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Building Bridges to Connect Jewish Camps and Schools

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers on March 6th, 2013 by alicia - No Comments »

The following was also posted on the Jim Joseph Foundation blog.

By Jordan Magidson, Nadiv Educator at URJ Camp Kalsman in Arlington, WA and Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, WA. 

One idea that has been drilled into my head for the last four years is that no Jewish community is an island—or at least no community should be. Rather than hoarding our intellectual property we should be sharing it, collaborating with other Jewish organizations and learning from one another in order to create the best possible educational experience for our children. What I find unique about the Nadiv program is that it is one of the first national initiatives to begin building those bridges between Jewish organizations, recognizing that religion schools (that’s what we call it in my neck of the woods) and Jewish camps both have a lot to teach each and learn from each other when it comes to innovative and successful Jewish programming for kids.

My position as Nadiv Educator is pretty unique. I am only one of six Jewish educators who split their time between working in a school and working at camp and only one of two in this pilot that works in supplementary Jewish education. While there have been challenges, they have been minimal and hardly noteworthy. The benefits and opportunities for growth for the camp, the religion school and for me as an educator have been far more numerous.

When I am wearing my temple hat, I am thinking about what makes camp so successful and how we can start integrating that into our religion school. We send 140 students from Temple De Hirsch Sinai (TDHS) to URJ Camp Kalsman each summer. This gives us the opportunity to create a sense of year-long Jewish education for our students. With camp being located only an hour outside of Seattle, we have the chance to utilize this beautiful and uniquely Jewish setting to support what is happening in the classroom. We will begin by sending our 4th-6th graders to camp in May for a Shabbaton where we teach our students and their families about how we can address poverty in our community. Camp is a perfect setting for this as fighting hunger is a major goal of our camp community. This past year we donated roughly 1000 lbs. of food that we grew in our garden to a local shelter and we hope to double that this year. By utilizing program areas like the garden and farm, we not only teach our students about this big issue, but also literally get our hands dirty and show them how they can be change agents in our community. This will have a bigger impact than if we just stayed at our congregation. We are also, of course, hoping to garner more excitement about camp and encourage some first-time campers to try it out.

When I am wearing my camp hat, I am thinking about ways in which camp can continue to grow and be at the forefront of innovation when it comes to Jewish education. It is important that camp not simply rest on its laurels – just because something worked 20 years ago doesn’t mean it doesn’t need rejuvenating. This year at camp we are beginning to move to a fully integrated model of Jewish education, which will be a change from how we have done things in the past. It will bring a new energy to the education program. As Director of Education at camp, I am also aware that not every community I work with has the same resources available to them as available TDHS. That is why we are beginning to send out holiday recourse sheets to schools and families that will allow them to bring a little of the camp spirit into their homes. We are also going to start making available tested and approved all-school and family programming to our camp communities that would like to add more experiential programming to their schedules but may not have the time or resources to create them. This will be one way we can give all of our campers, not just TDHS campers, the ability to experience this year-long Jewish education.

All of this is just the beginning. April will mark one year in this very unique position for me. In this first year I have learned a lot and accomplished a lot. I know that in the coming years I will accomplish even more. David Berkman (Director of Camp Kalsman), Rabbi Daniel Septimus (Director of Congregational Learning at TDHS) and I are all very committed to creating endless opportunities for collaboration. I can’t wait to see where we go from here!

Can Jewish Organizations Really Work Collaboratively? Early Lessons from Nadiv

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers, Jewish Camp in the News on February 28th, 2013 by alicia - No Comments »

The following post was originally featured on eJewish Philanthropy.

Collaboration and partnership have become the buzzwords of our time. The business world as well as the nonprofit sector heralds the advantages of collaboration: sharing resources, bringing multiple perspectives to address difficult issues, eliminating duplication, learning from one another and pooling assets.

The Jim Joseph and AVI CHAI Foundations, as funders interacting with multiple organizations across sectors, have a bird’s-eye view of what can result when organizations function from within their own separate silos: duplicate efforts on the one hand and unaddressed needs on the other. This led us to ask: can we, as funders, use our resources and influence to catalyze collaboration? And taking that one step further: can we, as funders, collaborate to more effectively advance our common goals?

