By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Shlomit Nazar – who teaches at the Nofey-Habsor school in the Gaza Envelope — accompanied 20 Israeli teens for two weeks at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. (Courtesy photo)
The immediate horrors of October 7, 2023 were followed by myriad physical and psychological aftershocks, affecting Israelis regardless of who they were or where they lived. Pernicious and persistent, they have upended norms long thought to be inviolable. Even amid a society accustomed to spasms of regional conflict, the levels of collective wartime stress have not been simply debilitating – they’ve been, for some, destructive.
Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North posed threats that could not be ignored, prompting upheavals of unprecedented scope. Never before in Israel’s history a such a traumatic shock forced hundreds families to leave their homes, with scant notice, and evacuate to areas of comparative safety in the center of the country. The strain has been especially severe on the nation’s children, who’ve seen their routines upended as they find themselves uprooted from their comfort zones and compelled – day after day, week after week, month after month – to cobble together normality out of what’s decidedly anything but normal.
Happily, a respite was at hand. This summer, about 1,500 Israeli teens ages 14-16 spent two weeks abroad hosted by Jewish overnight camps in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Dubbed Campers2Gether, the initiative was organized by the Jewish Agency for Israel in collaboration with Federations and their various Partnership2Gether counterparts in Israel. Groups of 20 teens –accompanied by adults trained in trauma counseling and general psychological support, traveled together to their respective camp locations.
Organizing groups covered all expenses. The Jewish Federation of Louisville contributed $18,000 to sponsor several of these Israeli teens, who lived in the Partnership2Gether’s Western Gallilee region before the threat of Hezbollah rockets forced them to relocate.
Spending two consecutive weeks at an overnight camp was a new experience for most participants. Extended stays in summer overnight camps are a decidedly un-Israeli phenomenon. Israeli teens are much more apt to attend day programs at nearby community centers, or perhaps an occasional sleepover.
But there are exceptions. Avital Ben Dror, the Community Engagement Coordinator for P2G’s activity in the Western Galilee and Budapest, Hungary, sent her daughter to camp near the Hungarian capital of Budapest for four consecutive summers.
“She loved it,” Ben Dror said during a Zoom interval from Israel. “It really changed her. I think it connected her Jewish identity, because here it’s something you take for granted. There she met people from all over the world who were trying to keep their Jewish identity, with prayers and songs and dancing. It was so much fun.”
This summer’s Campers2Gether program carried a dual benefit: the teens basked in the sanctuary of American camp life, while their parents enjoed a much-needed break from being in constant close quarters with their children – entire families often have had to occupy a single hotel room.
“Those parents have so much stress right now,” Ben Dor acknowledges, “so they really appreciated this time.”
The Campers2Gether initiative is a powerful demonstration of how eager Jews and Jewish organizations are to bolster the spirits of Israelis grappling with unparalleled challenges.
“The community is excited about it,” says Shelley Kedar, the Jewish Agency for Israel/Hillel International’s Vice President for Israel Education and Engagement. “They’re investing a lot of money and time and effort.
“The biggest message I would love to come out of this story,” Kedar says (also speaking from Israel via Zoom) is that since October 7, a lot of Jewish communities have been asking, ‘What can we do?’ So, they’ve been sending money and volunteers and support and love.”
Campers2Gether is an example of kicking that commitment up a notch or two. “This is one of the ultimate expressions of what Jewish communities can do – opening camps to these campers, investing money in training for teams and staff,” Kedar says. “And it’s not like this is the only thing that camps do; it’s just one project. It’s one of the most incredible acts, not just of solidarity, but of Jewish peoplehood.”
While individual camps had their own distinctive cultures, they shared a defining imperative.
“Campers2Gether takes the transformative power of the Jewish summer camp setting to the next level at a time of unprecedented need for the Jewish people,” Mark Wilf, chairman of The Jewish Agency’s governing board, said in a statement earlier this year. “The program will generate positive experiences for affected Israeli teens, utilizing the camp community to convey a healing sense of unity, while simultaneously providing a platform for global Jewish youth to understand Israel on a personal level.”
Shlomit Nazar, an Israeli teacher whose family lived not far from the Gaza border, understood all too well how events of October 7 shattered the innocence of nearby young people.
“These children witnessed unspeakable horrors and have managed to silently soldier through the better part of the year living in hotels, studying in tents that serve as makeshift classrooms,” she wrote recently in a piece distributed by the Jewish News Syndicate, “and hoping that when they shut their eyes at night, they won’t relive the evils of that day.”
Campers2Gether was an emotional lifeline for Nazar and the 20 Israeli teens who accompanied her for two weeks at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, located near the town of Wingdale, NY.
“Most of them were students I had taught at Nofey Habsor in the Gaza Envelope,” Nazar said. “I have taught there for 15 years and have known some of my students for even longer. We came into this experience together with a high level of familiarity and trust. And I was determined to empower them with an opportunity they so urgently needed – an opportunity for all of us to decompress; find comfort in one another; and most importantly, for the children to learn what it’s like to be free of worries, even if temporarily.”
Of course, there were significant differences compared to what an American Jewish teen might take away. “A camp experience is home away from home, right?” Kedar says. “But if you think of these campers, they’re not leaving home to go to a home away from home – they are leaving a temporary residence to go to camp and returning to a temporary residence.
Indeed, “there are parents who are involved with (IDF) reserve duty from the north, protecting their own kibbutzim,” she says. “The parents come in uniform from protecting their own places, and they tell you the most incredible stories – ‘This rocket missed me,’ or people who’ve lost their jobs and are continuing on. So I think what the Jewish people are doing – what the Jewish community of Louisville, Kentucky is doing – is incredible. It’s a mishpucha feeling. Okay, our mishpucha is in trouble, so we are going to get them to summer camp. I think it’s something to be celebrated.”
