camp – Page 3

Going to camp for the food

Dawn Lerman, age 15 in this photo, at summer camp. (photo from Dawn Lerman via JNS.org)

In My Fat Dad: A Memoir of Food, Love and Family, with Recipes (Berkley Books, 2015), New York Times wellness blogger and nutritionist Dawn Lerman shares her food journey and that of her father, a copywriter from the Mad Men era of advertising.

Lerman spent her childhood constantly hungry. She craved good food as her father, 450 pounds at his heaviest, pursued endless fad diets, from Atkins to Pritikin to all sorts of freeze-dried, saccharin-laced concoctions, and insisted the family do the same – even though no one else was overweight. Her mother, on the other hand, could barely be bothered to eat a can of tuna over the sink; she was too busy ferrying her other daughter to acting auditions and scolding Lerman about cleaning the house.

My Fat Dad is as much a coming-of-age memoir as it is a recipe collection from Lerman’s upbringing and culinary adventures. Released as part of the 2016 JNS.org summer camps special section, below is an adapted excerpt from Chapter 17 of My Fat Dad, in addition to a recipe for fruit-infused bug juice.

My little sister April’s contract was renewed. She and my mom were going to spend the summer in Washington, D.C., where she was a principal orphan in the first national tour of the Broadway show Annie. I was going to Hillcrest Camp for a month before joining them.

Hillcrest was a performing arts camp in Connecticut where teenagers were allowed the freedom to arrange their own schedules. The activities ranged from glassblowing, to silk-screening, to acting, to stained glass-making, to, most important, free choice, which translated into hanging out with cute, artsy boys.

Marley was my best friend from middle school. We spoke daily, even though we’d both transferred schools after the sixth grade. She taught me how to line my eyes on the inside ring and the art of applying black nail polish to look edgy. Marley had already been to the sleep-away camp the past three summers and was instrumental in convincing my mom to allow me to go. She said the experience was life-changing, and she really found her voice as an artist in the printmaking shop. My mom thought I was getting too serious with my boyfriend, Hank, after I told him during the ninth grade prom that I loved him, so she signed me up immediately – even though she found the cost to be outrageous.

My mom equated every experience, every meal and every activity with cost. She talked about money incessantly, not in the normal way like other parents did. “We need to save up, we can’t afford it, let’s wait till it goes on sale, maybe next year,” she would say. It seemed to have nothing to do with if we could afford it, but everything to do with the fact she thought she was always being ripped off, unless it was a super-sale. Any normal purchase – food, clothes, toiletries – seemed to bring her physical pain and enraged her, causing her to lash out. I was usually on the receiving end of these outbursts, swallowing her rage and internalizing the message that I was not worthy of normal comforts.

I never really did anything wrong, but somehow I could never do anything right, and my mother constantly used words and tones that were so harsh that I was in a constant state of turmoil. The fact that I preferred fresh seafood and vegetables to soggy SpaghettiO’s for dinner somehow irked her, making her feel unappreciated and angered. I was not your typical kid, and my parents – my 450-pound dad and my flamboyant stage mom – were not your typical parents. The combination of our unique quirks and habits was often toxic and unsettling. So the thought of going to overnight camp – where I wouldn’t need to worry what diet my dad was on or if I would have enough money for food, as most nights I was left on my own – was a welcome relief.

Read more – and find the recipe for “bug juice” – at jns.org.

Love your child as they are

The Swirsky family. Jackie Swirsky has written a children’s book, Be Yourself, which features illustrations by her eldest child, Jacob, and her sister-in-law. (photo from Jackie Swirsky)

Maybe it’s because I’m an academic, but I tend to gravitate to categories, which is why the most current discourse on gender has made me feel challenged. I am, by now, very comfortable with the increasingly understood categories of transgender and cisgender (meaning that one’s body conforms to one’s gender identity). But what about cases of individuals who identify as neither transgender nor cisgender, but operate, instead, somewhere in the middle?

