For Ira Scott Levin, song leader at the East Bay Jewish Community Center in Berkeley, music is the one element that transcends all others at camp. While a few gifted campers may have joyful memories of scoring at gaga or winning a swimming event, every camper comes home with musical memories.
“Singing together, not learning another lesson or needing to behave,” Levin said. “It’s about just enjoying life. For me, seeing kids enjoying themselves is bliss.”
Jewish camp music has come a long way since the days when the “music program” consisted of a few campfire songs and the obligatory “session song” expressing biblical themes being studied. Thanks to new technology — and savvy, energetic counselors — Jewish campers are producing their own CDs, writing camp songs and modifying the Jewish musical genre.
“The Jewish music camp scene really is its own culture,” said Levin, who goes on annual retreats with other Jewish song leaders to get new material. “You go for four or five days, and sing from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. You get a lot of new material, and you get inspired.”
“Music is a memory trigger,” said Dan Nichols, leader of the modern Jewish rock band Eighteen, based in Raleigh, N.C. “It draws them right back to those feelings they had a camp. They remember that’s when they felt so Jewish, so alive, and so connected to people they love.”
Moreover, song leaders say that Jewish camp music is changing, becoming more “pop” and less folk.
“Music has shifted to sound more like what kids are used to listening to today on secular radio,” Nichols said. “It sounds familiar and more in line with what kids are listening to.”
Nichols and Levin write their own songs every year, and the kids catch on quickly. Levin, who is also known locally as “Uncle Eye,” is just one example of this local phenomenon. “Pollo Elastico,” a tribute to a rubber chicken that sometimes flies around Levin’s head, is an all-time favorite for East Bay Jewish kids.
“The kids love this song because they get to run around like chickens,” Levin says. “The goal for me is to create community and feel a joy that’s inclusive of everybody.”
Levin also writes and composes songs specifically about the camp, making the experience unique to the campers’ experience. His favorite songs “aren’t trying to teach you something or give you a moral lesson. They are the songs that allow kids to be kids.”
One example is “The Toni Song,” which praises the friendly black dog owned by Karen Cagan, the East Bay JCC’s Children’s Services Director.
“It’s a specific song for our camp,” Levin said. “Toni is so wonderful because of the love Karen has for her, plus the kids get to bond with Toni. It’s also a way for the kids to have a direct communication with animals and nature.”
“I think that we’re here to inspire each other,” Levin said. “I’m grateful to sing, but the kids inspire me.”