Send a Christian to camp

Christian Century, July 14, 1999 by Ellen Charry, Dana Charry

WHAT IS THE most important spiritual gift that we can pass on to our children? What will protect them against the evil welling up within themselves, expressed in the senseless violence they now perpetrate against one another? They need the power of God, the armor of Christ, and the knowledge that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. How can we give them this, their rightful inheritance, in the face of so many forces that tell them otherwise? We offer here a suggestion for intentional Christian formation on a model borrowed from the Jewish community.

In the mid-1940s, as the smoke of battle cleared over Europe and the grim details of the Holocaust came to light, Jews in the U.S. realized that a new responsibility had been placed on their shoulders. While the number of Jews in the U.S. had steadily increased since the 1860s, American Jews tended to look for leadership and inspiration to the great centers of Judaism in Poland, Lithuania and Germany. Now those centers had been turned into ashes, and American Jews were on their own. The trend toward assimilation in the surrounding culture had to be resisted if the community was to survive. The next generation of Jewish scholars, teachers and lay leaders would have to be homegrown.

In light of this crisis, a group of Jewish leaders led by Mordecai Kaplan of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America developed a new idea. They envisioned a summer-long camp program that would offer the usual sports, crafts and outdoor activities, but would also provide intensive education and formation in Jewish life. They envisioned and went on to create camps that featured daily prayer and 90 minutes of religious instruction six days a week. The classes were taught by seminary professors, professional religious schoolteachers and rabbis who spent the summer at camp with their families. The classes involved homework and tests, and credit for the courses was accepted by the camper's Hebrew school at home. (Children are required to attend Hebrew school six hours per week for five years prior to bar/bat mitzvah.)

At camp the sabbath was observed and dietary laws followed. The official language for all the camp's activities was Hebrew. Counselors were encouraged to speak Hebrew with their campers at all times.

Staff were trained to approach every activity as an opportunity to teach the Jewish way of life. Staff, especially bunk counselors, were carefully chosen for their knowledge of Hebrew, their personal religious commitment, and their ability to serve as role models for the campers.

Before the campers arrived, the staff met for a full week to design the summer's program. Staff were paid well, so the camp could attract top candidates. Seminarians were particularly encouraged to spend their summers on the staff, either as counselors or in other staff positions. Separate staffs of teachers, bunk counselors and specialty counselors were set up so that each staff member could concentrate on her or his own area of expertise, attend to prayer, and enjoy community life. The staff-camper ratio was about 1-5. Classes were organized for staff as well as youth. Everyone studied, helped by a well-stocked library (books were brought in from a congregation or seminary) and a full-time librarian.

The campers were carefully chosen by rabbis, who looked for youngsters with leadership ability. Campers' expenses were subsidized by congregations. Campers were encouraged to return summer after summer, to become staff members themselves eventually and then to become rabbis, scholars and leaders of the community. It was also hoped that some of these boys and girls who met at camp would go on to marry each other, so that their religious commitment would be passed on to the next generation.

Kaplan and colleagues called the camp Ramah, a term that reveals a great deal about their aims. In Hebrew Ramah means "the heights"--a sign that they intended the camp to reflect high goals. Ramah was also the place where `the voice of Rachel was heard weeping for her lost and exiled children (Jer. 31:15). The camp songbook was titled Kol be-Ramah ("A voice in Ramah"), a phrase taken directly from the prophet. On the cover of the songbook was a drawing of three children, happily singing, dancing and playing musical instruments, with a chirping bird fluttering overhead. Camp Ramah was designed to be the place where the lamentation for the Holocaust would be transformed into the song of joyous rebirth of the Jewish people.

Camp Ramah opened in 1949 in the north woods of Wisconsin, strategically placed to draw children from the large Jewish community in the Chicago area. Within the next 15 years, camps were established near New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Boston. The movement is still going strong. Recently a camp was opened near Atlanta, and feeder day-camps have been started for eight-to-ten-year-olds. The project has been an enormous success, and has produced not one but two generations of leaders for the Conservative movement in American Judaism. This summer, grandchildren of the original campers will be attending Ramah.