Jackie Swirsky, a speech-language pathologist based in Winnipeg, is the mother of two sons, one of whom (Jacob, age 8) Swirsky describes as “gender creative.”

Swirsky is my second cousin, but we only became acquainted after she published her children’s book, Be Yourself, which features a gender creative child and focuses on acceptance. We recently spoke by phone, where I admired her eloquence and compassion and, above all, her comfort with accepting the in-between.

When Jacob was 4, he said to his parents he felt it “wasn’t fair” that he was “a boy.” That’s when we opened up a dialogue, Swirsky said. Currently, he still identifies as a boy, “but his gender expression is very feminine,” she said.

There may have been a time when, faced with a son who prefers to dress in what are conventionally thought of as “girls” clothes, a parent may have tried to force the child to change. One can imagine the emotional pain that would have enveloped those households in those generations. Instead, Swirsky puts it plainly: Jacob “is perfect the way he is.” She sees it as her job not to change her child, but rather to “educate the world” in order to “make it a happier, safer place.”

Enter her book, Be Yourself, with illustrations by Jacob and Swirsky’s sister-in-law Jaimee Appel. It can be purchased at beyourselfbook.ca.

Swirsky took her message to Camp Massad at Winnipeg Beach before camp started, as Jacob would be a camper there over the summer. Leading a workshop for counselors on how to rethink gender norms, Swirsky’s goal was to help the staff “identify their own gender stereotypes,” while encouraging them to open a dialogue with the campers – rather than scold – if they happen to encounter issues of gender stereotyping or instances of gender mocking.

And, while some camps might think of themselves as progressive on the issue of gender, given the easy availability of costumes and the playful gender-crossing that may ensue, Swirsky is clear: for Jacob, this isn’t “dress up,” it’s who he is.

Camp Massad program director Sari Waldman shared with me that, in trying to make camp as “inclusive and accessible as possible,” they are rethinking some of what they realize are overly gender-binary practices. “Simple things,” Waldman said, like do we really need to divide the chadar ochel (dining hall) along gender lines?”

They are now more sensitive to gender stereotypes when writing cabin songs. Not every boy plays sports and longs to sneak into girls’ cabins, they now realize. Waldman added that they have installed gender-neutral washrooms in various spots around camp, and would include a gender-neutral stall in the refurbished bathrooms. This year, for the first time, boys’ and girls’ cabins would no longer be on opposite sides of the field.

Other camps have taken gender-awareness on board, too. As was reported in the Washington Post, Habonim Dror camps across North America, including Camp Miriam on Gabriola Island, have created a new, gender-neutral Hebrew word for camper (chanichol) for those who identify as neither male (chanich) or female (chanicha). And they have renamed each of their age-group names with a pan-gender neologism suffix (imot) rather than the male im or the female ot. It’s a mouthful (and not traditionally grammatical), but the move has created new awareness around gender identity and the categories into which we put each other.

No doubt, attending Jewish camp won’t be without its challenges for someone like Jacob. It’s hard to get around separate sleeping and showering arrangements, even if privacy is granted for changing. And, when it comes to ritual garb, Jacob doesn’t feel comfortable wearing a kippah, for example. Swirsky hoped that the staff would either let him choose whether or not to wear one, or else ask everyone – boys and girls – to cover their head.

As for school, Swirsky finds that the teachers at her son’s school are excellent in supporting Jacob where he is. She also has much praise for the Winnipeg One School Division, which recently issued a new “safe and caring policy on transgender and gender-diverse students.”

Occasionally, though, there are setbacks. One day, a substitute teacher asked the kids to divide up according to gender. Relaying the day’s events to Swirsky that evening, Jacob revealed that he didn’t know which side to stand on. “I just sort of wandered,” he said.

While Swirsky finds that some people she encounters lavish praise on her for her apparent open-mindedness, she insisted that this is basic to who she is as a parent.

“I love and accept my child for who they are; not who I expect them to be,” she said.

