Couple found love at Jewish camp

By Deborah Moon

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Jewish camps plant many seeds in the hearts and minds of the youth who spend pleasurable summers there.

Numerous studies have shown the benefits of Jewish camping in promoting a strong Jewish identity and connection.

In Portland, those seeds recently blossomed into a romance worth taking note of.

In the summer of 1999, two lifelong campers met for the first time at Camp Solomon Schecter. Though both had attended the Conservative camp near Olympia, Wash., every summer for years, they had been in different sessions because they were three years apart in age. But in 1999, 16-year-old Hailey Stern of Portland was a junior counselor and 19-year-old Evan Bernstein was a counselor.

“The first day I saw him, I was in love,” said Stern, the daughter of Tom Stern of Lake Oswego and Karen Stern of Sun Valley, Idaho, and granddaughter of Helen and Jerry Stern of Portland. “It was love at first sight for me.”

The pair dated throughout that summer, but when they returned to their respective hometowns, distance and age soon reduced their relationship to sporadic phone calls.

“We had a wonderful summer,” said Bernstein, son of Alan and Josette Bernstein of Seattle. “Then I was in Seattle and Hailey was in Portland, and the age difference which hadn’t seemed like much when we were both caring for kids was a little different in the real world.”

But Bernstein had left an impression.

“He was the benchmark to whom I’d compare everyone I dated,” said Stern. “He was my only Jewish boyfriend and my only serious boyfriend.”

In the summer of 2005, Stern returned to Portland with a bachelor’s in communications and business from the University of Southern California. She said her aunt, Eve Stern, persuaded her to call Bernstein, who has a communications and theater degree from the University of Washington.

Bernstein, who had a radio show at a top 40 station in Kansas City, had plans to pass through Portland on his way to a wedding in Bend later that summer. The two agreed to meet.

“Within five seconds of seeing her, I know I wanted to marry her,” said Bernstein. “That was my moment. … We had grown up and she was an adult and a beautiful woman.”

Stern joined him for the wedding in Bend and the two began a long-distance relationship, which Bernstein joked was a huge boost to Southwest Airlines income.

Two years later, Bernstein moved to Portland (where he is now a broker with Capacity Commercial Group) to be near Stern (an associate at the Metropolitan Group).

Bernstein told Stern to be ready for a romantic date at 8:45 a.m. April 27, 2008. She said when she walked out the door and saw the limousine waiting, she thought he was going “over the top” for a Sunday date, but she’s used to over-the-top dates from Bernstein, who has come up with exotic ways to celebrate every anniversary or birthday.

When they pulled onto the runway at Aurora Airport and walked down the red carpet to a chartered plane, she thought they were going on a sightseeing trip.

The plane flew to Olympia, where a car waited to take them to Camp Solomon Schecter. The couple picnicked on the hill “where I first laid eyes on him.”

“Then he asked me at the bottom of the hill and I of course said ‘yes,’” said Stern. “He’s such a romantic.”

“Camp is very dear to Hailey and I,” said Bernstein, of why he chose to return there to propose.

“Camp is the nucleus of our identity as Jews,” he said.

He said he participated in Hebrew school, Hebrew high school, a USY Pilgrimage to Poland and Israel, and junior year abroad in Israel.

“I don’t think any of that would have happened without camp,” he said.

Stern said that growing up in Lake Oswego, she had few Jewish schoolmates.

“There’s something about spending the summer away from home and school friends surrounded by Jews and exposed to Jewish culture and singing,” she said. “It made me develop a strong Jewish identity.”

“We agree the best things our parents could have done was to send us there,” she said. “Those three weeks are magical.”

The couple plans to wed Memorial Day weekend next year.

Stern has participated in the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Young Adult Division and would like to help federation’s Community Development Director Dan Lepow with a couple of projects. She said she is eager to get Bernstein involved in the local Jewish community as well.

“Hailey’s family has been integrated into the Jewish community and I would love to help Hailey maintain that tradition and keep it going,” said Bernstein.

Bernstein said the couple wanted to share their story because, “We are living in a society where it’s not as common for young Jewish people to fall in love and get married.”

“Maybe parents will read this and send their kids to camp,” said Stern.