On the topic of funding collaboration efforts, David La Piana, in his monograph Real Collaboration: A Guide for Grantmakers, offers a sobering observation. “Funders cannot create Real Collaboration. They can only help to enhance it. In most instances, a ‘grant for collaboration’ will not seed or create a partnership where none existed before unless the motivation to create a partnership is present and strong. ”

We are fortunate that talented professionals in the areas of Jewish education that our two foundations support were already thinking of developing and nurturing collaboration and were highly motivated to see it succeed. Jewish camp leaders wanted year-round educators devoting their skills to deepen Jewish learning in camps and Jewish school leaders wanted to inspire their students with more immersive “camp-like” Jewish experiences during the school year. To address these needs, our foundations have jointly funded a five-year grant to the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Nadiv Initiative, an experiment designed to create new connections between Jewish camps and schools, leveraging unique professional knowledge and best practices for the benefit of both.

Nadiv involves a complex array of individual, organizational and system collaboration in order to produce camp and school alumni whose Judaism deeply engages both their heads and their hearts:

  • Each of six experiential Jewish educators is “shared” by a camp and a school in the same geographic area.
  • Each camp-school pair works together to determine the role of their Nadiv educator.
  • Educators, heads of school and camp directors participate collectively in a community of practice to learn from one another’s successes and challenges.
  • The Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) together helped develop the program and are directing its implementation.
  • Two foundations have co-invested in the project, communicating regularly and learning the give-and-take required by funding partnerships.

Can so many levels of partnership succeed not only simultaneously, but in such a way that the partnerships build on each other and each strengthens the whole? While Nadiv is just in its early stages of implementation, the first evaluation report has been conducted by BTW informing change. One of the two sections of the report, “The Nadiv Story, Unfolding,” tells the story of Nadiv’s collaborative process as it unfolded, with all the turns and twists in the road. The second section, “Key Learnings from Nadiv’s Launch,” shares successes along with key learnings and offers recommendations for ongoing implementation and future partnerships.

Even in this early stage, Nadiv is turning out to be a fascinating story about collaboration, with multiple characters and plotlines. At the individual level, six educators from a range of backgrounds are working across institutions and denominational affiliations to support one another and share learnings. At an organizational level, camps and schools are leveraging their partnership to retain a talented educator and strengthen one another’s educational work, bringing more of the joy of camp to school and introducing more of the substance of school to camp. At the field level, FJC and URJ are deepening their relationship, identifying shared measures for success, and laying the groundwork for future collaborative efforts. And on the funder level, two foundations deeply committed to Jewish education are bridging their differences to enhance their leverage. While it is too early to identify concrete results, BTW’s report notes encouragingly: “The most common words used to describe the nascent partnerships are respect, communication, collaboration, support and trust.”

At the first Nadiv convening this past fall, energy and excitement ran high as school and camp heads, Nadiv educators and their mentors reached across their organizational divides and talked together about the best ways to inspire and educate Jewish youth. Participants left with a sense of being halutzim (pioneers) in a model that can bring down some of the walls that separate classroom-based and experiential education, winter and summer, teacher and counselor.

We will have to wait several years to fully understand whether this experiment to catalyze new institutional collaboration will achieve what it set out to do. If it does, we hope that other camps, schools and educational institutions will adapt elements of the Nadiv model for their own collaborative experiments. We equally hope that other funders will be inspired to invest (or even better, co-invest) in such efforts.

We will, of course, continue to “learn in public” as the project progresses and look forward to your reactions and your own stories of collaboration in the Jewish education world.

- Josh Miller is a senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Steven Green is director of grants management and administration at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Leah Nadich Meir is a program officer at The AVI CHAI Foundation. Joel Einleger is a senior program officer at The AVI CHAI Foundation.

Ah-Ha Moments

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers on January 15th, 2013 by alicia - 1 Comment

As it is written: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  And God saw the light that it was good.” (Bereishit, 1:3-4)

Each day, we have moments of light.  We have thoughts, ideas, and contemplations about ways to improve life.  We think about how we can help our family and friends.   We think about ways to make our jobs more meaningful or easier. We think about how to become healthier.  We think.  Not every idea is a good one.  We likely have more bad ideas than good ones.  Yet, rarely do we take the moment to reflect and determine its merit.

