Diversity among Homogeneity

How much diversity can there be at a place like Camp Ramah? After all, in serving Conservative Jewish children from the Greater Washington, DC, Virginia and Northeast regions, it has a pretty narrowly defined audience in sociological terms. However, beneath the surface of homogeneity, one finds that there is indeed much more diversity than one might expect. One day at the climbing wall taught me that lesson.

We began our morning doing a special Alpine Tower climb for the Kitchen staff.  Ramah, like many camps in North America, staff their kitchen with European young adults through a program called Camp America.  These young people come from the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and other Eastern European countries to get a chance to work on their English, travel and get to know a little more about American life.  (Yes, one could certainly make an argument that camp provides a skewed vision of American life, but that is not the point!) For many people at camp, these young people are anononymous faces who, at best, one says "more pancakes please" and "Thank you" when getting more food. However, spending time with them during their climbs, our Ropes staff learned more about each of them as individuals, including their home countries, what they planned to do upon return, and, of course, who was afraid of heights and who loved to challenge themselves on the Alpine Tower. This group of dedicated indviduals have fascinating stories to tell when we stop to really get to know them and interact with them outside of the Chadar Ochel.

The second example is the range of physical, mental and emotional abilities among our campers.  Just within this one day, we had the following individuals climb:

1. A young girl from Shoafim (entering 7th grade) who has climbed the Tower repeatedly and was looking for new ways to challenge herself. When I asked her if she wanted to do it blindfolded, she replied excitedly, "Can I?" She proceeded to put on the blindfold and, after being guided to the base of the Tower by a friend, did one of the more physically challenging elements on the Tower with ease. It was quite remarkable.
2. A boy from Magshimim (entering 8th grade) who is in a wheelchair, suffering from a muscular disease which leaves him without muscle control through most of his body.  Using a technique called a "counter-balance hoist" that we had learned in training, a member of our staff belayed me to the top of the tower, where I sat on my belay rope and with a second rope that we tied tightly between me and the camper.  Once the camper was "on belay," I was slowly lowered from the top of the Tower, while the boy who had no muscle control, was able to slowly make his way up the Tower.  One of our Israeli staff members, who lives in his bunk, went up on a separate rope right behind him, guiding his body along the elements of the Tower and helping him onto the platform at the top. Once he reached the peak (and I was lying on the ground), we unattached the rope that held us together, and were able to lower him in the same way that everyone else comes down from the Tower.  Unfortunately, my Flip videocamera had been accidentally running all morning in my pocket and I could capture this moment electronically, but needless to say, it was quite emotional for all involved. Later that day, we used the same method to help an Amitzim (special needs) camper who regularly comes out to climb (but who cannot do it without someone physically lifting her feet each step) reach the very top for her first time.
3. A physically able boy from Magshimim who has anxiety attacks and a fear of heights attempted to climb the Tower. He had attempted this on a few previous occassions, usually aborting his climb at an early stage and walking back down.  This time, he made it about 2/3 of the way up before he panicked and wanted to come down. The motto of our course is "challenge by choice" so no one is ever forced to go beyond what they want to do. At the same time, we do encourage all of our climbers to push themselves to (and sometimes expand) their limits. Once it was clear that he did not want to go further, we asked him to let go of the Tower so we could lower him (this is the standard way we lower people). Unfortunately, the notion of letting go of the Tower and trusting his rope and his belayer to safely lower him caused his anxiety attack to escalate to a point of screaming and tears. While such a fear is common and natural, this went to an extreme I had not seen in my 3 years working here. With gentle coaxing, firm instructions and tremendous patience, after about 20 minutes and multiple tries, he was finally able to let go and we lowered him safely to the ground. While there are other emergency ways he could have come down, my sense was that if we waited long enough and allowed him to do it when he was ready (and endured his screaming for long enough), that he could do it himself.  When he got to the ground, emotionally and physically exhausted, we shared a long embrace.

One does not need to dig deep beneath the surface to discover that our camp community shares a tremendous amount in common, but beyond those commonalities, there is room to find a great deal of individuality and diversity.

