The 2016 National Ramah Winter Leadership Training Conference, held from January 4-7, was a tremendous success. This year’s gathering took place at Camp Ramah in California in Ojai under a mix of sun and much-needed rain. The four-day conference featured several tracks, including the Weinstein Institute for Counselor Training for second-year madrichim, as well as training for counselors of campers with disabilities (Tikvah), veteran staff (“vatikim”), division heads (rashei edah), and Ramah Service Corps Fellows. The 105 attendees at this year’s conference also included camp directors, assistant directors, and programming staff. Eleven Ramah camps were represented, including our newest camp, Ramah in Northern California. Kayla Levy, one of Ramah NorCal’s first staff members, shared that the inspiring week “embodied the innovation and ruach of camp that makes Ramah more than a two-month experience.”
Read More
Harmony (noun): the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect. If I could describe my past week with one word, it would be harmony. It was not only the harmony of the musical notes that covered my skin with goose bumps and filled my heart with joy, but the harmony of the URJ (Union of Reform Judaism) and Ramah camps working as one.
Read More
Walking through Ramah New England, basketball hoops are being netted, tents are being structured, and it’s clear that the first day of camp is truly in sight. It’s sad to see the National Ramah Spring Staff Training Institute come to an end, but the excitement for the reality of summer is evident.
Read More
The 2015 National Ramah Spring Staff Training Institute kicked off yesterday in high gear. Eighty-five eager staff members have gathered at Ramah New England, representing ten Ramah camps (including the new Ramah Day Camp in Greater Washington, DC!), six URJ Camps and one Young Judaea camp. As always, it’s an incredibly moving sight to have so many talented Jewish educators in one space, learning from each other and preparing for the summer.
Read More
Bemoaning the future of the American Jewry has become a rite-of-passage. One cannot, it seems, be a serious Jewish thinker, without predicting the next would-be calamity that will undermine the Jewish people. Optimism is rogue, and pessimism is vogue. While I do not reject the gravity of particular trends, this paradigm simply does not work for me. The incessant lamenting of our volatility seem to ultimately promulgate apathy, and perpetuate the very instability it seeks to remedy. Imagine, for a moment, an optimistic Judaism; one that quietly deals with real threats, while loudly celebrating the beautiful fruits of our collective labor.
Read More
We have all felt exclusion at some points of our lives, but each of us likely forgot about it as quickly as it happened. Such is not the case for the numerous children and young adults with various different disabilities who attend Ramah camps across our network each summer. For them, isolation and exclusion may be the norm. Hopefully their summers at Ramah are different, and regardless of whether they are attending camp as part of a Ramah Tikvah program or an informal program set up to further our goal of inclusion, all staff members at every Ramah have an obligation to make it so.
Read More
It was our absolute pleasure to gather Ramah Service Corps Fellows together last week at Ramah California. During our four days, we enjoyed getting to know one another, studying together, program
sharing, and reflecting on the past few months of work. Emphasis was placed on the most effective ways of encouraging more families to send their kids to Ramah. “I really appreciated the chance to sit down and just talk with some of the other Fellows,” said Hannah Glickman of Ramah New England. “I know that they are doing work similar to mine, but getting to actually spend time together and share what we’re doing brings the experience to a much more tangible level.
Amy Skopp Cooper knows young adults have magic. “They’re cool. They have charisma,” she gushes. “They’re passionate, and kids respond to them.”
She’s not just talking about any young adults; in this case, Skopp Cooper’s talking about the special group of fellows in the Ramah Service Corps (RSC). “They’re future rabbis, or Jewish educators, or maybe they’re on their way to medical school,” she says. “These are well-rounded young people. They are so grateful for what they’ve gotten from their own Ramah experiences, they want to give back.”
Read More
Over the past few weeks, National Ramah has sponsored several leadership training programs designed to educate, nurture, and cultivate young Ramah leaders. It has been an extraordinary few weeks for more than 150 Ramah staff members and those of us who have had the opportunity to work with them.
Read More