Our Team

Our Instructors:

Ramah Outdoors Adventures hires outstanding madrichim who have extensive wilderness training and backgrounds in outdoor education. We strive to provide chalutzim a positive Jewish camping experience while instilling a sense of passion about our natural environment. It is our hope that a Ramah Outdoors experience will serve as an inspirational and memorable guide as chalutzim journey through life.

Safety is critical to the success of our program. Every excursion that leaves our base camp is staffed with a madrich who is certified in Wilderness First Aid. As with all Ramah camp staff members, our madrichim serve as role models by teaching Jewish values through storytelling, sharing traditions, and connecting to chalutzim on a personal basis. This non-competitive and friendly environment encourages chalutzim to move beyond their “comfort zones” to experience new, unexpected levels of confidence and personal achievement.

Our Director

Rabbi Eliav Bock
Eliav brings solid experience in outdoor camping and leadership to Ramah Outdoor Adventures. A native of the Boston area and former Boy Scout, he has spent 11 summers working in Ramah camps in a variety of specialty areas including five years as an outdoor adventure leader in Camp Ramah, Canada. Ordained as rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2009, Eliav is especially interested in helping youth connect to their Jewish souls through nature and the great outdoors. Prior to rabbinical school, Eliav worked in the finance industry in New York City. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible and a Master of Arts degree in Jewish Education, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University. Eliav lives in Denver, CO with his wife, Dina Danon. You can email Eliav at eliavb@ramahoutdoors.org

Our Assistant Director

Douglas Wolf
Douglas brings a love of non-motorized recreation and adventure travel to Ramah Outdoor Adventure.  He has backpacked long sections of the Appalachian Trail on the east coast and the John Muir Trail in California.  He has bicycled around Lake Champlain, to the end of Cape Cod, and the Blue Ridge Parkway from Virginia to Georgia.  He has paddled the Altamaha River in Georgia, and the Colorado River through Utah’s Canyonlands National Park.  Since moving to Colorado in 2003, Douglas has been exploring the mountains, canyons, and rivers of the Rocky Mountains at every opportunity, from Glacier National Park in Montana to Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Douglas grew up in Maryland.  As a boy, he attended the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School and Camp Ramah in Palmer, Massachusetts.  Douglas earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and graduate degrees from Georgia Tech.  Douglas lives in Denver with his wife Jennifer and their two sons, where they are active congregants at the Hebrew Educational Alliance.  You can reach Douglas at DouglasW@ramahoutdoors.org

Our 6th and 7th grade Program Coordinator

Elyssa Hammerman
Elyssa brings her life-long love of camp to Ramah Outdoor Adventure.  She has spent the past 17 summers at residential camps, 10 of which she worked as staff.  Her favorite memories include canoeing and camping through Algonquin Park in Canada.  For five summers, she counseled at a therapeutic-based camp for adolescents with learning disabilities, behavior and emotional disorders.  Most recently, Elyssa attended Camp Ramah in Ojai, California, where she served as a Jewish educator to adolescents and young adults with special needs.  Elyssa is from Long Island, New York, and has a Bachelor of Science in inclusive elementary and special education from Syracuse University.  She continued her studies at Indiana University where she received her Master’s of Science in recreation with a focus in camp administration.  Elyssa moved to Denver three years ago.  She is an elementary school teacher at a Jewish day school and enjoys enriching the lives of Jewish youth.  She loves the outdoor lifestyle and spends her free time skiing and hiking the Rocky Mountains.  Elyssa is looking forward to the 2010 inaugural summer.  You can reach Elyssa at Elyssah@ramahoutdoors.org

Summer Assistant Director

Sara Shulman
Sarah Shulman is a first year rabbinical student at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. She is a native of Seattle, Washington. Sarah attended Stanford University as an undergraduate, where she received a Bachelors of Arts in Human Biology with a focus in Environmental Health. During her time at Stanford, Sarah was bitten by the “triathlon bug” and began competing in races. She also spent part of her time in college teaching wilderness skills to fellow students in the Sierra Nevada mountains as part of Stanford’s outdoors program. She co-founded a pre-orientation backpacking trip program for incoming students.

After graduating from college, Sarah completed the Day School Leadership through Teaching (DeLeT) fellowship and fell in love with teaching and coordinating social justice projects for day school students. She taught and worked as middle school teacher and the Service Learning Coordinator for six years both at the Gideon Hausner School, in Palo Alto and at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco before following her passion for Jewish service to rabbinical school.
In her free time Sarah teaches a fourth grade religious school class, writes curriculum for Ramah Outdoor Adventure, leads service trips abroad for the American Jewish World Service, and bikes everywhere (her main mode of transportation in LA). After a short stint as a competitive Ironman athlete (coming in first in her age group one year in Hawaii), Sarah has hung up the racing shoes in favor of focusing on her career as a rabbi.

Sarah was one of the leaders of the staffing training program on the Ramah ranch in 2009. While the rest of us were still fast asleep, she along with fellow runner Elliot Krigel woke up on most mornings at 5:00am to go for a run! In addition to helping to plan the week of training she lead all of us in a daily exercise routine known as Shmirat hanefesh (שמירת הנפש)—watching over the body– that we would do each day before breakfast. Even those of us who are not competitive athletes had a blast being physically challenged in a fun and nurturing environment first thing in the morning.
Sarah is looking forward to working at Ramah Outdoor Adventure next summer. She says that she is excited by the opportunity to help campers connect their Jewish identity to experiences in the outdoors. She believes the intersection of wilderness and Torah amplifies the power of both in those who can experience this special union. Best of all, being at camp this summer, will allow Sarah the opportunity to spend nine weeks in the outdoors working in an environment that helps her bring out her best qualities as a teacher, an athlete and a leader.