|
January 22, 2010
A unique camp teaches Judaism
A Hungarian summer experience has kids learning about identity, often for the first time.
PAT JOHNSON
For Jewish kids around the world, summer camp is often the most significant – and sometimes the only – formal connection they have to their Jewish traditions. For children raised in the aftermath of the fall of the eastern bloc, Judaism is a part of life that generations of officially enforced atheism has made a mystery.
For these kids, perhaps more than any other, Jewish summer camp is a vital bridge between the traditions of their ancestors and the continuity that was severed by the 1917 revolution and successive waves of communist repression and antisemitism. While most of the campers headed to Camp Szarvas (pronounced SAR-vash, meaning deer), in the Hungarian resort town of the same name, are aware of their Jewish heritage, most have only the vaguest understanding of what it means. For a few, the news that they are Jewish has come moments before their parents bundle them onto the bus or train for their camp excursion.
Camp Szarvas unites Jewish kids from throughout central and eastern Europe, most from the former Soviet bloc, as well as from Turkey, France, Israel and India. Crucially, Camp Szarvas also brings Jewishly engaged young North Americans to the camp, both for their own unique experience and so that the European kids can learn from peers what Judaism can mean to someone their age – from someone their own age.
The camp, which is run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and funded by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, also hires madrichim (counselors) from North America, through a fellowship program. Last summer, Vancouverite Alex Konyves, having just finished film studies at Simon Fraser University, was one of the madrichim sent to work with the North American and European kids at Camp Szarvas, in what was a sort of genealogical full-circle.
Konyves’ father was born in Budapest and was one of the 200,000 Hungarians made refugees during the 1956 revolution and its subsequent violent defeat by Soviet forces. (Konyves believes it was his great-grandfather who changed the family name from Kohn to Konyves, making it sound more Magyar. “It was a way to assimilate and avoid antisemitism, persecution,” Konyves said.)
On the face of it, Camp Szarvas may not appear that different from dozens of such camps in North America. The campers wake up, recite the Modeh Ani, there’s a ceremonial flag raising, the Shema, then breakfast, followed by the range of activities that define the camp experience: swimming and sports, dancing, canoeing, arts and crafts. Services every morning are optional; Shabbat services are mandatory.
The Jewish identity component of Jewish camping is different at Szarvas, given that decades of enforced atheism and repression of Jewish traditions mean many of the campers have no familiarity with the prayers, rituals or traditions that breathe spirit into the experience.
“Camp Szarvas is a place – the only place – where many of these kids get their Jewish experience,” said Konyves. “There are kids who have had bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs there at the camp.”
The North Americans met separately at times from the Europeans, but they came together across cultural and linguistic divides. Clusters of campers surrounded translators appropriate to their language. Together, in these more formal settings, and in smaller groups and pairs, campers discussed what it means to be Jewish.
“One would speak as long as they wanted about what denomination they were and how they were raised, what kind of school they went to, how they felt about it,” said Konyves. “It became a safe place for them to explore who they were out loud with each other. Following that, there would be a series of questions and answers – often challenging questions that really made them think. It was a really cool experience to see these Jewish youth thinking critically about who they are as Jews.”
The North American campers – including two last year from Vancouver – make friends with other Jewish young people from countries they perhaps could not find on a map. After a meal, Konyves recalled, he had to help some of them follow the prayer book.
“Every kid in that room was benching [reciting Grace After Meals], from Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Russia or Israel,” he said. “I was sitting with the younger group of Yugoslavian kids. They had no idea what was going on, how to follow a siddur, and I would be there and turn the page for them.”
The North American campers, who make it through a challenging interview process, are aged 16-18. The European campers range in age from eight to 18. About 45 North Americans attend the camp annually – last year it was 39 – and more than 2,000 Europeans experience Camp Szarvas in four two-week sessions.
There is a prejudice about eastern Europe: that it is grey and depressing and that its people must be similarly subdued. That prejudice was blown away for Konyves, he said, by the enthusiastic participation of kids from all over. After lunch, for an hour, there was guitar playing, dancing and singing in a Babel of languages.
“The kids are Europeans, they have this whole sense of enthusiasm,” Konyves said. “Even though they are from eastern Europe, which has this stigma of being depressing, kids are kids. They want to have a great time.”
For North Americans, the experience was no less momentous. They started bonding and integrating with other groups, said Konyves. “For them to leave that camp with friends from other countries is an amazing experience for them and to know that the main thing they have in common is that they’re Jewish and, although they have different educations on what Judaism is, they still have that inherent bond of being Jewish.”
Konyves shared that there were personal epiphanies, and not only among the campers. During a three-day excursion in Budapest, the group toured the Dohány utca Zsinagóga, or Dohany Street Synagogue. Despite its innocuous sounding name, this is the largest synagogue in Eurasia and the second largest in the world, after a Reform shul in Manhattan. Theodor Herzl was born in an adjacent house.
During a walk through the former Jewish ghetto, Konyves remembered that Kiraly utca was where his father grew up.
“I brought the kids in and showed them and told my father’s story of escaping during the revolution,” said Konyves. “It was very real to do that, to share your family history at such a location was very cool.”
The experience reinforced Konyves’ own sense of Judaism and his place in the world.
“My Jewish identity is a very strong part of me, because that’s who I am,” he said. “I have two Jewish parents. I live with my bubbe and zayde. Both grandparents on my father’s side are survivors. What I realized was it appears like it’s never going to be easy to be Jewish but now we live in a time when we have our own nation, we have strong clubs on campus, we have national organizations. I feel like it is the safest time to be Jewish. I’m happy to be Jewish and I’m fortunate to be Jewish at this time.”
For those interested in camping or serving as madrichim at Camp Szarvas, more information is available at szarvas.org.
Pat Johnson is, among other things, director of programs for Hillel in British Columbia.
^TOP
|
