Time to roast (kosher) marshmallows on the bar-bee, dust off the Debbie Friedman songbook, stitch the frayed edges of the life vest, loosen up for a furious game of gaga and break out the tubes of sunscreen and bug repellant.
Well, almost time. Summer camp is literally just around the corner. So plan accordingly because there are new options tentside.
Specialty programs, by far the hottest trend in youth camps, continue to figure prominently in Jewish day and overnight camps in the Bay area and Southern California. To stay on trend, earnest staffers once again are preparing to offer traditional and eclectic menus of Jewish and secular activities, learning and fun for preschool to high school-aged children.
Here’s a roundup of what’s in store this summer.
“Parents want more flexibility,” said Barbara Chotiner, director of the CCJCC Camps at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center in Walnut Creek, which services 150 kids from age 2 to 11 each session. “We used to have four-week sessions, but parents like the variety of sending kids to specialty camps and shorter sessions. Now we do two weeks.”
Adam Harris, director of the Union of Reform Judaism’s Camps Newman and Swig, said Jewish summer camps are not afraid to break the mold of traditional camps and mix up their offerings. “Parents want a hybrid of a structured yet flexible schedule to upgrade and adapt programs to meet kids’ needs.”
Kids in grades K-5 at the CCJCC Camps will have two specialty options: art, which focuses on the painting masters, including Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, O’Keefe and Dali; and theater camp, which is partnering this year with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.
“They learn about theater production, set design, costuming and stage production. Then they put on a production at the end of the two-week session,” Chotiner said.
More than 1,400 young people at URJ’s Camps Newman and Swig in Sonoma County will be able to have full sessions of digital photo or digital video production as well as modern street dance and mountain biking.
“We will have our traditional activities such as ceramics, Israeli dance and drama,” Harris said. “And there’s also roller hockey, gaga, ultimate Frisbee and martial arts like judo. And all of it is part of providing an incredible Jewish experience.”
Campers will also be able to learn guitar, scale a 50-foot alpine tower, and have an on-site overnight, replete with tents, a campfire and the requisite roasting of marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolate.
Settling in
For campers and their parents who prefer a longer-term overnight experience, there is still the Big Daddy of Jewish overnight camps — Camp Ramah, tucked into the Southern California hills of Ojai.
“Our core session is four weeks,” said camp Director Rabbi Daniel Greyber. Nearly 1,300 campers attend sessions from June 20 to Aug. 15. “East Coast Ramah camps have eight-week sessions. The shorter sessions reflect the camp culture in this part of the country. We think kids get exponentially more during the third and fourth weeks.”
Camp Ramah highlights for this summer are more activities geared toward younger kids, more gaga, basketball and handball courts; a second year of on-site trail building; and plans to record their fourth album, which combines Jewish and non-Jewish rock and a capella music.
“The focus this year will be on Shabbat music campers can sing when they get home,” Greyber said.
Camp Ramah will host, for the second year, a group of campers sponsored by the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF) who lost either a father or sibling while fighting for Israel. And Greyber is excited about plans to expand their EZRA program, which benefits developmentally disabled young adults.
At the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco’s Rabin Summer Camps, kids will be able to choose between a traditional camp program and 15 specialty camps ranging from swimming and sailing to wilderness adventures and video production.
“We will also have Nature Navigators,” said JCCSF Camp and Family Manager Rebecca Posamentier. In this program, “kids will learn to use GPS devices, map and compasses, and Club 18 Road Trip for 18-year-olds. They will spend a week in Southern California at theme parks, the beach, baseball games and the Museum of Tolerance.”
Posamentier said that even though specialty camps are latest fashion, traditional Jewish camps, such as Camp Kochav, still attract many children.
“A lot of parents are signing up for a more traditional Jewish experience — Shabbat, Israel and the Hebrew word of the day. Plus we have the Sheva midot, or values, prominently displayed at camp because in our diverse environment, where 40 percent of the kids might not identify themselves as Jewish, it’s really about Jewish values.”
Promoting Jewish communal values is the goal of Camp Kefli, sponsored by Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, which offers a two-week, end-of-the-summer camp to strengthen the synagogue community and ties between kids who will spend the year together in religious school. It is open to nonmembers of the synagogue as well.
“Much of the camp is on-site,” said Deb Phillips, camp director and director of youth services at the temple. “We have a balance between field trips, structured activities and unstructured free time. We do Yom Israel, where the kids take a pretend trip to Israel. We put them on an airplane, stamp their passports and they visit the Dead Sea, where they get mud, drink mint tea and are greeted by a camel. And there are also all-day water activities at a local water park.”
Older Kefli campers, grades three through eight, descend on Great America and the new Discovery Kingdom, sixth and seventh graders camp overnight at Big Basin State Park and visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Eighth-graders spend a night under the stars in Yosemite.
Another synagogue-supported option for campers in kindergarten through high school is Camp Kadima Jewish Community Day Camp, co-sponsored Congregations Beth Emek, Beth Chaim, Shir Ami and Temples Beth Torah and Beth Sholom and located at Beth Emek in Pleasanton.
“Camp Kadima offers kids the unique opportunity to explore and develop their personal identities within the comfort of a vibrant Jewish setting,” said Sharon Cohen, camp director. “We strive to integrate Jewish values, themes and practice into all the activities from eating lunch and playing games to arts and crafts.”
Cohen said that several spirit days help infuse the camp with a zany and unifying energy. There will be days devoted to crazy hair, doing things backwards and mixed up, wearing pajamas, and being messy. The 100-plus campers are grouped according to age and each section has an overarching theme. There will also be a CIT and junior counselor program for young high school students.
Field trips are a big part of Camp Kadima, according to Cohen. Past ones have included Emerald Hills, Springtime Tumbling and Trampoline, Aquarium by the Bay, Silliman Aquatic Center, the Jelly Belly Factory, the Exploratorium, and an on-site two-story Monster Fun Jump waterslide. The older campers also go on overnights at Lake Del Valle in Livermore, she added.
For families and kids searching for an even more traditionally Jewish experience, there is the wonderfully varied Camp Gan Israel, sponsored by the Chabad House of Berkeley, which hosts kids ages 4-12 on the gorgeous grounds of Oakland’s Lake Temescal.
Camp Gan Israel also will feature swimming, hiking, camping trips, a CIT program for 13 and 14-year-olds, overnights, as well as Shabbatons and family Shabbat dinners.
“I believe a day in a day camp is worth more than a month in school in terms of fostering Jewish pride,” said Rabbi Yehuda Ferris, camp director and designated driver for bus trips. “We’re looking at future Jewish leaders in the community, and we have fun heightening their Jewish experience.”
Jewish summer camps are about instilling Jewish values and learning, having fun, experiencing a wide variety of activities and developing or honing social skills, Ferris notes. At times, however, they inadvertently serve a wider vocational purpose.
“One of our campers told his parents last summer he wants to be a rabbi. ‘Why?’ they asked him, somewhat shocked. ‘Because,’ he told them, ‘he gets to drive the bus.'”