Identity: Camp Magic
July 6, 2012 
7 Comments
by Sheryl Lechner
It’s a cool, rainy day in early August at URJ’s Joseph Eisner Camp in the verdant Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, so the evening’s Shabbat service is taking place in the Beit Am, instead of the outdoor sanctuary. The auditorium is packed with campers, counselors, staff, and, as honored guests, more than 200 people here for a camp Alumni Shabbat weekend. The youngest campers, Bonim (builders), are taking their turn on the bimah, leading services with a skit, a dance, and ample song, accompanied by the folksy guitar strumming of the camp songleaders and the voices of preteens and teens joining wholeheartedly in singing the prayers. The atmosphere is relaxed: Counselors aren’t shushing campers (except during the Shema) and the campers feel free to have a whispered conversation, get up to greet a friend, even peruse a comic book. After everyone joins in singing Birkat Shalom, Rabbi Howard Jaffe of Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Massachusetts, a visiting rabbi who is officiating this evening, comes up to the microphone. “Look around at the other campers,” he says to them, “and think, there might be someone here that you might end up marrying.” The room fills with giggles, and he adds, “I said might.”
And now comes the highlight of the evening: Jaffe, himself a former Eisner camper, calls to the bimah twenty of the alumni couples who had met at camp to reconsecrate their wedding vows. Several rabbis and prominent Jewish leaders, including then URJ Board chairman Robert M. Heller and Union Vice President Rabbi Daniel Freelander, are among the group. So are Paula and Rabbi Herman Blumberg. Paula, Rabbi Jaffe tells the crowd, was here at camp in 1958, the year Eisner opened; the couple met the following summer. Later their son Jonathan attended; this summer he’s back as a camp doctor. And Jonathan’s son, 11-year-old Joseph, is Eisner’s first alumni grandchild.
The alumni couples exchange vows, the Bonim campers sing a love song to the group, some preteen boys collapse into paroxysms of nervous laughter, but in the row in front of them, an older boy puts his arm around the girl next to him, who leans into his shoulder. Once again, camp is working its magic.
“Camp magic” is a phrase that comes up all the time when talking to former campers and camp staff about Jewish overnight (or resident) camps. And it’s a phrase that, increasingly, educators and philanthropists are banking on to ensure that the Jewish communities of North America groom future generations of engaged Jews.
Read the rest of this story by Sheryl Lechner in Reform Judaism magazine.
“Counselors aren’t shushing campers (except during the Shema) and the campers feel free to have a whispered conversation, get up to greet a friend, even peruse a comic book.”
That’s going a little too far. There is something to be said for relaxing the standards of “decorum” in worship, especially in youth-oriented settings, and especially at camp. I’m all for Kabbalat Shabbat in jeans or shorts and t-shirts and tennis shoes, singing to the strum of a guitar with your arm around a friend. But, worship is not a social club. I believe that the daily schedule of a URJ camper allows sufficient time for “whispered conversations, greeting friends, and perusing comic books” OUTSIDE of daily prayer services.
The author of this post seems almost to be bragging about the disrespect that is being encouraged at this camp, and I nearly lost my lunch when I read it. That is so egregiously inappropriate and irreverent, I would scarcely call such an event “worship”. This confirms the suspicion that non-orthodox Jewish worship is being systematically and calculatedly turned into a forum for social interaction and ethno-cultural affirmation rather than an authentic experience of communal prayer and worship. It is a total mockery and desecration of the Jewish and broader Abrahamic/monotheistic tradition.
I know that the “camp magic” exists, and presents a rich opportunity for instilling Jewish commitment in our youth, but I sometimes wonder if it’s all good magic.
Jordan Friedman – It appears that you don’t really understand the point here. In a world filled with distractions, creating a space where Jewish experience is the norm, where it is cool to sing and dance, and being is being Jewish is not something that is easily created. It takes systematic and calculated effort to build a space that fosters Jewish identity. Camp is the best tool Liberal Jews have to create this kind of experience.
I went to 3 different Jewish camps as a kid and worked at 2, meeting my wife at 1. There is more to the camp magic than what the author outlines, and while there are countless studies saying otherwise, there is no way to quantify or monetize the impact of Jewish summer camp on Jewish identity.
