers' faces light up when they recognize sights, smells and friends from previous summers at Ramah. But it's especially rewarding to see their reactions to new features and activities around camp. Here are some of the new things that your camper might discover at Ramah this summer:  --Our brand new Meskin Family Ropes Course towers over camp with an incredible set of challenges for campers of all ages. Our amazing course is one of the largest at any Jewish summer camp in the western region of the United States. Our 12 person ropes staff received a week-long intensive training from the course builders on using and maintaining the course. Each edah will be able to access different elements of the course, concentrating on both individual successes and trust-building team exercises. The course consists of a 50-foot high Alpine Tower (pictured), a two-level Odyssey Course and a "team development course" made up of low elements. Campers Claire and Sasha Mutchnik, winners of a pre-season enrollment raffle, enjoyed the privilege of being the first campers to use the ropes course. -- Va'ad Yarok--Our "green committee" will convene throughout the summer to d  iscuss and implement ideas for Ramah to become more environmentally conscious. Environment-themed activities and incentives for staff members to carpool on days off are just a few of the ways we have begun to make camp more yarok. Our Etgar Tikkun Olam campers have already designed and built Ramah's first ever composting bin (pictured)! -- Kickboxing is the latest sport to be added to our sports rotations. Israeli instructor Lee Hadad teaches kickboxing to IDF soldiers and describes kickboxing as an aerobic workout combining movements from many forms of martial arts. --Artist-in-residence Leora Wien will work throughout the summer with both Machon Etgar campers and other camper groups to create murals incorporating Jewish values and themes to beautify Camp Ramah.  --We also have many new staff members this summer. Look for weekly profiles of new staff members in the news section of our website.
This year we are proud to welcome a delegation of approximately 25 Israelis to our staff, many of whom are returning for their second (or even third) summer at Ramah. By day they serve as lifeguards/swim instructors, dance teachers, counselors, ropes course/outdoor guides and in other recreational areas, while also educating our community about Israel. We are so appreciative of the Ramah families who hosted these staff members between their arrival to Los Angeles and the start of staff training, and to Ramah board member Rochelle Cohen for organizing this hospitality. Host families include: Baskin, Beiser, Cohen, Dehrey, Ehrich, Freeman, Glaser, Kesten, Masor, Meskin & Zarrow.
The culmination of every busy week here at Camp Ramah is a fabulous Shabbat that begins with mifkad, a tradition of gathering on the grassy hill, singing songs to welcome Shabbat and greeting our friends with special good wishes for a restful Shabbat. Following mifkad are traditional Friday evening services in our beautiful outdoor beit knesset and then a delicious Shabbat dinner.
We have begun posting photos documenting camp life on our secure website and in the coming days will augment our site with news of the many special activities going on around camp.
We look forward to sharing the coming weeks with your children. Shabbat Shalom! |
|
D'var Torah from our visiting rabbi
Hard-Gained Wisdom, Laughter and Song
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
 It is hard to find the words when overwhelmed. No word can express, in that moment, what is happening deep inside. It is like trying to translate crying. Or like trying to speak to/of God. What moments I experienced at camp this week! What a thrill it is to witness pervasive Jewish joy!
Here at Ramah, I saw Jewish counselors schlep luggage for their campers up a hill. The first associations that came to my mind were not pleasant - Jewish luggage being hauled in another time, a horrifying place. I was suddenly adrift in time. Jewish baggage, perhaps.
But I was yanked out of my panic by a very simple thing. The tag on the luggage before me was very familiar. It had my own address on it, as it was my child's camp bags. And here she was, full with nervous anticipation not for the images from the past that haunt/haunted me, but the impending celebration of a Jewish summer camp with memories that hadn't happened yet. This was Jewish baggage that hadn't yet been packed. The singing and cheering as Jewish children convened on a sunny field filled me beyond capacity.
How else, in this rapturous realization, could my soul experience this except to pray? To pray for God to be with us here at Ramah and everywhere else, in every song, every ounce of friendship.
It is all too possible to fixate on fearful images, detailing the past. But how freeing it is to experience joy, how unpredictable and delightful to encounter wonder. My daughter's entering the embrace of Jewish joy here at Ramah brought me into one of those moments, for which I am profoundly grateful and proud.
May the One who permeates the universe itself be within each of us as we open ourselves to the future, building it through hard-gained wisdom, and taking every opportunity to laugh and sing.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor is the spiritual leader of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley and founder of ShefaNetwork.org: The Conservative Movement Dreaming from Within. His personal website is www.menachemcreditor.org. |
 As a Rabbi you experience many firsts. Each first is always special, and this week was no different at Camp Ramah California. While first time campers create new friendships and learn new Jewish ideas, veteran campers solidify those relationships and ideas that they have learned on these grounds in years past.
But this week at Camp Ramah was different for me.....it was my first experience at Camp Ramah.
And if these first three days at camp are a sign of what our Jewish future will bring to our families and our communities, I am confident of the bright shining lights that will emerge from Camp Ramah this summer.
The book of Bamidbar, Numbers, chronicles the growth of the Jewish people from their second to their fourtieth year in the desert. It describes a journey from childhood to adulthood, from dependence to independence.
In this week's parsha, Balak, the king of Moab, nervous of the ensuing Jewish people, asks Bilam to weaken them through the power of speech. Yet, as we know, each time Bilam opened his mouth, only blessings came forth. "Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishknotecha yisrael." How goodly are your tents O' Jacob, and your dwellings, Israel."