And, when talking with Jacob, Swirsky always makes sure to ask open-ended questions. “If you’re really listening to your kid,” Swirsky said, “you’re going to help support them to be on a path that makes them happy.”

It’s a wonderful message about love and acceptance, parenting our kids where they are, and helping society evolve to embrace diversity – even if that diversity is much more finely grained than we may have realized.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications.

Maccabi sports camp

The Maccabi Sports Experience at Ontario’s Camp Northland offers a traditional overnight camp with outdoor activities, blended with multi-sports instruction. (photo from Maccabi Canada)

Maccabi Canada and Camp Northland have partnered to create a unique program for children wanting to stay involved with sports over the summer. A first of its kind, the Maccabi Sports Experience at Ontario’s Camp Northland offers a traditional overnight camp with outdoor activities, blended with multi-sports instruction over a period of three weeks. The program will debut this summer July 27-Aug. 16, during the camp’s second session.

“A lot of kids found that, at camp, they don’t get to the opportunity to really focus in on the sports that they love to play as much as they’d like,” said Simon Wolle, director of Camp Northland. “But they don’t want to give up camp either, despite that strong interest, so they end up coming to camp but kind of missing sport.… Why not try to find a way to marry the two?”

The new offering features two weeks of rotating skill development clinics in four different sports – basketball, beach volleyball, soccer and tennis – followed by a specialty week, where participants can choose one sport to focus on. Parts of each day will be dedicated to the Maccabi sports program, while also giving the group the opportunity to integrate with other campers. The program will be run by a combination of Maccabi coaches and Camp Northland staff.

Tommy Bacher, president of Maccabi Canada, called the new endeavor a natural progression of the organization’s ongoing community sports initiatives. Bacher believes launching a summer camp experience under the Maccabi banner is the perfect way to build on the weekly sports programming offered in basketball and volleyball over the past year. The eight-week programs feature grassroots learning in 90-minute sessions, where the focus is on honing skills and having fun. The camp is the next step in those growing efforts.

“It allows us to touch a lot more kids. For every kid that goes to camp, 500 [others] hear about it,” said Bacher. “For us, it’s an opportunity to bring more kids into a quality program that revolves around sport and them being Jewish. The more things we can do with that, the better. My whole goal is connecting the next generation to their past, to their heritage and to the state of Israel. And we’re using sport as a way of doing that.”

Bacher said the camp will also provide a parallel overnight setting to the Maccabiah Games in Israel, allowing participants to form bonds with each other through a shared three-week experience. Wolle is excited to provide that outlet.

“We want to create a home for every Jewish kid to find their place and make connections and stay connected to the Jewish community,” said Wolle, echoing Bacher’s sentiments. “There are kids using the medium of sport to feel more connected to the Jewish community and we wanted to create that pipeline … between sport and camp, and say you don’t have to give it up. You can have your cake and eat it, too.”

For more information, visit maccabicanada.com.

Children at camp age

Grade 10 girls at camp. The author’s kids came back from camp inspired by the Jewish teens leading and caring for their group and wanted nothing more than to be ensconced in that same atmosphere the following year. (photo from Lauren Kramer)

My friend’s daughter is heading off to Jewish overnight camp for the first time ever, and her poor mom is terrified. “How will I know if she’s safe in the lake?” she wonders. “What if there’s a sexual predator among the staff members? What about her medications?”

She reminds me of myself some eight years ago when my kids first headed off to camp. The idea of not being able to protect my children myself was frightening and I worried incessantly that first week, calling daily to find out if my kids were sleeping well at night or crying with homesickness. I was certain it would be the latter. “She’s fine,” my daughter’s madrichah would tell me over the phone. “She’s found a group of friends, she’s busy all day long and at night she’s too tired to do anything but fall straight asleep.”

Her words were reinforced when they finally put my daughter on the line. From her voice I could tell the phone call was taking her away from something she’d much prefer to be doing. “Mom, everything’s OK, don’t worry,” she said. “See you in three weeks!” The phone line went dead.

