Foundation for Jewish Camp

Camps post-pandemic

The Foundation for Jewish Camp recently released its latest census results, Trends Report: State of Jewish Camp 2023. The research indicates that Jewish camps in Canada and the United States have settled into a new normal within the post-pandemic world.

In summer 2023, the field served 3% (6,000) more campers and counselors than in summer 2022, with a total of nearly 181,000 campers, teens and college-aged staff participating in Jewish camp across 166 day camps and 158 overnight camps. Part of this new reality includes hiring more staff, since fewer are working the full summer. Camps are having to raise more money to keep up with rising costs and the increased demand for camper financial aid.

Some key takeaways from the report are:

• Camp enrolment continues to grow, with the largest gains coming from day camps. Day camps reached pre-pandemic enrolment levels in 2023. Overnight camps enrolment remained at 96% of 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels, but 80% of overnight camps were expecting to increase their enrolment in 2024 – data for last summer are not yet available.

• Many staff are no longer working full summers, which is creating an increased need for seasonal staff positions. The total number of staff in summer 2023 was higher than in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and, given that many staff are not working a full summer, especially within overnight camps, there is a need for camps to hire more staff to fill in gaps.

• Increased turnover of Jewish camp professionals: 66% of reporting overnight camps and 58% of reporting day camps had professional staff leave their positions between fall 2022 and fall 2023.

• Families requested more financial aid from overnight camps than ever before. Overnight camps saw about a 30% increase in the amount of financial aid that families requested from their camps.

• MESSH (mental, emotional, social and spiritual) resources ranked highest in terms of the resources camps need. Camps also indicated a need for resources on character development and resilience-building; parent communication and engagement; antisemitism and bridging differences; and diversity, equity and inclusion. (It should be noted that this census was conducted before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the ensuing war.)

• Capital needs are a big priority for camps across the field, as camps prioritize growing camper enrolment and making camp more accessible, all while upkeeping older buildings and facilities. Staff housing is a key need, as camps are unable to grow enrolment without it.

Camper satisfaction

Overnight camp overall satisfaction and likelihood to return both increased by 2% in 2023, with levels remaining relatively consistent since 2019, in the 91-94% range for satisfaction and 84-87% range for likelihood to return.

Alongside these trends, positive impacts for Jewish camp remained high, with 93% of families reporting that overnight camp made their child feel part of the larger Jewish community and peoplehood, and 90% of families reporting that camp has built important Jewish friendships for their child.

In addition, more than half of families reported that their child’s camp experience has motivated their child to participate in other Jewish programming throughout the year.

Regarding day camps, overall camper satisfaction was 87% and the likelihood to return 82% in 2023, levels that have remained relatively consistent since 2021. Further, 82% of families reported that their day camp created a culture of belonging for their child(ren) and 89% of families reported that it is important to them that camp provide an inclusive experience for everyone.

The situation in 2024

An article in the Jerusalem Post last month reported on the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s three-day Jewish camp summit, which took place in Chicago in December. In the article, writer Howard Blas shares some data on the 2024 camp season, which was offered by the foundation’s chief executive officer, Jeremy J. Fingerman.

According to Fingerman, surveys indicated that, in 2024: “Nine in 10 families reported that camp created an environment that supported their children’s social and emotional health and well-being”; “85% of camp staff felt that camp connected them to feeling a part of the worldwide Jewish community”; “94% of parents shared that camp connected their child to the global Jewish community”; and “80% of North American overnight camp staff said camp helped them to connect to Israel and Israeli staff.”

– Courtesy Foundation for Jewish Camp

Getting more kids into camp

The Foundation for Jewish Camp serves more than 155 Jewish summer camps, close to 80,000 campers and 11,000 counselors across North America every summer. Among its initiatives is the One Happy Camper program, which is run in partnership with Jewish federations – including in Montreal, Toronto and Calgary – foundations, PJ Library, and camps across North America. The program provides incentive grants of up to $1,000 to children attending nonproﬁt, Jewish overnight camp for the ﬁrst time, with the intention of introducing more children to the magic of Jewish camp.