Pictures and Videos

Aron on the wall (see video below)

Aron Friedman on the swing

 

Jake Shoyer prepares to climb

Rebecca Ingber puts on her harness  Eli Lerner prepares for his climb  

Avia Skulnick still seems to like terra firma better than the Tower 

Ethan Rifkind, Avia Skulnick, Rebecca Ingber, Marc Israel and Jake Shoyer under the tent

 

Soledad Sloan prepares to Swing

 

Sam Chodorow on the Swing   

Elianna Israel on the Tower

 

Gabi Rifkind after her swing

 

Lena Lerner shows me her fresh-picked blueberry 

Zoe Kulp on the Tower

 

Zoe at the top

Rebecca Ingber on the way down from a successful climb

Sydney Levenson enjoying dessert

Ilanot Girls (Including Lilah Neusner and Elianna Israel)

  

Shoafim Girls (including Hannah Weisman)

 

JV Tennis players (including Naomi Katz)

Devira Friedman and Friend

Yossi Zymelman, Sam Chodorow, counselor and friends

Kochavim boys (including Yossi Zymelman, Sam Chodorow and Joe Goldberg)

  

Kochavim girls (Including Devira Friedman) 

All of Kochavim

Kochavim campers make their funny faces

Aron Friedman was a special guest climbing and on the swing. Here is the video clips!

Amitzim Play & Week One highlights

First, the bad news - unfortunately, I don't have any new pictures at this time, which I know is particularly frustrating since the camp's Internet is also down, limiting the number of pictures that they have been posting.  Thankfully, my decision to get a Palm Pre+ has paid off with its free Mobile Hotspot service, allowing me to hook up my laptop to the Internet through the phone.  I hope to take lots of pictures in the next few days and to post them immediately.

Now, on to the good news...

Tonight was the Amitzim play.  Amitzim is Camp Ramah's program for campers with developmental disabilities.  The Amitzim campers live in their own unit and have an incredibly dedicated staff (including our own Dory Fox) who work with them to ensure that they are able to appropriately participate in all aspects of camp life. Traditionally, all of the older units at camp put on a play (and this year, the younger units are doing so also) that the entire camp attends, and Amitizim does likewise.  Tonight's play, based on their study of the beginning of the book of Bereshit (Genesis), was a light-hearted re-telling of the story of the Flood, adapted to the setting of Camp Ramah, where God was sending a flood to destroy a fire-breathing dragon from Ware, MA (the next town over from Palmer).  The Amitzim campers used a combination of live performance, video clips, song and dance to tell the story of how they gathered together and saved all of the aspects of Camp Ramah that are important to them from the flood . 

I must admit to having mixed feelings at the outset of the play. Many of the Amitzim campers have speech disabilities and other physical and mental challenges that makes it hard for them to perform their parts in a way that can be understood by the audience. The staff compensates for this by projecting the script on a large screen so everyone could follow along,and indeed, the play was clever and the staff and campers were quite creative in presenting it to a large audience.  Still, I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable because, as I saw it, the play seemed to be putting their disabilities on display rather than their talents. I wondered if the applause and standing ovation at the end might be condescending.

In thinking about it later, however, I realized that I was focusing on the wrong thing.  The value of the play was not in its performance value for the audience, but rather in the value that performing it had on the Amitzim participants. These campers had worked hard and wanted the opportunity to share their creativity with the whole camp just like all the other campers are able to do. The excitement and joy that they felt at the end of the performance was palpable.  So too, I realized, the applause at the end by the rest of camp was not because they had witnessed a Tony-award production, nor was it gratuitous.  Rather, it was a genuine appreciation of the incredible effort that the Amitzim campers had put into preparing and performing their play.

The beauty of Amitzim is that it starts with the assumption that these campers can participate in all aspects of camp life, so long as everyone is willing to be creative and adapt the program to their needs. Tonight was a wonderful display of putting that theory into action.

A few other brief highlights of the first week:

• Most important, lots of smiling, happy children. It is hard for me to walk more than a few feet without running into campers from Ohr Kodesh, JPDS or other DC area families I know. For those of you with campers here, I am pleased to report that your children appear to be quite happy whenever I see them around camp. (If anyone wants specific information, please feel free to e-mail me and I will share whatever I can.)
• Shabbat. Shabbat is always a wonderful experience at camp. This week, even with an hour of torrential downpours, was no different.  Campers turned puddles into mudslides and had a wonderful time playing in the rain.  I had opportunities to spend time with several eidot (units), reading Torah for Cochavim and Ilanot (entering 3rd, 4th and 5th graders), giving a d'var Torah for the Tikvah village (special needs campers and staff), and facilitating a kavannah (pre-Havdallah discussion) for a bunk of Solelim (entering 6th grade) boys.  I also brought the Ohr Kodesh campers and staff a taste of home - fruit roll-ups as a Shabbat morning treat at the end of services!
• Re-connecting with all of the Voc-Ed and Post Voc-Ed staffers who Ohr Kodesh hosted for the Tikvah Reunion in Washington DC this past winter. This event, which was a wonderful experience for our community to host last January, clearly made a lasting impression for all the participants, as evidenced by the warm welcome I received from the participants when I arrived. Talk is already underway about another reunion this year.
• "Old home" week.  There were several Ohr Kodesh and JPDS families working and/or visiting this week.  Paula Shoyer arrived Wednesday and was joined by Andy for the weekend (more about Paula later), Aron Friedman is volunteering as a tennis instructor for 10 days, Dan Merenstein was the camp doctor (joined by Traci and the boys), and Evie Wolfson is working in the "Marp" (Mirpa'ah - Infirmary) and was joined by Joel and Gabriel for Shabbat.  Much to my children' and my delight, Abbey also joined us for Shabbat.

We are now heading into the 6th week of camp for those who attend full summer. To combat the "lull" that often accompanies this week (before the realization hits the following week that camp is almost over!), Camp Ramah has a program called Kishroniyah (experts) for the four oldest units (entering grade 8-11).  This program brings together a group of professionals to work with the campers, including our own pastry chef, Paula Shoyer, who teachers her craft to the delight of all.  Other "experts" include a variety of sports coaches, an engineer, a comic-strip writer, a bible-rapper, an Improv actor, silk-screening, a capella singing and modern dance.  Campers get to sign-up and improve their skills in an area of personal interest.  It also breaks the daily routine and hopefully helps dissipate any feelings of boredom that campers might be feeling at this time.

While I know that a picture is worth 1000 words, I hope that in lieu of pictures, these 1000 words have helped to paint a picture of life here at Ramah.

The Magic of Camp

What is it about summer camp that excites our children in a way that nothing else does and creates the magical memories and relationships that have a lifetime impact? There have been numerous sociological studies done on this topic and I commend them to your reading (see especially Amy Sales and Len Saxe book How Goodly Are Your Tents).  I will not pretend to be a sociologist, but rather want to focus on one particular aspect – the creation of a safe environment.

It was fascinating to watch Opening Day of Second Session.  I saw joyful reunions among returning campers, veteran campers  working to create a welcoming atmosphere for new campers, and college-aged staff (often physically and mentally tired from first session) mustering up the energy and enthusiasm to make sure that every single camper is greeted with the same excitement that happened on the first day of the summer.

When camp works well, this welcoming and safe community is palpable as soon as one enters camp, not only for the campers, but for the faculty and even among the staff kids. I witnessed this yesterday as children as young as three years old, who had never been to camp and who often cling to their parents legs in other situations, instantly felt comfortable and relaxed and able to be far more independent than they are in any other situation. Certainly for my own children, I see that all the time here – Micah, who doesn’t like to be upstairs by himself  at our own home, feels quite comfortable walking all around camp, taking care of Oren and moving about as a fully independent person when he is here. Obviously, children at that age are not aware of why they are acting differently, but to those of us who are, it is clear that something about camp just makes them feel safe.

While this safe atmosphere may seem incidental, I would posit that it is the single most important aspect of what make camps work.  Whether it is conscious or not, feeling safe and comfortable allows children to live apart from their families, to create instant friendships with people they have never met, and to take part in new activites (or even old activities) that they normally would never do. As we learn from Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, after our physiological needs, a sense of safety and security is the next necessary component to establishing relationships, building self-esteem and self-actualization. Simply put, as important as the Jewish education and inculcation of values are, they can only happen when kids feel safe.  And camps that are run well create that feeling of safety instantly.

Certainly, camp does not work for everyone, and even at well-run camps, some people slip through the system. But by and large, I think the thing that camp helps people feel safe in a way that is hard to recreate outside of this setting.

  Please enjoy some pictures below of many of the Ohr Kodesh and JPDS campers and staff who are here – I’m sorry that I don’t think I have everyone pictured yet, but I will continue to post pictures (especially while the camp’s internet is still down – thank God for my MiFi!) as often as I can.

Shabbat shalom,
Marc