So, I stopped worrying and started enjoying the blissful quiet, the sudden absence of laundry and the easiness of preparing meals for three people as opposed to six. The house stayed spotless for much longer and the hours of the day were mostly mine, and easily filled. The kids came back inspired with Jewish camp ruach, heart sore about their recent goodbyes to cabin mates who had become best friends. With shining eyes, they told stories about Israeli folksongs sung around the campfire at night, new tunes they’d learned for Birkat Hamazon and the fun they’d had raiding the boys’ cabin and pulling pranks. No sooner had they returned than they were counting down to next year’s summer camp.

With all this positive Jewish energy wafting over our home, the $1,000-per-week cost per child didn’t seem so exorbitant anymore. They’d come home with a shot in the arm of Jewish love, passion for Yiddishkeit and enthusiasm for kosher food. They were inspired by the Jewish teens leading and caring for their group and wanted nothing more than to be ensconced in that same atmosphere the following year. By comparison, the Jewish afterschool program they’d been enrolled in during the school year had generated moans of discontent and efforts to skip class on a regular basis.

I’m a big fan of Jewish summer camp and it was I who coaxed my friend to send her daughter in the first place. Surrounded by a non-Jewish milieu in their home community, with only a small Chabad presence in their town, I knew it would expose their little girl to the best of Judaism in a stimulating, fun, unforgettable environment. There would be music, good food, playmates, dancing, crafts and mischief – all the components of a brilliant summer. And it would ignite in their daughter’s soul a burning love for Judaism as she’d never experienced it before, and a desire to repeat the experience, again and again.

So, I consoled her fears with gentle encouragement, insisting that the staff were superbly vetted, the lake carefully watched by qualified lifeguards and the children’s swimming skills meticulously evaluated before anyone even stuck their toes in the water.

But it’s a process, this worrying, one all moms endure and one that can only be allayed when they hear the happiness in their kids’ voice, their impatience to get off the phone and their sheer love of camp when they return home afterwards. For the majority of kids, anyway. If my friends’ child is one of the small percentage that become desperately homesick and returns home early, I’ll be in the doghouse, big time.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.

Specialty camps work

In the early to mid-2000s, research estimated that only 10 percent of the Jewish youth population were being served by existing Jewish camps. There was concern that many Jewish youth were instead attending non-Jewish camps that offered more unique opportunities. Developing competitive Jewish “specialty” camps that combined traditional Jewish camp values with activities such as sports, outdoor adventure and fashion became a way to bring more youth into the Jewish camping world.

In 2008, with a $10 million investment from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) launched the Specialty Camps Incubator (Incubator) to support the creation and development of five new Jewish specialty camps. A key purpose of establishing the new camps was to attract Jewish teens who were not attending other Jewish camps.

In 2009, the Jim Joseph Foundation engaged Informing Change to design and implement a multi-year evaluation of the Incubator, assessing whether and how the program was achieving its intended outcomes. Based on the success of the first Incubator, FJC and JJF partnered with the Avi Chai Foundation to establish the second Specialty Camps Incubator, introducing four new camps to the field in summer 2014.

The Incubator initiative started with a competitive application process for new specialty camps followed by provision of start-up capital and a range of supports to the five selected camps. Similar to for-profit business incubators, the Incubator used a cohort approach in which the camps learned together while building innovative, high-quality programs and attracting new customers. The Incubator provided six core program components to support the camps’ development: workshops, mentors, customized technical assistance, networking opportunities, peer/cohort learning and evaluation.

Informing Change’s evaluation of the Incubator and its camps from 2009 to 2013 addressed five questions that examined whether and how:

The new camps had expanded available opportunities for Jewish youth to attend camp.
The new camps had positively influenced camper attitudes and behaviors about living a Jewish life and broadened their networks of Jewish peers.
The new camps had developed into sustainable and effective nonprofit camp organizations.
The Incubator method was an effective strategy for developing and supporting new nonprofit Jewish camps.
The different specialty camp models met JJF’s goals for the Incubator.

