One could say that Israel’s Camp Kimama is the fulfillment of a pledge that Evan Muney made to himself as a teen-ager.
When the 40-year-old Muney, now a Berkeley resident, was growing up in New Jersey, he found his “Jewish soul” at Camp Young Judaea.
“Camp Young Judaea really triggered the concept that being Jewish meant being part of a people,” said Muney during a recent interview. “I felt it without being conscious of it … suddenly the idea of being part of a people with a common heritage, history, and destiny was very concrete for me.”
Muney’s nascent Jewish identity was further bolstered by the 10 months he spent in Israel after graduating from high school.
“That was a really heady time,” Muney recalled of his teen years in Israel, which roughly coincided with the efforts to rescue Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry. “I saw quite clearly that it was possible to make significant changes in Israeli society through an individual effort. It felt like myself and all the other kids were building something together.”
After leaving Israel, Muney attended Johns Hopkins University and pursued a degree in Middle Eastern studies. Throughout his time at the university, Muney always saw Israel as the locus of his personal and professional life.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Promised Land. It involved (as it almost invariably does) disco balls, jam skating, hip-hop, and bowling shoes. Muney began working for his father-in-law opening up commercial entertainment centers.
“I really enjoy working with in the family business, and it’s always challenging,” said Muney. But although Muney has been very involved in the organized Jewish community, serving on the executive committees of both the Israel and Overseas Committee and the Israel Center of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, something was missing. That something, of course, was doing work directly connected to Israel.
Opportunity knocked in a fortuitous way for Muney when an old friend proposed an idea for a summer camp in Israel for both Israeli and diaspora Jews. Dr. Ronen Hoffman and Muney met through David Akov, the current Israeli Consul General in San Francisco. Hoffman later became Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s personal assistant, and also served as a member of the Israeli team that negotiated with Syria for many years.
Hoffman, who currently teaches at the School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, founded Kimama about three years ago. Although Muney had been advising him from the start, he joined him formally as his partner in the camp last year. Muney, whose father-in-law gives him the flexibility to travel to Israel every year, has helped design a program that encompasses both physical and academic endeavors.
The camp, which has programs for kids age 8 to 17, emphasizes traditional outdoor activities, such as horseback riding, sailing and kayaking. There are two campuses, one on the Mediterranean coast near Netanya (at Michmoret/Me’vot Yam) and the second in the upper Galilee on the banks of the Jordan River. Lessons are conducted in both Hebrew and English.
According to Muney, the attendees at last year’s camp hailed from 17 countries, including Thailand, Japan, and Hungary. One element not reflected in the camp’s diversity is economic status — something Hoffman and Muney hope to ameliorate by setting up scholarship funds, especially for populations from Israel’s Ethiopian community and children who were impacted from areas impacted by last year’s war with Hezbollah (particularly children from the upper Galilee and Sderot).
According to Muney, the camp is also looking at reforestation projects in areas burned by rocket fire.
For Muney, Camp Kimama has allowed him to come full-circle.
“Seeing these Jewish kids from all over the world build friendships that will last a lifetime is an indescribable feeling,” said Muney.