Human nature inherently pushes us to go and do.  Many of us attend seminars, trainings, workshops, meetings, conferences, etc.  The rooms buzz with excitement and ideas.  The hour long presentation was the best thing you ever saw.  You walk out the door energized.  You get back to your desk and realize you can’t articulate the ideas you left the room with just moments ago.  Shadows of your thoughts ruminate in your brain.  You try your hardest to put your thoughts on paper, but you can’t reach them.  It’s too late.  The moment of reflection has passed.

God teaches us reflection from the start of the Torah.  Each act of creation is followed by a recap and nod of approval.  The Yitro Leadership Program brings Assistant and Associate Camp Directors together from all parts of the US.  In a three-day seminar, not a moment is wasted.  We walk in and have agendas, workbooks, notebooks, and pens waiting for us.  The flip charts are placed at the front of the room near the PowerPoint projector.  There is a coffee table at the back of the room.  It’s time to work.  You look at the agenda, and it looks like any other schedule: three sessions before lunch, another four before dinner, and an evening program.  The agenda, however, doesn’t tell the whole story.  We revisit the content from our previous two seminars.  We look at the challenges facing our own camps today.  We build a frame, together, for what we are about to do.  We are learning as we share with each other best practices.  With each topic, we work through case studies, build skills, and develop benchmarks.

We are asked to flip to page one of our workbooks and jot down any revelations we’ve had.  The top of the page reads “Ah-Ha Moments”.  It’s a blank page in a workbook.  We are in session, but we are silent.  Many would look at this as wasted time and space.  This is intentional.  Reflection is critical to learning and development.  It underscores that which we have found most important.  It allows us to remember our thoughts at a later time.

Thinking back on our sessions, I had so many “Ah-Ha Moments”.  One of the most profound discussions and topics was about the way we train our staff.  Training is not a one week process at camp.  In fact, training is an ongoing process in life.  We coach, we teach, we cultivate, and we teach our staff to be better individuals.  We are in the business of role modeling. We are in the business of growing children into young Jewish adults.  What do we want our kids to Know, Value, and Do in their lives? These are the methods we use to train our staff as role models.

What’s an idea that you lost?  What do you wish you remembered?  What got lost between the meeting room and your desk?  Stop.  Think.  Reflect.  Write.  Imagine the good that can come from it.

- Dan Baer, Associate Director, Camp Interlaken JCC

2013 on the Horizon

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Posted in Education and Educators, FJC Programs on January 4th, 2013 by alicia - No Comments »

This post originally appeared on eJewish Philanthropy

As we enter 2013 and consider what the new year will bring, I see three important trends affecting our community today overall that need to inform our conversations and our plans – as Jewish professionals, lay leaders, and a community as a whole – as we move forward into this year.

First, we face the continued challenge of the affordability of living a Jewish life today. Many in our midst simply cannot afford to participate in the varied opportunities which are available. Great strides have been made and generous funders have stepped forward with scholarships and financial aid, and we are watching with heightened interest the progress generated by The AVI CHAI Foundation, PEJE, and Yeshiva University, among others, who are working hard to make day school education more affordable. But we still need to do more across the board to serve all segments of our community. We need to develop lower cost, more efficient offerings as well, targeting those in the challenged middle income brackets. The ongoing uncertainty of the economy requires our creativity and collaboration.

Second, our institutions need strengthening. We can accomplish this by better utilizing our communal assets and resources more effectively. Again, we see this trend evolving with successful models under development. The Nadiv program, which has created senior experiential Jewish educator positions that are shared by nonprofit Jewish overnight camps and Jewish day or synagogue schools, is but one new great example to address this need. Nadiv aims to enhance the quality of education at Jewish camps and schools in a sustainable way, create a new model for year-round positions for trained and talented Jewish educators, and model a new way to foster deeper collaboration between different kinds of institutions in the Jewish educational world. Individual organizations can benefit from asset sharing as well. The merger of Hazon, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and Teva Learning Alliance is a recent illustration of this, but collaboration does not require complete fusion. For example, over several years the Foundation for Jewish Camp has worked in partnership with the Harold Grinspoon Foundation on several projects towards a mutual goal of getting more kids to experience the transformative power of Jewish summer camp.

Third, we feel a moral imperative to create more inclusivity within our community. Together we must address our ability to meet the needs of all Jews in North America to appropriately reflect its broad diversity. Many groups are tackling areas that need attention in different ways. For example, the Jewish Funders Network has taken on the task of guiding and supporting funders to make more educated decisions in supporting programs for Jews with special needs and physical disabilities; Keshet is an organization dedicated to the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews in Jewish life; and the field of Jewish camp has created overnight camps for Russian-speaking Jews and multi-racial Jewish families. We hope this is just the beginning.

