Men's group sends kids to camp
By Deborah Moon Seldner
article created on:
On March 15, the Men's Camp Association adopted a program to pay half the cost for any camper entering second through fourth grade who attends Maccabee Camp at B'nai B'rith Camp for the first time.
"That's one hundred percent an outflow of this conference," said Men's Camp Association board member Irv Potter, who with BB Camp Director Michelle Koplan attended the March 5-6 National Leaders Assembly convened by the Foundation for Jewish Camping. (See JTA story on this page).
Potter, who is also co-chair of the Mittleman Jewish Community Center's BB Camp Committee, said that the conference emphasized the importance of Jewish camping for creating Jewish identity. About 400 people representing most of the 130 Jewish overnight camps from across the spectrum of the Jewish world attended the program.
"The key thing was the acknowledgment by serious leaders of the Jewish community that camping is a crucial component of Jewish continuity," said Potter.
Koplan, now in her eighth year as BB Camp director, said, "The conference made me as a camp director, who has long known in my soul how important camping is, feel validated. Here are leaders of our Jewish world saying it."
"Our goal is to get 30 to 40 kids who would not attend," said Potter. "We want to get kids started so they realize the fun of camp and their parents realize its importance."
"We think it's so important that every child be exposed to Jewish camping," he added.
Koplan said that Maccabee Camp usually attracts about 65 campers, compared to the 175 fourth- through eighth-graders who typically attend the two three-week sessions held later in the summer at BB Camp near Lincoln City. Koplan said BB Camp could accommodate 175 campers at the Maccabee session as well.
This year the Maccabee session will be June 26-July 3. The cost is $800. First-time campers in second through fourth grade will have to pay only $400.
The Men's Camp camperships are based on a similar program that the Harold Grinspoon Foundation operates for campers in Massachusetts, which was described at the national assembly. Koplan said the Grinspoon Foundation is being very helpful in providing support and materials to create the local campership.
Potter said the Men's Camp board has taken on the camperships as an expense, but would welcome the support of any philanthropists who want to build Jewish camping in Oregon.
In addition to the campership program, the Grinspoon Foundation also provided software to each camp represented at the conference. The software will help the camps to interface with their alumni more effectively.
Koplan said she also hopes to apply for another program announced at the leaders assembly. The Foundation for Jewish Camping announced the creation of the Executive Leadership Institute, a training program for directors of Jewish residential camps.
ELI will include eight programs over 18 months designed to expand the professionalism of Jewish camp directors, said Koplan. She said she would love to be one of the 20 directors selected to be part of the pilot group. She said most of the training courses will be held on the East Coast, but ELI will cover all expenses for participants.
Koplan and Potter said they were especially impressed by a plenary session on the second day of the conference that included Orthodox Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greensberg; Reform Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College; Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Conservative movements Jewish Theological Seminary; and Dr. Carl Sheingold, executive vice president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. The diverse group all strongly agreed about the importance of Jewish camping, said Koplan.
"For 400 of us involved in Jewish camping to hear all of them saying the same things from a communal viewpoint" was very meaningful concluded Potter.