Based on the 2010 study by the FJC, Camp Works: The Long Term Impact of Jewish Overnight Camp, there is evidence that overnight Jewish camp is a proven means of building Jewish identity, community and leadership. As adults, campers are 30% more likely to donate to a Jewish federation, 37% more likely to light candles regularly on Shabbat, 45% more likely to attend synagogue at least once a month, and 55% more likely to feel emotionally attached to Israel. As well, one of three Jewish professionals (rabbis, cantors, teachers) started out as counselors at Jewish camp; one of five Jewish educators cited Jewish camp as a key experience that caused them to enter the field; and seven of 10 young Jewish leaders in their 20s and 30s attended Jewish summer camp.

North American Jewish overnight summer camps reach 77,000+ camp-aged children every summer, but this represents only 10% of eligible camp-age kids. In the FJC’s efforts to grow enrolment and increase awareness, FJC created the One Happy Camper program, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. The program’s singular mission is to increase the number of children beneﬁting from the transformative experience of Jewish summer camp. Aimed at attracting new campers who do not have daily, immersive exposure to Judaism, the program provides ﬁnancial incentives to encourage parents to choose nonproﬁt overnight Jewish summer camp over other summer options.

Since the success of the 2006 pilot, the One Happy Camper program has expanded across North America. To date, 64,000 campers have experienced Jewish overnight camp as a result of FJC’s partnership with 40 community-based organizations (federations/foundations), four national camp movements, 30 individual camps, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Goes to Camp program and the Jim Joseph Foundation-funded JWest program.

Of One Happy Camper grant recipients, six out of 10 would have stayed home or attended a non-Jewish summer experience, and one out of three OHC recipients’ parents had not attended Jewish camp – FJC knows that parents who attended Jewish camp are more likely to send their own kids, so the grants are instilling a new legacy of Jewish camping for families.

Surveys show that OHC recipients enjoy their summers at camp as much as their peers, in that they say they found the experience of value and would likely recommend it. As well, they are as likely to return to camp. In fact, 82% of OHC recipients return to camp for a second summer. And their experience is infused with Jewish education, identity and connections: 97% feel that camps create an atmosphere where children are proud to be Jewish and 36% of recipients increased their participation in Jewish activities after their first summer at camp.

The majority of OHC families (63%) are not members or donors of their sponsoring organization but, as a result of the OHC grant, 78% of OHC parents feel more positive about their family’s connection to the Jewish community and 72% of OHC parents feel that they are more likely to support their sponsoring organization.

These are just some of the results found in the Foundation for Jewish Camp publication Communities Investing in the Future One Happy Camper at a Time. To read more, go to jewishcamp.org/community-partners and click on “Download ‘Communities Investing in the Future’ (PDF).”

– Courtesy Foundation for Jewish Camp

Learning to nurture kindness

Foundation for Jewish Camp has been awarded a grant to explore how Jewish overnight camp nurtures and promotes character development. (photo from jewishcamp.org)

Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) has been awarded a three-year expansive research grant from the John Templeton Foundation to explore how the activities and rituals at Jewish overnight camp nurture and promote character development in adolescent campers and camp staff.

Findings of an earlier landscape survey of current virtue development practices at Jewish camps and a series of interviews with camp professionals identified kindness as the most common virtue camps desire to nurture in their communities. This next phase of in-depth research will focus on understanding how kindness is embedded into the structure of Jewish camp, how character virtues are taught, practised and modeled by camp leadership and staff, and how staff and campers are impacted.

The initial one-year planning grant, awarded in 2021, was used to develop conceptual frameworks and research design and instrumentation. This work included convening thought partners and learning circles to guide the project; conducting a landscape survey of current virtue development practices at Jewish camps; interviewing a select group of 10 camps to learn more about their current practices; and developing the proposal for the three-year study to evaluate the impact of character development practices on the minds, hearts and behaviours of adolescents and young adults who participate in Jewish camp.