The evaluation focused on the cohort of camps as a whole and their aggregate results, rather than evaluating each camp individually. Informing Change provided annual results on camp growth and development to the individual camps as well as support to the camps when interpreting their results and comparing against the aggregate. Each year, the evaluation applied a mixed-methods approach to data collection, which included interviews, surveys, secondary data, observations and organizational capacity assessments. Evaluators surveyed campers both before and after camp; parent surveys were administered after campers had been home from camp for nine to 11 months.

The new specialty camps successfully developed their unique brands and reputations, which helped grow their enrolment. Data suggests that, during their short time of operation, the Incubator camps also successfully created a sense of community for their campers.

Enrolment: Incubator camps served a total of 2,713 unique campers in their first four summers of operation, with enrolment growing 138 percent from the first summer. Incubator camps helped increase the overall number of youth served by residential Jewish camps.

Retention: While the rate of camper retention varies in the five camps, Incubator camps as a group are retaining more than 50 percent on average of their campers from year to year. This is considered a high retention rate for specialty camps. Responses from non-returning campers and their parents suggest that many campers do not return to camp because they and their families are juggling large numbers of interests and commitments, not because they had a negative experience or were dissatisfied with the camp.

Recommending camp to others: Parents are highly satisfied immediately after camp and, a year later, 92 percent of parents and 81 percent of campers had recommended an Incubator camp to a friend. Almost one-third of campers had a friend actually attend an Incubator camp after their recommendation.

Satisfaction and belonging: 91 percent of campers felt like they belonged when they were at camp and 92 percent were very happy with their experiences at camp.

In the camps’ first three summers, 38 percent of all campers were attending a Jewish camp for the very first time, a markedly higher proportion than the national averages of 26-29 percent in other Jewish camps over these same three years. The Incubator camps also attracted teens who were not likely to attend any camp, Jewish or non-Jewish, and attracted youth who could be considered in the low to moderate range of Jewish affiliation. Of the campers who attended a session in 2012, 76 percent said the specialty was the reason why they first chose to attend the Incubator camp and it was also among the top reasons why they chose to return for another summer.

Overall, reports from campers and their parents suggest that the camps are helping shape youth in many ways: to be more positive and enthusiastic about being Jewish, to learn more about Judaism and being Jewish, to feel closer to other kids their age who are Jewish, to become more active in Jewish community activities and organizations, to improve their skills in the specialty offered, and to be more confident in themselves overall.

– From New Jewish Specialty Camps: From Idea to Reality

Research into access issues at Jewish overnight camps

The field of Jewish camp has become increasingly aware of and responsive to the numbers of children with special needs and physical disabilities in recent years. As a first step towards initiating field-wide changes in this arena, Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) is engaged in a research project mapping current, potential and desired services available to children with emotional, intellectual and physical disabilities at nonprofit Jewish overnight camps across North America.

Laszlo Strategies recently delivered the results of the research (conducted in early 2013), the first of its kind in the Jewish community. The survey garnered results from 170 camp staff members (from 124 camps), 262 parents and 141 campers.

FJC is pleased to share that the majority of those involved in camp – including staff, campers and parents – care about this issue and agree that every Jewish child, regardless of a disability or special need, should be able to attend a Jewish camp. Most involved prefer an inclusion model, with clear recognition that not every camp is able to serve every need and that, in some cases, a separate program might be preferable.

While the field is making progress in the types and amounts of services offered, there is still more to be done. Below are the highlights from the survey. The full findings are available at jewishcamp.org/research.

