Mimi Gordon has plenty of reasons for spending her summers as a counselor at Camp Tawonga. Making lots of money isn’t one of them.
“You don’t go to Tawonga because of the pay you’re going to make, by any means,” said the 22-year-old San Franciscan, who expects to earn about $2,300 as a supervisor. So why does Gordon reject higher-paying summer jobs in the city to return each year to the Jewish camp near Yosemite where she was once a camper?
High on her list of non-financial rewards is the nourishment Tawonga gives to her Jewish identity.
“Tawonga is a place I find myself wanting to practice because of how positively it’s handled,” she said. In her role as a counselor and now as a supervisor, her own feelings about Judaism have been strengthened by helping young campers grappling with their own identity.
“You’ll be talking to a kid who’s not really into doing a Shabbat service,” she said. “You find yourself saying things like, ‘This is your own’ and ‘You can make it your own.’ I find Tawonga to be a beautiful representation of what a cultural and spiritual sense of religion should be.”
For counselors like Gordon, there’s comfort, too, in returning year after year to a place where many first stayed as campers themselves. And because almost everyone is Jewish, “I can kind of be me,” she said.
Other counselors planning to return this summer to Jewish camps shared Gordon’s enthusiasm for the spiritual perks of their jobs.
“When I think about being Jewish, what I like about being Jewish, I think of camp,” said Micah Bycel, an 18-year-old camper-turned-counselor at Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations camps. A freshman at the University of Wisconsin, Bycel attended Camp Swig in Saratoga as a kid and will return to Camp Newman in Santa Rosa for the third year, his second as a counselor.
“Personally, I love being at camp, being with friends, being outside, participating in services,” he said. “A big part of my personal prayer experience is being at camp and outdoors in nature –I really want my campers to have the same experiences I had. “
For many, work as a counselor is a natural extension of their childhood years as a camper. Only this time, instead of being on the receiving end of life lessons, counselors are on the delivery side, dishing up encouragement, advice and serving as role models to younger campers.
Jessica Winer, an 18-year-old Piedmont resident who belongs to Oakland’s Orthodox Beth Jacob Congregation, says last year’s experience as a counselor at Camp Ramah was inspirational. She started out as a camper at Ramah the summer before she entered seventh grade.
Now, as a counselor, “not only did I have to set a good example by praying, but I had to encourage the kids to pray. I could appreciate everything more. I was on staff and I wasn’t being forced to do it. I was doing it because I wanted to.”
Being around friends who meet each summer at camp and being immersed in a environment where everyone is Jewish heightens the experience, Winer said.
“I think being surrounded by people my age and people I’ve known for awhile and other Jews, it makes it holier, almost.”
Ruben Arquilevich, executivedirector of the Reform movement’s UAHC Camp Institutes for Living Judaism, considers summer camp as important religiously for counselors as it is for campers.
“In fact, it’s the staff that’s at a significant crossroads in their life in terms of Jewish identity,” he said, noting that counselors frequently are preparing to leave their families for college and adulthood. “Our goal is to live a Jewish life 24 hours a day. Counselors are in the lead role.”
Counselors, he said, may not be immediately aware of the lasting effects they get from a summer of living Jewishly.
But it’s no coincidence, Arquilevich said, that many of Camp Swig and Camp Newman’s former staff members have gone on to become Jewish educators, lay leaders and even rabbis.
“When I came home, I was inspired to keep kosher,” said Nikki Blotner, an 18-year-old from San Diego who worked last summer as a counselor-in-training at Camp Newman. She started going to Swig as a camper the summer before she started the fourth grade. This summer, she’s going to camp as a paid counselor.
“As a counselor-in-training, it changed me incredibly,” she said.
She was energized by helping Jewish children learn about their religion and become more independent themselves.
As a counselor, she said, “I get to watch other kids go through things that I did.”
Though the experience of weeks at an overnight camp may intensify the religious connection for some, many counselors who work at Jewish day camps also can undergo a spiritual awakening, said Deborah Burg-Schnirman, who directs camp programs at the Marin Jewish Community Center.
“It’s a time when they’re doing Jewish things by choice, and that’s a very different experience often than they’d had in the past,” she said. “They’re at a time in their lives when they’re really questioning and looking at who they are, what kind of Jewish culture they’re going to create for themselves.”
Tawonga supervisor Gordon may already have found that direction. She’s interested in working permanently for the camp program. “For me, this is what I want to do with my life,” she said. “I love it more than anything.”