by Renee Ghert-Zand

Of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish children who have attended Camp Ramah in the last 75 years, Rabbi Matthew Simon has the distinct honor of having been camper number one.

Simon, now 89, didn’t really have a choice in the matter. His father, Rabbi Ralph Simon, spiritual leader of Chicago’s Congregation Rodfei Zedek from 1943 to 1987, was the charismatic engine behind the founding of the first Camp Ramah, in Conover, Wisconsin. Rabbi Simon used his persuasive powers and networking skills to recruit 100 campers — a third from outside the Chicagoland area — for the camp’s first summer in 1947. There was no question that his own children would be among them.

From a historical perspective, the more than 12,000 campers and university-aged staff members who now populate Ramah’s ten residential camps, five day camps, and Israel programs every summer, have Rabbi Ralph Simon’s initiative to thank for the incredible life-changing experiences they are privileged to enjoy.

“Though he [founded Camp Ramah] for his children, I don’t think that we should hold that against him,” joked Rabbi Burton Cohen, a former director of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin and former director of the National Ramah Commission.

Cohen referred to the fact that Rabbi Simon approached the Chicago Council of Conservative Synagogues in 1946 with the idea of opening a Conservative Jewish summer camp after growing tired of sending his children, Matthew and Tamar, to the East Coast every summer to attend Jewish camp. This was the era before air travel was common.

“My dad didn’t understand why he had to put me as a boy on a train across the country alone, with a counselor meeting me at the station in New York. My family’s coming out from Chicago to Camp Massad for my bar mitzvah in the summer of 1945 was the trigger for my father to start a Conservative camp in the Midwest,” said Matthew Simon.

Tamar Simon at Ramah Wisconsin, 1947 (credit: Alice Zlotnick)

Ralph Simon may have wanted a more conveniently located camp for his kids, but he also understood the potential for Jewish summer camping to provide children with the opportunity for an authentic and immersive Jewish living experience.

“When my dad was a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in the late 1920s, he served as the rabbi for the New York State Jewish Boy Scouts camp. That was when he realized the power of camp,” said Matthew Simon.

The son recalled plans for the establishment of Camp Ramah being thought through in his family’s living room, where Rabbi Simon would consult with leading members of his synagogue and the local Conservative Jewish community. It was decided that the Chicago group would operate the camp, and the Teachers Institute at JTS would devise the curriculum and hire and supervise the educational staff.

Cohen recalled the camp being rough around the edges that first summer in 1947, when he attended as a camper.

“The campsite had previously been a lodge for fishermen and only a few improvements were made by the new owners to make it suitable for a camp. Before we could play baseball, we had to collect the pebbles from a newly cleared ballfield,” Cohen recalled.

“The camp did not have telephone service, and newly installed generators provided electricity — when they didn’t fail,” he added.

Things were far from perfect in the early years, but Matthew Simon remembers the lake, and that swimming and boating were major parts of camp life.

“And I’ll never forget seeing the Northern Lights. We were in the northwoods of Wisconsin, where you can see them,” he said.

Rabbi Ralph Simon remained closely involved with Camp Ramah’s development as it expanded, keeping a special eye on the camp in Wisconsin. In 1980, the camp's food services facilities were dedicated in honor of Rabbi Ralph and wife Kelsey Simon.

In an interview with Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz for an article on Camp Ramah’s early years, Simon, who died in 1996 at age 89, recalled his displeasure at the messiness of the bunks in the early 1950s when progressive educator Louis Newman was camp director.

“My parents sent me to the University of Chicago Lab School, founded by [educational reformer] John Dewey, so they were in favor of progressive education. But my dad drew the line at keeping your living space neat and orderly,” Matthew Simon said.

Matthew Simon, who later served as longtime senior rabbi at B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland, attended Camp Ramah in Wisconsin for four years as a junior and senior staff member. It was just the beginning of his family’s long association with Camp Ramah. Simon married Sara Rubinow from Queens, New York, who had attended Camp Ramah in the Poconos. Having met when they were both students at JTS, the couple now resides in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Camp Ramah has been a multigenerational affair for the Simons. Their three children (including late son Rabbi Joshua of the Actors Temple of Manhattan), and two of their grandchildren have spent many summers at four North American Ramah camps — Nyack, New England, Darom, and California (Ojai), — as campers and staff. The family has been heavily involved with Tikvah, with Sara and Matthew Simon making contributions to the program, and members of the younger generations serving as staff members.

Sara and Matthew Simon’s three children also went to Ramah’s Jerusalem Day Camp for two summers when the family lived in Israel in the early 1970s. Granddaughter Maggie Cowan, now 26, participated in Ramah Israel Seminar and Poland Masa as a teenager. She also staffed the first-ever Ramah Tikvah/Amazing Israel Birthright Israel trip in 2017.

“That’s pretty impressive considering that it all started from Matthew and my own times at Wisconsin and Poconos, respectively,” said Sara Rubinow Simon.

Daughter Betsy Cowan, vice president and chief program officer for the JCC of San Antonio, thinks of Ramah as a “family enterprise.”

Her daughter Maggie Cowan, a pilot with Frontier Airlines, said that for her, Camp Ramah was never “an if, but a when.”

Mother and daughter give a great deal of credit to Ramah for the people they turned out to be. Both are extremely grateful for enduring friendships with campmates.

“Ramah gifted me quintessential Jewish moments, and the perfect friendships. And I am so fortunate that my children also know that ta’am Ramah, that essence, and I can only hope that they’ll feel the same and want it for their children,” said Betsy.

Betsy’s 15-year-old son Buddy will soon be heading out for his sixth summer at Camp Ramah Darom. He always knew that his grandfather was the first-ever Ramah camper, but it is only more recently that he learned about his great-grandfather’s key role in founding the Ramah Camping Movement.

Rabbi Ralph Simon’s belief in the power of Jewish camping to normalize Jewish practice and living is not lost on Buddy.

“Camp has allowed me to be a practicing Jew without the weird stares and looks I would get in the ‘real world,’” he said.

Although her camping days are behind her, Buddy’s older sister Maggie still speaks to her bunkmates regularly, and all are looking forward to some of their upcoming weddings this summer.

“Being a member of a family with roots so pivotal to the Jewish Conservative movement is such an honor,” Maggie said.

From those strong roots planted by Rabbi Ralph Simon three quarters of a century ago, the many branches of the Ramah camping movement have flourished.

“I’m just incredibly blessed that I have grandparents that planted the tree so that their future generations would sit under its canopy,” said Betsy Cowan.

The Simon Family: At Ramah from the Very Beginning