About the campers served

The field of Jewish camp is serving 2,340-2,590 children with special needs – more than originally estimated.
The majority of the special needs population in Jewish camp have neurological disabilities. Few camps are equipped at this time to properly serve children with more significant/complicated disabilities.
43 percent attend public school, four percent of these children attend Jewish day school, and 24 percent attend a specialty school for children with disabilities. Forty-three percent attend a synagogue-based religious school and 47 percent had attended a Jewish day camp.
93 percent of parents were satisfied/extremely satisfied with their child’s experience at Jewish overnight camp.

About camp staff and programming

36 percent of camps offer special programs for this population.
55 percent of camps have a designated staff member (part-time or full-time) to oversee campers with special needs. This staffer engages with the family during the intake process, selects and trains camp staff, acts as a support during crisis situations, communicates with parents and other outside supports, creates and evaluates individual camper plans.
Inclusion camp staffs appear to want the non-inclusion staff and campers to have a better understanding of their population.
Parents of special needs campers are extremely satisfied with the way camps are infusing Jewish values/learning for this population of campers.

Barriers and perceptions

The biggest barriers to serving more children with specials needs are not attitudes or wheelchair ramps – rather lack of training and knowledge followed by funding.
47 percent of parents report the cost of overnight camp as a barrier.
It is not as important as previously thought that siblings attend the same camp. Forty-three percent of parents report, “it would be nice, but it is more important that they go to the camp that best serves their individual needs.”
Parents report that the biggest factors in choosing a camp for a child with special needs are that the camp offers good supports and accommodations for children with a disability like my child (43 percent), and it is a Jewish camp, where my child can connect to our heritage and community (34 percent).
More camps are serving children with disabilities/special needs than are advertising it to the public through their websites and marketing materials.

Next steps

FJC is currently creating a plan of action to advance the field of Jewish camp in this arena. Sound research and solid data are required in order to make the informed decisions that will move FJC closer to achieving its goal: increasing the number of children attending nonprofit Jewish overnight camp.

FJC commissions its own research, and also draws on the wealth of knowledge that Jewish sociologists and researchers have contributed toward the understanding of camp and its long-term effects. All FJC-commissioned research and a selection of external studies are available for download at FJC’s website.

Win for inclusion

The Ramah Camping Movement and the Ruderman Family Foundation have announced the winners of TIPTOE (The Inclusion Project: Through Our Eyes), an inclusion-themed video contest for participants from Jewish camps. The goal of TIPTOE is to increase awareness of the inclusion work happening at Jewish camps across North America. The Ruderman Family Foundation has awarded cash prizes to the top three winners and is making donations to the inclusion program at the winners’ camps.

Campers and college-aged staff members who participated in a North American Jewish summer camp program in 2014 submitted videos that showed their view of inclusion of children with disabilities at their Jewish camp. Representatives from the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp selected the winners based on three criteria: demonstrating inclusion, creativity and visual appeal.

The top three winners are:

First place ($1,000): Simone Rotman, Oakland, Calif. A $1,750 donation is being made to Ramah California.
Second place ($500): Jenna Freeman, Los Angeles, Calif. A $1,000 donation is being made to Ramah California.
Third place ($250): David Sharif, Los Angeles, Calif. A $500 donation is being made to Camp JRF.

“This contest proves that the people who really get the importance of inclusion are the ones who experience it firsthand,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation. “The wonderful videos submitted by Jewish campers across the country show that the inclusion of children with disabilities makes the camping experience a better one for all campers.”

According to Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, national Ramah director, “We received many inspirational and creative videos that clearly demonstrate the importance of inclusion at Jewish camps across North America. As we share these videos with the larger Jewish community, we hope that they will promote further discussion, raise awareness, and encourage all of our camps to become more inclusive.”

The top 10 videos can be viewed on the contest website or by searching social media for #TIPTOE2014.

Ramah is the camping arm of Conservative Judaism. The Ramah Camping Movement is a pioneer in the field of inclusion for Jewish campers with a wide range of disabilities. Tikvah, Breira B’Ramah and Camp Yofi comprise the National Ramah Tikvah Network of programs. For more information, visit campramah.org.