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SZARVAS, Hungary — For the past 10 summers, a geyser of Jewish pride has erupted in this small town deep in the Hungarian plains.

It is an event unique in Central and Eastern Europe where — after half a century of fascism, war, Holocaust and communism — Jewish pride had become an anomaly.

The source of this mini-revival is the Ronald S. Lauder/JDC International Camp, a sprawling site that features a full range of summer camp activities, all designed to bolster Jewish identity and nurture Jewish leaders of the future.

Here, Jewish children from 18 countries sing Hebrew songs around camp fires. Arts and crafts projects have a Jewish flavor. Kids learn Israeli dances, study basic Hebrew and learn about Jewish holidays and history, including the Holocaust.

Skits, pageants and other participatory events also revolve around Jewish themes. Kids pray in the camp synagogue, eat in the kosher cafeteria and even celebrate joint bar and bat mitzvahs.

"We feel like we've started something here," said Budapest native Judit Kepecs, a 20-year-old who first went to the Szarvas camp nine years ago as a camper and is now a staff member.

"The more we know about our roots, the more we have to be proud of. So I want to pass on that knowledge to the younger generation."

In the decade since the fall of communism, local Jewish camps have sprung up in countries across the region as a means of teaching children, young people and even entire families about Jewish traditions, culture and history.

But Szarvas is unique among them. Drawing participants from all over the post-communist world, it has developed into a true international reference point for Jewish identity, impressing upon campers that they are members of a nation scattered across many borders.

"For most of these kids, this is the one and only place to make them proud Jews and lead them back to the Jewish world," said Yitzhak Roth, the camp's director.

Roth is an Israeli of Hungarian origin who has run the camp with his wife, Hannah, since 1991.

Szarvas, run through the Lauder foundation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, was purchased and renovated by the Lauder Foundation in 1989. Located a two-hour drive southeast of Budapest, it opened in 1990.

This past summer, the camp hosted a total of 2,000 children, ages 7 to 18, in four 12-day sessions. The program is usually translated into four or five languages at a time. Among the 18 nations represented was a small group from the United States, as well as two newcomers, the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia.

Roth himself, a veteran Israeli educator, exudes a boundless — and infectious — energy. Apparently free of inhibitions, he alternates between leading the campers in boisterous song and exhorting them to listen to a speaker in respectful silence.

Roth particularly enjoys the chaos of lunchtime. While the campers may be sleepy-eyed at breakfast or fatigued at dinner after a long day, they come primed for lunch.

Crammed into the cavernous, wood-paneled cafeteria, which is strung with numerous national flags but dominated by the blue and white of Israel's Star of David, the campers immediately launch into competing chants among the various nation-groups.

On one day this summer, the rowdiest group was the "Yugos" — young Jews from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia or Slovenia, all current or former republics of Yugoslavia. Their former country has been convulsed by four wars in the 1990s.

The cafeteria experience continues even after the dirty dishes are cleared away. Kids with birthdays are called forward, presented with gifts and serenaded with "Happy Birthday" in several languages. Then, a songleader leads them in a round of Jewish favorites as dancing breaks out.

Visitors quickly realize that Szarvas represents more than summer fun.

Here, young Jews are free to howl the song "Heveinu Shalom Aleichem" at the top of their lungs and wear chai or Star of David necklaces outside their shirts. The din generated by these young campers is movingly described by some as a "liberation of the Jewish spirit."

"I've cried here several times," said Mircea Cernov, a Romanian-born Israeli in the JDC's Budapest office. "It's not just the camp. It's the context, it's all the past put together."

JDC board member George Rich, a Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust, last year donated the Szarvas synagogue's velvet Torah covering in memory of his father, Karoly, who died in a concentration camp.

Szarvas "is a factory of Judaism" that should increase production, Rich said. "This will create tens of thousands of Jews out of kids who might have gone on to marry non-Jews and raised their kids without knowing anything about being Jewish."

Despite the optimism, two major issues loom for the future: how to reach more young Jews and, for those kids touched by Szarvas, how to keep that momentum going once the summer has ended.

The 2,000 kids who attend Szarvas each summer represent only a tiny fraction of all Jewish youth in the region. According to the JDC, 90 percent have attended two or more years, while half have enjoyed five summers or more. Waiting lists are long in almost every country — especially in Russia.

The greater challenge, though, is in deepening the children's Jewish experience outside Szarvas, said Zsuzsa Fritz, the program director.

For many children, the Szarvas experience is their first — and sometimes only — encounter with Jewish education.

Roth suggests that parent groups be formed to organize Jewish activities during the school year. But this may not be enough — or may not even be possible, given the tiny size of many isolated communities and the lack of Jewish knowledge among most parents.

"The moment you take them out of this special atmosphere, it changes for them," Fritz said.

"It's difficult to bridge the time between the summers. Everyone would love to be able to continue such a feeling through the year — that's our purpose here — but it's difficult, because it's not Szarvas. Most of the kids just look forward to the next summer."