Leading 300 Ramahniks in Israel for Volunteering, Learning, and Connection

Amy Skopp Cooper, National Director
Dr. Daniel Olson, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Research

“I feel really grateful to have had a week of Ramah and community. I really needed this. There have been really hard moments but there’s no community I’d rather do it with.”

We have just concluded two extraordinarily powerful back-to-back Israel missions for our North American staff and incoming shlichim. During the past two weeks in Israel, we brought together 300 members of the 2024 Ramah community, representing each of our North American camps.

How can we describe the impact of these experiences?

First, with deep gratitude: to philanthropists, foundations, donors, Birthright Israel Onward, Israel Experience, the Shalom Hartman Institute, and The iCenter, who all contributed to this experience. We thank our National Ramah board members, who encouraged us to make these trips a priority. We thank our colleagues—Ramah directors and senior professionals—who traveled to Israel right before the start of the camp season. And we thank our participants, mostly college students, who gave Ramah an extra week of their time this summer and fully invested themselves in every aspect of these Israel trips, with their hands, heads, and hearts.

Hands, Heads, and Hearts

Participants worked with their hands, volunteering in orchards, food pantries, and programs for adults with disabilities. For many, this volunteer work was their first time doing physically demanding agricultural labor. Participants commented on how meaningful it was to work the land. Days typically started at dawn, with Shacharit recited in the fields.

“This trip was an extremely meaningful ending to a very difficult year for so many people in our community. Knowing that our volunteering was making a tangible difference was really empowering. It was the least we can do to help Israel at this time.”

Participants used their heads during afternoon learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute, where we tackled tough topics in respectful and safe ways: Jewish peoplehood, the state of modern Zionism, geopolitics, our work with shlichim, and our approaches to Israel education at camp.

“This was the first time and place for me to think about my own relationship with Israel in a space that didn’t feel forced. Through all of our studies and experiences and connections, I was able to think critically and deeply.”

Participants opened their hearts as they got to know shlichim who will be joining us at camp this summer. In our opening conversations with our North American staff members, we encouraged them to first ask shlichim about their dreams and aspirations on October 1. We reveled in seeing both groups of staff members bond and even laugh—laughter was such an important and necessary part of our week, despite the heaviness all around. Many of our shlichim have recently left Gaza. We spoke to them about the challenges they might face this summer, and pledged our support as they transition to camp.

“Spending time with shlichim has gotten me to think about how we can better support our Israeli peers and campers.”

Productive Engagement and Bearing Witness

Many of our college students indicated that it was easier during their tumultuous fall and spring semesters to avoid thinking about Israel in any substantive way. We heard from them repeatedly: “None of my friends really understood the complexities of the situation, so it was easier to avoid the topic.” Participants expressed that their time together doing all of these activities was not only restorative but also an opportunity to model what productive engagement with Israel can look like right now.

“Having spent this year as a first-year college student in the United States, I often felt helpless — not only by being overshadowed by the larger anti-Israel crowds but also by not being able to be in Israel at a time of need. This trip allowed me not only to fulfill my desire to volunteer and learn in the Jewish homeland, but also to create a community of Ramah staff who share a love for Israel. I believe that this trip will follow me throughout my college experience.”

On our last two days of each trip, we visited the site of the Nova Festival and Kikar Hatufim (Hostage Square), where our groups bore witness, heard stories, and grieved. Together we sang, davened, cried, and held on to each other. Members of our camper care leadership teams, some of whom joined us for each trip, structured meaningful pre- and post- processing time and provided invaluable support.

“Before this trip, it was hard to hold all of the fear, sadness, and grief at the same time as love, but being here has allowed me to see that these can co-exist.”

Diverse Visions of Zionism with Relationships at the Center

In a tribute to the recently deceased Rabbi Burt Cohen, z”l, a previous director of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin and past president of the National Ramah Commission, the Ramah Camping Movement is described as “one of the backbone institutions of [North] American Zionism.” Our camps make a home for many different visions of Zionism—participants on these trips began expressing their own visions, and thinking about how they will share them at camp.

If one idea unifies these diverse visions, it’s relationships. For over 75 years, Ramah has fostered personal connections between North American Jews and Israelis. This critically important work continues this summer as it feels more urgent than ever to really listen to one another, especially when we do not agree.

This commitment to relational Zionism found voice in these two ambitious weeks in Israel. Our participants grew in their relationships to the land itself, getting our hands dirty picking loquat, apricot, cucumber, and tomato. They grew in their relationships with each other, finding an open space to work through their notions of Zionism without being shouted down or shunned, which characterized so many of their on-campus experiences this past year. They grew in their relationships with Israeli peers who will be their colleagues at camp this summer. They grew in their relationships to the pain of October 7th and its aftermath, by listening and bearing witness.

As we think back on our training, nothing prepared us to be wartime educators. These last nearly 8 months of war have been taxing unlike any other time. It hasn’t always been easy to feel hopeful.

We said farewell to participants in a park overlooking the Tel Aviv-Yafo shore, where things for just a moment felt seemingly normal. As we sat by the sea—North Americans and Israelis together—we got a glimpse of the hopeful future that has been obscured during these painful months: one of relationship, comfort, and care. We feel confident that by being in Israel, our staff members will make this hopeful vision come alive at Ramah camps, affecting everyone in our communities this summer and beyond.

Additional Quotes from Participants

“This trip was such an incredible opportunity to help prepare us for what is shaping up to be a very powerful, and crucially important summer. We are eager to get to camp and teach our campers all about Israel and what it means to us as North American Jews.”

“I’ve been thinking about how important this camp summer is for American Judaism and it seems like an intimidating role for all of us to be taking on. To be able to be here with so many other Ramah staff and to learn and think about how we can make the most impactful experience for our campers has been so important.”

“When everyone’s against you, especially on social media, it takes up so much of your life, and you start to doubt yourself, but coming here allows us to see that we are supported by Ramah and other people in the world. Restoring my faith in this country and our people with my Ramah community has been amazing.”