Jewish identity experts will emphasize three areas when advising parents how to raise a child to become an involved Jewish adult: visit Israel, belong to a Jewish youth movement and attend Jewish overnight camp. At least two local Reform congregations — Congregation Beth Torah and The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah — think sending their children to overnight camp is so important that they send their religious school directors there as well.
“It’s part of my job to go to camp,” said Aaron Nielsenshultz, director of youth, education and engagement at Congregation Beth Torah, who will be part of the URJ Goldman Union Camp Institute, (GUCI) staff for two weeks this summer. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}While this is only his second year in this role, his predecessor Marcia Rittmaster went to GUCI representing Beth Torah for 18 years.
“The congregation sees it as a way to increase our exposure to the community, but it also sees my presence there as an indication to both the parents and the children that we don’t just say camp is important. We make it a fact by sending the religious school director for two weeks. It’s one thing to say you should send your kids to camp, but then the congregation goes forward and says we believe in camp so much that this is part of our religious school director’s job and he’s going to go for two weeks because it is a real, critical aspect of Jewish identity,” Nielsenshultz explained.
The same is true for B’nai Jehudah’s Religious School Director Shelley Hedrick, who is also going to GUCI, a Reform movement camp in Zionsville, Ind., for two weeks at the beginning of the summer.
“I think it’s important that parents know that they have someone from their congregation who will be there for their kids and look out for their children and just to know they will recognize a familiar face,” said Hedrick, noting after a few days the kids generally feel very comfortable with everybody at camp. “I think for parents it makes them feel more comfortable, too.”
Some camps fill up as soon as registration opens in late fall. But there is still time to register for GUCI and to check into others. Both congregations believe they have somewhere between six and 10 students who will attend GUCI. A B’nai Jehudah parent will also be at GUCI for a time serving as camp doctor. Some congregants choose other Jewish overnight camps and still others attend Jewish day camps here in town.
Scholarships for Jewish youths to attend summer camps are available every year within the Jewish community via various congregations, PJ Library and The Rabbi Gershon Hadas Guardian Society Scholarship Fund. Applications for Guardian Society scholarships are due March 1. Members of congregations should contact their congregation about funds through this scholarship. Others should contact Alan Edelman at the Jewish Federation, 913-327-8104.
Each summer Jewish educators from the area visit a variety of other Jewish overnight camps. Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy nurse Elisa Pener spends the summer working as the camp nurse at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. But Hedrick and Nielsenshultz are the only two who are actually on a camp staff as part of their year-round jobs.
Not only is it good for the students to see their congregation represented at camp, it’s good for the congregation.
“It’s prestigious,” said Nielsenshultz as Hedrick shook her head in agreement. “Anybody can go to camp, but GUCI Director Jeremy Klotz doesn’t invite just anybody to the faculty. There are only a certain number of faculty slots so it speaks to B’nai Jehudah and Beth Torah’s position within the community. They like to see us there.”
It’s not all fun and games for the faculty. They get up at the same time, or earlier, than the campers, who start their day at 7:30 a.m. Besides their daytime duties — among other things last year Nielsenshultz tutored Bar and Bat Mitzvah students and Hedrick worked with the tiniest campers — they work with camp counselors in the late evenings and often have to find time to squeeze in work for their home congregation. So the day may not end until well past midnight.
While they are just as exhausted as the campers when they return home, don’t think they don’t enjoy and treasure the time they spend at camp.
“It’s professional development in a very laid-back way. You learn from other staff members and when you are at home you have someone to reach out to if you need help or advice. Everybody from our community really benefits from us going,” Hedrick said.
Both Hedrick and Nielsenshultz have formed great friendships with those they have worked with at GUCI.
“Just like the kids do, when you get back from camp you miss them terribly,” Nielsenshultz said. “They are people who give you great ideas and give you great support and it’s a great way to create unity among the congregations and the communities.”
Hedrick may work hard while she’s at camp, but it rejuvenates her at well.
“At home I sometimes don’t have that down time on Shabbat,” she said. “I realize I really feel that connection to Shabbat when I’m at camp. I can hang out with the kids. We can play tennis, we can play soccer, we can just talk and I realized at Havdallah I got teary because Shabbat was over.”
In many ways, serving as camp faculty shows the students a different side to their educators they don’t see at home.
“When they see me for two hours on a Sunday morning, that’s one thing. But when they see me every day for 10 hours a day for two weeks, it’s a whole different thing. Their comfort level with me, and therefore with the school gets to be even greater,” Nielsenshultz said.
Nielsenshultz said they definitely see a difference in students at religious school once they return from camp.
“Their Jewish identity has grown and blossomed. One Friday night at Beth Torah a boy chose to stand next to me at services. He said, ‘After going to camp, I get prayer.’ At that point I wanted to find his dad and say every dollar was worth it,’ ” he said.
Hedrick added, “You just see them get excited. At GUCI, it’s a Jewish camp, it’s not just a camp with Jewish kids, it’s a Jewish camp. … There are services every day and the kids really are praying and learning in a different kind of setting and I think it helps when they come back, too.”
Neither Hedrick nor Nielsenshultz can say enough about the benefit of overnight camp for their students, noting it’s a great place for kids to see other kids being Jewish.
“For the kids at Beth Torah who don’t necessarily go to schools filled with other Jews, this is a time for them to see people who know the things that they know, who go through the lifecycle events they go through, who experience holidays the way they do. It gives them the sense of deep community and it connects them so deeply with each other. These kids have bonded so tightly. They love each other. By extension they’ve got this very positive, very warm sense of what Judaism is. They get it through their friends, they see it through their counselors and the faculty. I think it’s great for the kids,” Nielsenshultz said.
Nielsenshultz concluded that before he worked at GUCI, he was always a big advocate of Jewish camp.
“But I went from someone who is an advocate to someone who says you have got to send your kids to camp, at least for two years.”{/mprestriction}