According to Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow, FJC’s vice-president for education and innovation and the co-leader for this project, “Jewish camp in North America has a great history of making mensches – a Yiddish term for a person of great character and integrity – but that is not enough. We need to look critically and explore the metrics of character development. With the support of the John Templeton Foundation, we will define where we are headed in this work for the next decade. Surfacing and sharing best practices in character development will ensure we are making our best effort to raise new generations of thoughtful, resilient, caring, community-minded individuals. The world needs mensches now, more than ever before.”

“We want to surface exemplary practices that support young adult camp staff to model and nurture kindness in themselves and others,” said Nila Rosen, FJC’s director of learning and research. “Our research will allow us to learn with the camps and develop additional resources and practices to elevate emerging and promising character development at camps across North America.”

These resources will expand on FJC’s Making Mensches Periodic Table – the resource bank for camp staff and educators to engage in the work of character development, whose popularity served as the basis for this inquiry.

FJC has selected five camps that are intentional in their construction and cultivation of a culture of kindness in their community. These camps will conduct a thorough exploration of how that shows up in their staff selection and training, relationship building, camp rituals, peer-to-peer support, professional development, branding materials, camp artifacts, signage, or explicit language used by leadership teams.

Dr. Richard Bollinger, senior program officer of character virtue development at the John Templeton Foundation, said, “We are excited about the potential impact of this project because spreading kindness within a community can create ripples of a ‘pay-it-forward’ nature that extend far beyond the initial kind actions. Along with the hundreds of thousands of campers, families and staff who participate in 300+ Jewish camps across North America each year, we are eager to share and learn with FJC and the field.”

– Courtesy Foundation for Jewish Camp

Building of community

Originally, the only focus of Jewish camp was to offer Jewish children an opportunity to spend some time in a woodland environment. (photo from pxfuel.com)

Camping and camps may have been around forever. But Jewish camps, at least those in North America, have a contemporary history.

In 1893, a group called the Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society organized a camp for Jewish children in New York. These women sought to create a place to give their children a break from life in the industrialized city where they worked. The initial focus of Jewish camps was on the children of Eastern European immigrants, and there was a drive to use the camps to Americanize participants. Jews were not the only ones to take an interest in this vehicle for integration. By 1900, there were 100 camps of all kinds and, by 1915, there were more than 1,000.

Originally, the only focus was to offer Jewish children an opportunity to spend some time in a woodland environment, perhaps with access to water. Camps also offered children opportunities to interact with their peers from various backgrounds, without parental oversight, something they might not find in their home environment. Over time, Jewish camp programs expanded to include acculturation into things Jewish, along with athletics, social skills-building, the arts and related activities. Among the Jewish camps, there was the development of those that promoted a particular religious observance, or Zionism, Hebrew usage, socialism and the like. Zionist camps were given a special impetus with the worldwide effort to establish a Jewish state.

What Jewish organizers found over time was that camp experiences were crucial in binding young people to the Jewish community. The relationships forged among young people through camp have played an important role in this area. Anyone who has lived through the camping experience understands the powerful emotional connections this activity can carry with it, particularly when it occurs year after year. Many community leaders believe that sleep-away camps were (and are) an important element in the maintenance of a Jewish identity in the face of all the forces that encourage assimilation into the general population.

The summer camp has become a feature of Jewish life wherever the numbers are available to support this community service. In addition to private ventures, over time, Jewish communities have invested substantial resources into these programs and see them as an important part of Jewish communal activity. Some synagogues have camps as part of their program.

Interest in this aspect of Jewish camp has increased over time. For some parents, Jewish camps are an alternative to expensive primary schooling at Jewish educational institutions.

As a reflection of the growing appreciation of the importance of sleep-away camps in maintaining strong communities, philanthropic groups funded, in 2014, an organization in the United States to assist Jewish camps in carrying out their work. The Foundation for Jewish Camp now works with more than 180 Jewish summer camps, assisting in the training of personnel and providing other services and resources. Among other things, it assists Jewish camps in recruiting professionals, offers grants to first-time campers and helps fund upgrades for camps to accommodate participants with special needs.

An estimate published in January 2019 reported that there were 77,000 attendees at Jewish camps in the United States, and the foundation reports that there are 195 Jewish camps in North America. In Canada, there are Jewish camps in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.