Even as we work to address these three trends, I believe we should remind ourselves of the context in which we do so. We aim to create a more joyful Jewish experience for everyone. I hope we can all agree that “joyous Judaism” can help break down barriers and silos which confront us. The field of Jewish camp has done so successfully and provides a great example for us all. Camps inspire an expression of Judaism that is joyful, powerful, and sustainable. Camps put children on a Jewish path which stays with them for life.

May the new year bring us closer together as we reach toward our ultimate collective goal: building and securing a more vibrant Jewish future.

- Jeremy J. Fingerman, CEO, Foundation for Jewish Camp

How is Nature Jewish at Camp?

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Posted in Education and Educators, Guest Bloggers on July 18th, 2012 by alicia - No Comments »

At Pinemere Camp we want the fact that we are a Jewish camp to mean a lot more than that we have services on Friday night and Saturday mornings and keep a Kosher kitchen.  We aspire to incorporate Jewish values, Jewish teachings, and Hebrew language into all of our activities – whether it’s by referring to the lake in Hebrew as the “agam” and the pool as the “breicha,” by learning about Rosh HaShanah while baking apple cakes and honey cakes, or by incorporating the values of “shalom bayit” (peace in the home – and by extension, the camp bunk) into our bunk activities.

In our outdoor nature program, campers learn from Stacy Grossfeld, our nature specialist, about the Jewish value of being “shomrei adamah” – keepers of the earth.  As they learn how to grow and tend to plants, the campers learn that we have to take care of the plants, just as they take care of us.

Campers are actively involved with Stacy in beautifying our camp community.  Every Friday a different bunk works with her to create flower arrangements which decorate our camp Shabbat tables.  Stacy explains to the campers that unlike the busy days of the rest of our week, Shabbat is a time for relaxation and a time to appreciate the beauty of creation and the natural world around us.  Our campers learn that by creating special Shabbat flower arrangements, they are taking part in the Jewish act of “hiddur mitzvah” – they are beautifying that which is sacred in their lives.  Campers also pick and learn about spices that are used as the “b’samim” (spices) in our Havdalah service which we all celebrate together at the end of Shabbat.

Campers have fun in nature while they learn about Judaism!  And as with much good informal education, they are often having so much fun that they do not even realize how much they are learning.

–Rabbi Robyn Frisch, Jewish Program Supervisor, Pinemere Camp


What else makes Jewish camp Jewish?

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Posted in Education and Educators, Guest Bloggers on July 6th, 2012 by alicia - No Comments »

The 10 Commitments

I’m often asked what makes the Cohen Camps “Jewish” and how we differentiate our camps from other Jewish camps. There is no simple, quick answer – it’s more than just being Kosher, observing Shabbat, and reciting blessings before and after meals.  We have a set of values that underlies the type of Jewish community we create at all three of our camps.  We have been using these values recently as part of an organizational-wide effort to explore new ways to enhance the way Jewish elements are integrated into camp life, make Jewish learning more experiential, and get staff and campers more involved in the Jewish pieces of the camp experience.

At the Cohen Camps we seek to nurture in our campers and staff a love of being Jewish and an ongoing desire to be involved in and to contribute to Jewish life.  We view Judaism not just as a rich heritage but as a powerful tool for personal growth – a set of values and practices which helps build one’s character, mind, and spirit, which helps each individual, in their own unique way, understand themselves and the world around them.  A strong Jewish identity grounds young people, contributes to their confidence and sense of self-worth, and informs the choices they make.

We view Jewish community as joyful, dynamic, and creative.  Positive Jewish values infuse everything we do as a community – from the dining hall to the cabins to the playing fields.

We embrace Jewish community as a wonderfully colorful mosaic which supports a range of beliefs and practices around a common core of values and commitments.  We honor each camper’s unique place in the community, and support their personal exploration of their Jewishness as we cultivate their feeling part of something larger and enduring.  We do not tell campers how to be Jewish; we empower them to discover that for themselves.

We understand Jewish life as an ongoing process: we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, draw from the wisdom and experience we’ve inherited, and try to create a world of Jewish meaning we’re proud to pass on to the next generations.

We view Jewish life as deeply connected to the broader world – with an ultimate aim of helping to improve and perfect the world.

