By Andrew Adler
A pre-Shabbat photo from Summer 2019 at Camp Ramah Darom in Clayton, Georgia (photo from Camp Ramah Darom)
I have camp on the brain.
Elsewhere in this issue of Community I’ve written about the powerful draw of Jewish overnight camps. That exercise in sleepaway-induced journalism propelled me into an abyss of camper nostalgia – not for myself, but for my two children, especially my son. More on that in a moment.
I was never much of a camp kid. For a month one summer when I was around 10, I attended – are you ready – an Episcopal-affiliated camp in a long-forgotten New England countryside enclave. The only reason my parents sent me there, as far as I can recollect, was that one of my closest friends was a repeat customer. “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” read a sign at the camp entrance, and indeed it proved a welcoming place, where I learned to fence (foil) and received my inaugural chastisement for uttering a four-letter word.
A few years later I spent three weeks at Connecticut Tennis Camp – tennis was my summertime obsession, the one competitive sport I was actually good at. I turned 13 during that sojourn – adulthood, sort of.
Otherwise my summers unfolded each year during three months on eastern Long Island – tennis, the Atlantic Ocean, backyard cookouts and copious ice cream indulgences at The Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton.
In other words, I had little use for camp life, Jewish or otherwise. But all that changed decades later when my son was born in May of 1999. At that time we lived on Millvale Road, a leisurely three-minute stroll from Congregation Adath Jeshurun, where my wife and I were members. Our neighborhood was generously populated with fellow shul members who observed Shabbat norms and hosted innumerable Friday night dinners, as we did. It was a wonderful time.
Many of our friends had teenage children who’d join us at the Shabbat table, and inevitably the conversation turned to how they spent their summers: more often than not at Camp Ramah Wisconsin. It was Ramah this, Ramah that. Presumably there were kids in the vicinity who attended other Jewish camps, but in our circle Ramah – officially affiliated with the Conservative movement – was where our friends sent their offspring.
Time and again I would hear a repeated declaration: If you want your kid to love being Jewish, never mind about attending religious school, going to services or worrying about an anticipated Bar or Bat Mitzvah – send that kid to camp. Camp is where you LIVE Judaism, where the joy of fun, faith, friendship combine in joyous synchronicity.
We began hearing these pronouncements well before our son, Jack, was born. And when he did emerge and accompanied us to those Shabbat dinners – baby, toddler, pre-schooler, etc, etc. – the glories of camp were articulated in ever-increasing volume.
It was assumed Jack would eventually find his way to Ramah Wisconsin, since that was the designated locale for our region. But we’d become close friends with Brad Tecktiel – then Rabbi at Keneseth Israel (where we were also members) and his wife, Susan – who were active at Ramah Darom in Clayton, Georgia, about two hours north of Atlanta.
Unlike the venerable Ramah Wisconsin, which had a reputation for rather spartan accommodations, Ramah Darom – then only a few years old – was referred to as “Spa Ramah.” More to the point, Ramah Darom featured an annual “Family Camp” – a four-night, extended Shabbat weekend that offered a concentrated taste of the Ramah experience. Children as young as four would spend their days with counsellors (many of whom were Israelis who’d recently completed their IDF service) and older campers. Parents could attend seminars, play sports, take art classes, hike to the nearby waterfall, or simply wander the expansive campus. Everyone ate meals together in the cavernous dining hall and gathered afterward to sing and dance. Once the kids were tucked into bed (with the Israelis keeping watch outside their cabin doors), parents would return to the dining complex for socializing over desserts and adult beverages. Once we did our first Family Camp in 2004, we were hooked.
A few years later Jack was old enough to attend Ramah Darom for a month, and after two summers began spending the entire summer there. In due course our daughter, Naomi, followed, continuing after they and Mom moved down to New Orleans in the spring of 2007.
True to those Friday night declarations from years earlier, it was camp that made my children fully embrace their Judaism, not out of obligation, but out of abiding affection. Jack went all the way through, did his Israel Seminar summer, plus two stints as a Ramah Darom counsellor. To this day, overnight camp it was the best investment in our children’s Jewish future we could ever possibly have made.
Andrew Adler is Managing Editor of Community.