I had hoped to avoid opening this can of worms, but there is also the issue of whether the particular KIND of Jewish identity that the camps are so good at fostering is even desirable! Over the past couple of decades, the kitchens of most URJ camps have become halakhically Kosher by an basically ORTHODOX standard, with the exception that separate dishes are not used (unless that’s changed too). What kind of message does that send? This is just one example of how the camps are hastening and intensifying the phenomenon whereby Reform Jews are selling out to traditionalist standards of authenticity in Jewish practice, even as they are straying father and farther from the beliefs associated with Judaic Ethical Monotheism.
A major point of clarity: Other than Camp George, the URJ’s camps are in no way kosher by any Orthodox standards. We have overall remained “kosher-style” for many years. What does this mean? It means that we do not serve kosher meat (with the long-standing exception of OSRUI), we do not have separate plates, pots, pans or utensils; we do not have separated food storage. Camp George has a kosher kitchen because when we purchased the camp, it was the only Jewish retreat center serving all of Toronto, but with that exception, traditional Jewish groups will not rent our camp facilities because our food services do not reach Orthodox kosher standards.
We encourage thoughtful exploration of Jewish practice and intentional decision-making in the big tent of Reform Judaism. About 15 years ago, there was a consensus reached that we would see no longer serve meat and milk on the same plate (cheeseburgers, for example) but many camps still put cheese out on separate platters when deli meat and the like is served, allowing campers and staff to make their own dietary decisions. Some camps, at their discretion, make available frozen kosher meals to a handful of folks who make the request.
Well, I can’t argue with that since my main experience with the URJ camps was at OSRUI, and much of my knowledge is second-hand from friends who spent much more time at OSRUI than I did.
I don’t know whether to be comforted or horrified that the “big switch” in terms of dietary practices came as recently as 15 years ago. I am impressed that it was resisted for so long before giving in, but I am sad that it wasn’t even more recent, because then it might be a little easier to reverse when the decades-long pendulum swing away from Classical Reform finally settles somewhere in the middle (and I am cautiously optimistic that it will).
I might argue with Jordan—services just about anywhere have always been a social club as well as an observation of worship ritual. Walk into any shul in the US and you are likely to see adults of all ages conversing, reading, checking their email and other varieties of activity. I’m sure that in ancient rabbinic days, many showed up because their friends were there and because worship is a communal experience as much as it holy ritual.
As much as we might like to try to impose our own notions of what is proper decorum, what is perhaps most important is that kids are experiencing themselves within a joyous Jewish context. My daughter is a product of URJ camps and the EIE program, along with scores of her friends and countless others. She is now a Jewish professional, and just about every one of the kids she grew up with and shared the experiences of camp, youth group and just being together are leading vibrant Jewish lives. As a member of the URJ’s North American Camp Commission, I’ve seen it replicated many times. We must be doing something right. It may not exactly match your idea of what “Judaic Ethical Monotheism” looks like, but I pretty firmly believe it’s as authentic as can be.
That depends on your definition of a “vibrant” Jewish life. What is considered vibrant today is vibrant primarily in terms of surface-level practices, and less so in terms of inner spirituality. Of course, there are many exceptions to this, but it seems to me that in general, there is a trend towards stressing ethno-cultural and social dimensions of Jewish identity in non-Orthodox circles. The markers of Jewish identity are more superficial and less spiritual than they once were. Bagels, kippot, birthright, and Kashrut don’t make you Jewish–God, Torah, Ethics, and thoughtful holiday observance do.
I have no delusions that we can (or should) force children to sit still, dressed formally, in an ornately decorated Sanctuary with the 1940 Union Prayer Book in their hands, singing to organ accompaniment. However, there is DEFINITELY a way to capture and frame the spiritual essence of classically liberal Judaism in a way that is relevant to young people, and we’re not currently doing that. I have seen some worship materials from early in the Camp movement, which overlapped with the transition away from Classical Reform. They are brilliant! With few modifications, they would be appropriate to begin using today, because they contain the best of unabashedly liberal, modern Jewish thought with the warmth of ancient traditions.