In the spirit of Sinai here are “The Ten Commitments” of the Cohen Camps – how Jewish purpose is expressed in the fabric of camp life. In additional posts, I’ll explain more what we do and how we incorporate these ideas in our camps.

1. Friendship and teamwork (חברות).
2. Diversity and inclusiveness (קהילה).
3. Shabbat (שבת).
4. Learning (לימוד).
5. Rituals (מסורת).
6. Service and responsibility (תקון).
7. Roots (שורשים).
8. Israel (ישראל).
9. Nature (טבע).
10. Leadership (מנהיגות).

What makes Jewish camp, well, Jewish?

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Posted in Education and Educators, Guest Bloggers on July 3rd, 2012 by alicia - No Comments »

What makes Jewish camp, well, Jewish?

As professionals at FJC, we get asked this questions all the time. And surprisingly, there is not an easy answer. Each Jewish camp is “Jewish” in its own way. Yes, at most there are services. Some once a week to celebrate Shabbat, some every day. Most camps have Israeli staff to help infuse learning about Israel in to the camp.  Being a Jewish camp goes far beyond calling the dining hall the Chadar Ochel and making a Star of David out of popsicle sticks.  It is about the ruach (spirit) the campers exude or the kavanagh (intention) behind the programming.

Jewish camp is camp with a soul. We asked a few camps to give us some insight into how they infuse Judaism and make it part of camp.  Here’s the first post…

Swimming – A Lesson in Judaism and Independence

When we think about the skills we need to be successful in life, swimming doesn’t make most of our top 10 lists.  Here at Camp Interlaken, on the shores of beautiful Lake Finley (pictured), our campers get to choose their own chugim (activities).  Over the course of the day, they attend five different chug periods, one of which is a mandatory swim chug.  Of the almost 50 different activities that we offer here at camp, why do we require swimming of our campers?

According to the Talmud (Kiddushin 29a), a parent must teach their child:

1)      Torah

2)      A profession

3)      To swim

Why, in Judaism, do we put swimming on such a high pedestal? In my opinion, there are two focal reasons for swimming: safety and independence.

At the time of the Babylonian Talmud, swimming was likely being taught as a survival skill.  Many of the daily chores required accessing a body of water.  For the safety of the children, it was necessary to teach them how to properly swim to take care of themselves.  Today, we send our kids sailing and surfing, water-skiing and windsurfing, on canoe and kayak trips, and more.  Each of these activities has a level of associated risk, for which we prepare our campers.  We build swimming skills and confidence that allows for participation in many different areas.  Much like in the time of the Talmud, we are diligent in preparing our campers for their daily schedules of activities.

For some campers, the first risk that they are taking is when they jump in the pool/lake for swim testing on the first day of camp.  We start our campers’ summers by emphasizing the importance of swimming.  In teaching the children to swim, they also learn a great deal of independence; a value we rank very highly at camp.  They are learning to take care of themselves, react properly in case of danger, apply their skills to other areas and grow confidence.   Additionally, they receive additional rights as campers when they hit certain milestones such as the ability to take a boat out on their own, or participate in the other activities.

We pride ourselves in the ability to teach and grow our campers.  At the beginning of each summer, we tell parents that we hope to return their child to them as better version of themselves.  Teaching swimming helps parents to fulfill the Talmudic commandment and make them more independent adults in the future.

- Daniel N. Baer, Associate Director, Camp Interlaken JCC (Eagle River, WI)

AYEKA: Writing the 2012 Cornerstone Song

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers on May 31st, 2012 by alicia - 2 Comments

Ayeka?

As the Music Educator and Songleader on Cornerstone Faculty, I have the incredible honor and formidable challenge of writing a song that encapsulates the Cornerstone values and vibe. Each year, the Foundation for Jewish Camp staff and I wonder together what the Cornerstone song will be – how it will sound, what it will say, how it will resonate with the Cornerstone community both new and returning (the difference is, I’m the one who has to – and gets to – write it! No pressure…)

Each camp has its own relationship to Jewish text, Hebrew, English, and group singing in general. Just as FJC’s Director, Jewish Education, Rabbi Avi Orlow, pointed out in his post-Cornerstone dvar Torah, each camp community comes to Cornerstone with its own unique flag raised high – ready to participate in a unifying experience.

