Each summer we pick an educational theme on which to build our program. In past summers, we have chosen themes related to Holy Space—Makom(ot) Kadosh(im), and the basic elements of fire, earth, water and wind. This summer we will be exploring the theme from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) 5:24 of haphoch ba-haphoch ba, d’kolai ba—literally “turn it and turn it for everything is in it.”
Imagine for a moment that you are a twenty‑one year old American heading to Spain to work at a summer camp that teaches children how to become more independent, and to create a lasting bond to America. You are tasked with being not only a wonderful counselor, but also a representative of the United States.
This is a rework of a blog post originally written prior to our opening summer. Many of the issues remain the same. I have updated it to reflect lessons we’ve learned from our first three summers.—Eliav ————————- Over the past few weeks, I have had a few conversations with parents regarding religious expectations at camp. The issue that has surfaced on numerous occas
It sounds like the beginning of a math problem from school: What does it take for Ramah Outdoor Adventure to move 100 donated free range chickens from a freezer in Manhattan to a freezer in Denver? In the pre-season, we reach out to food suppliers who can supply us food that fits into our broader values of serving sustainable food. (For those who never make it to camp, please note: we teach our chalutzim that sustai
With the end of the calendar year upon us, I wanted to send a recruitment update. We had a fantastic finish to our early bird registration earlier in the week. At the moment we have over 200 children enrolled in the 2013 season. As of Thursday December 20, 2012 we have Session I: Openings in all tents, with at least two spaces in each Session II: At least two spaces left in all tents except:
At its core, the story of Chanukah is a story about the continuation of the Jewish people in a time when there was great pressure to assimilate into the secular society. There were those who advocated complete assimilation into the Hellenistic society, and those who advocated complete disengagement from the secular world. Ultimately, the answer was found somewhere in between. Greek language, traditions and symbols
We just added a new page to our website called BEING GREEN. We were inspired to create this page after a conversation with Sybil Sanchez, Director of COEJL. She was musing about the need for every Jewish organization to have a link on their website about ways in which they are taking the enviroment into account in their programs. We will continue to update this page in much greater detail over the coming months
One of the stated goals of Ramah Outdoor Adventure is to be a “green camp”. Over the years, I have blogged about some of our greening initiatives, from reducing paper use in our year-round office to serving organic milk in the dining hall. We have recently added a section to our website that we will be populating in the coming weeks about these green initiatives and we will continue to update this page as we develo
In November of 2008, the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF) and the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) made a big bet. They awarded the National Ramah Commission (NRC) $1.1 million to create the first outdoor specialty camp in the country with an intensive Jewish focus. Jewish children had been going in droves to numerous secular specialty camps. The JJF, FJC & NRC bet that if a Jewish camp could offer a high level of p