In the midst of the confusion and vulnerability of the Jewish people, who faced the daunting task of becoming independent, the voice of Bilam reminds them of their gifts, blessings, and potentials.
This is exactly what Camp Ramah offers.....Jewish potential.
I had the opportunity to reflect with the Machon campers on their Jewish journeys during an opening educational session. Some wrote personal prayers, others created a Shabbat rhyme, and other spoke of influential mitzvah projects that have inspired consistent giving to their communities.
We concluded by dreaming of the vision of their Jewish futures, acknowledging that each camper begins this summer striving to gain access to Jewish independence.
This vision is easily achieved at Camp Ramah. On the basketball court, singing birkat hamazon in the chadar ochel, fencing, or hanging out with friends, Judaism is alive and Judaism thrives.
As a first time Rabbi-in-Residence, I thank Camp Ramah California and its committed and inspiring campers and their families.
For it is I who have received the gift of potential.
It is I that now recognize the power and potential of each camper to create and learn this summer. It is I who am grateful to Camp Ramah that another generation of Jewish leaders will be ready to influence others to catch the Ramah ruach.
It is I who will be ready to welcome our campers back into our communities, hoping that they carry that ruach with them, as we will all benefit greatly from that special blessing of mah tovu, "How goodly are our tents."
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Erez Sherman
Shomrei Torah Synagogue
|
|
The following reflection is in memory of Dr. Edward Kamenir, zichrono livracha, beloved congregant of Sinai Temple and visionary in the building of Camp Ramah, Ojai. May his memory continue to inspire Ramahniks to grow, dream, and build a strong Jewish future.
The Miracle of Impact
 The last time I spent a significant amount of time at Camp Ramah was in 2004, as the Rosh Edah of Adat Shalom. Fresh out of my second year of rabbinical school, I fulfilled a standard requirement of the Jewish Theological Seminary-to work one summer at a Conservative Jewish summer camp. Rabbi Dan and Zach Lasker put an immense amount of faith in me and as each day of that summer melted away, my unbridled love for Jewish camping was unleashed. I knew how much of an impact camp would have on me-the connections made, the transformation of my soul, the growth of my teaching abilities, etc. However, just this summer...this summer of me returning to Camp Ramah as a rabbi-in-residence--did I realize the potential of how much one person impacts another.
My Adat Shalom campers are now counselors. My seventh grade chanichim, many of whom are also my congregants, are now the "children" raising the next generation of Camp Ramah leaders. My heart swelled with pride as I watched one of my kids gently comforting a homesick camper. I kvelled as I watched 12 eighth grade girls listening intently to the advice of their counselor--another one of my campers. And tears welled up in the corners of my eyes as I observed another one of my Adat Shalomers showing an Amitzim camper the whereabouts of camp. My "kids" were no longer kids and although it is rare for an adult to reap the benefits of their teaching and role modeling so early on in life, I was given that beautiful gift this week. I watched the kids who I mentored six years ago-- who have been touched, taught, guided, and moved by so many Camp Ramah rabbis, educators, and staff...lead. There is no better reward than to see your "children" grow up and become the teachers. I once thought the reward was growing in personal abilities and skills. I was wrong. The reward is watching your own skills and abilities being passed onto the next generation and even further, seeing how your students pass on their own passions and drives.
Rabbi Edward Garsek of Toledo, Ohio shares a story in which a child is confounded by the enormity of the trees and nature around him. He assumes that the giant trees and sheaves of grain were planted right into the ground in their particular form and size by God. The child's mother looked at him and said, "My dear little boy, I want to tell you something unbelievable. You see your little fingernail? Well, a farmer takes a little seed, that is so small it's even smaller than your pinky. With water, sunshine, and air, big trees grow...."
The child grew upset and said to his mother, "It is not nice to trick to me...I've heard the wonderful story of how God parted the Red Sea and led us through dangerous waters. Something like this I understand because it is so natural. But really, Mommy! Big, beautiful trees, fruits, and grains-all coming from such a small, tiny seed? Such miracles? Even I know that is not possible!"
When each of us is involved in the rearing of a child, in the teaching of a student, or mentoring of a camper or young professional, it is hard to imagine the potential impact we leave and likewise, the impact left on us. I remember the overjoyed looks on my past teachers' faces when I return to my elementary school after several years and explained how much I valued their guidance and love. This week, Camp Ramah offered me something extraordinary. I saw my kids teaching kids. I saw my campers blossom into Jewish adults and mensches. I felt the impact I left on them and foresaw the impact and positive imprints they are leaving on their own campers. It is an odd commodity to receive-but in just a few days I watched a small miracle transpire: the unfolding of time where a teacher watches a student becomes a teacher.
Thank you Camp Ramah for this very special gift, this beautiful moment, this treasured lesson. During our lifetimes, may we see the legacy of our impact and more importantly, understand when we too, are changed by those we impacted.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Nicole Guzik
Sinai Temple, Los Angeles |
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Greyber and Dr. Zach Lasker
Executive Director and Camp Director
Camp Ramah in California
|
|
|
|
Phone us: 888-Camp-Ramah
Write us: 15600 Mulholland
Suite 252
Los Angeles, CA 90077 |
|
|
|