Writing a song for this multitude of camp communities, each one slightly different from the next,  is like trying to make a T-shirt that is one-size-fits-all for basketball players, ballerinas, and sumo wrestlers. Some camps only sing in Hebrew. Some camps hardly ever sing in Hebrew. How to create a song that both – and everyone in between – will find useful and relevant?

Beginning, middle, or at the end – where are you in the story, my friend?

As the songwriting process progressed, I struggled mightily with the bilingual nature of the song. In the end I sought a village of voices. I learned a body percussion sequence from music educator mentors Danai Gagne and Judith Thomas. For Hebrew poetic help I called my best friend Dana Newman and Israeli drummer friend Ronen Itzik. For structural help I went to Jonathan Adam Ross (aka JAR), Theater Educator, who understands the raw unfolding of a piece of art and sees it for what it can become. For “hip-ness” I went, of course, to Sara Beth Berman. For English and Judaic themed guidance I consulted Avi Orlow, fearless leader of us Cornerstone Educators, and my brilliant and very humble colleague, Dance Educator, Dalia Davis.

Dalia was the one who suggested that the title of the song be “Ayeka.” Ayeka means “Where are you?”  It is the question God asks Adam in Bereshit when he is hiding. Yet God knows exactly where he is. Not simply “Where are you?” but “Where ARE you? Where are you at? What’s going on with you? Where are you in your story?”

L’Chayim – to the stories that lift us high

L’Chayim – to the stories that open our eyes

I was going to write “to the stories that make us cry” (to rhyme with “lift us high”) but chose instead to honor the stories that open our eyes.
I love and speak Hebrew, and I grew up on Israeli music, so I knew we needed Hebrew that felt good to Israelis, that rolled off Hebrew-speakers’ tongues as poetry.

Many conversations and Hebrew consultations later, the song was almost written. All that was missing was a chorus everyone could sing to, no matter what language. Had to be a niggun - a song without words. Yai nai nai…? No, didn’t feel right with the vibe of the song.  OK, Na na na. Yes. Na na na na. Then finish with the body percussion. Done!

Na na na na…

While teaching it to the Shlichim (Israeli counselors) and Shutafim (Israeli liaisons) here at Cornerstone, I asked them how to say “body percussion.” The answer was so awesome that I vowed never to say “body percussion” if I could instead say instead the Hebrew: Tifoof-Goof (meaning, literally, drumming on your body.)

L’Chayim: Here’s to the village of friends, linguists, poets, artists, pragmatists, and educators it takes – in Hebrew and English – to write a song.  And the even bigger village it takes to sing, dance, and celebrate together.

Ayeka?

Hineni (here I am)

Hineni

Hineni

Hineni.

Check out the Cornerstone 2012 fellows singing Ayeka:

Hear the full song here:

 - Chana Rothman is a Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter, music educator, mom, and community gatherer. She is also the Music Educator and Songleader for FJC’s Cornerstone Fellowship.

Lucky

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers, Uncategorized on May 21st, 2012 by alicia - No Comments »

The fellows arrive today for the 2012 Cornerstone Fellowship.  Now in it’s 10th year, Cornerstone is the largest and longest running program that FJC organizes.  We’ll be offering updates on what’s going on at the seminar for returning counselors as well as offering insight from various types of participants via our blog, Facebook, and Twitter (#Cornerstone2012 and #JewishCamp) … so stay tuned!

I was 22 years old in the summer of 2003 when I got lucky for the first time.  I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right.  It was that summer when I attended my first Cornerstone Fellowship Seminar!  It was in the mountains of northeast Georgia, and I was there as a guest artist to perform and teach with Storahtelling, a Jewish ritual theater company based in New York.  I remember being overwhelmed by the diversity, the creative energy, the abundant joy of summer camp that everyone at the conference brought to the table.  And I remember very clearly feeling that I wanted to come back again the next year.  But lucky as I was to be at that first Cornerstone Seminar, I was unlucky as well.  I was too old to be a fellow, not quite old enough to be faculty.

I asserted myself several times over the next few years.  Storahtelling was invited back to Cornerstone in 2004 when it was in Ojai, California.  And I made sure the company office knew I wanted in.  2005 at the Hudson Valley Resort?  I performed my soon-to-be Off-Broadway play, Walking in Memphis: The Life of a Southern Jew, for the entire conference.  Nearly 300 people!  By far my biggest audience since  the virtuosic, memorable performance I delivered as Kenickie in the Camp Ramah in Wisconsin 14-year old division production of Grease (in Hebrew).  But those early Cornerstone memories were only tastes, a day here, a few hours there, at a conference that I always got excited to visit and dreaded departing.

Then, one day in the fall of 2007, I got the call!  I was invited to be an educator and advisor at Cornerstone and I think it took me 17 seconds to say yes (and that’s only because Sprint did not yet provide full service in the corner bodega on 49th street and 9th avenue in NYC, so I was having trouble hearing Becca Shimshak’s offer).  From that moment on, my life changed.  Teaching a student is always an exciting experience.  But teaching a teacher?  That’s incomparable.  And I get to do it with the most amazing team of experiential Jewish educators.  I am humbled, educated, and most importantly, inspired by the faculty and that I have the privilege to work with each year.

In this, my 8th summer at the Cornerstone seminar, I still feel that same anticipation when I pack my suitcase.  And I still feel that same dread right before the end.  I do have one egregious regret that could only be remedied by the invention of a time-traveling DeLorean: as I’m teaching fellows to explore the inner psyche of Jonah while treading water in the deep end of the swimming pool at Capital Camps, there are amazing educators such as Sarra Alpert turning people on to social justice, Efraim Yudewitz giving sports programming a Jewish lens, and Josh Lake teaching people about Jewish education using…well…a lake.  And I can’t attend any of these amazing sessions.  That’s the rub.  I’m 31 years old.  I love summer camp.  And I just want to be a fellow over and over again for the rest of my life.  But I know I have an even luckier fate.  I get to watch these fellows experience Cornerstone for the first time every year.  I get to play a role in their awakening as Jewish educators.  And I get to do so working side by side with the best of the best.  Pretty lucky, if you ask me.

- Jon Adam Ross (aka JAR) is a widely acclaimed Jewish theater artist.  Find out more about him and his work here.

 

Reach Beyond the Bunk: Leaders Assembly 2012

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Posted in Developing Professionals, Education and Educators, FJC Programs, Guest Bloggers, Leaders Assembly, Parents on March 14th, 2012 by alicia - No Comments »

The following originally appeared on the AVI CHAI Foundation blog

With a theme of “Reach Beyond the Bunk,” this year’s Foundation for Jewish Camp Leaders Assembly took place from March 11-13th in New Brunswick, NJ. In true manifestation of the strength of the growing field of Jewish camping, over 650 were in attendance; in representation of beyond-the-bunk reach, only around 40% were camping professionals – the rest were comprised of lay leaders, Jewish Federation and foundation representatives, and others who care deeply about Jewish camp and its future.

The innovative conference structure took the traditional conference phenomenon of so many productive conversations taking place in the hallways outside sessions and made those hallway conversations the substance of the program. Participants crowd-sourced over 600 session ideas, culled down to 43 open-source sessions on the topics that the participants themselves wanted to talk about, from “Making the Case: Selling Jewish Camp to Parents” to “To Plug In or Not to Plug In: Thinking about Technology at Camp” and “Keeping Up With the Changing Face of the Jewish World.”

During those breaks and hallway time, I took the opportunity to ask camp directors and other stakeholders for their personal reflections on the overall conference theme of “Reach Beyond the Bunk.” Whether reaching constituencies besides campers, such as parents and alumni; extending camp programming beyond the summer months; or increasing and enhancing opportunities for Jewish education and identity-building, a multitude of ways to reach beyond the bunk were shared. Here are a few:

Employ Technology to Further Customer Service: Make an app that helps parents register, pack, and access information and updates – Stefan Teodosic, Camp Beber

Break Down Community Silos: Through “horizontal programming” during the course of the year – events tied to synagogues and other community institutions such as father/son and mother/daughter weekends – Jerry Kaye, URJ Camp OSRUI

Online classes: Connecting young adults around the country – Talia Spear and Kali Silverman, Habonim Dror

Provide Social Action Opportunities: Partner with Jewish organizations to do social action work during the summer – Alan Friedman, Camp Mountain Chai

Year-round Israel Education: Take successful Israeli leaders who have been at camp to live in the community as full-time shlichim at synagogues, youth groups, college campuses, leveraging relationships they already have through camp – Bobby Harris, URJ Camp Coleman

View more views from Leaders Assembly on AVI CHAI’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/AVICHAINA.

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