Like many 22-year-olds, Ben Nadis has somewhat murky career goals. Though he likes his job at the Kroger near his house in Farmington Hills, Mich., he doesn’t want to work there forever. Maybe he’ll be on TV instead, he jokes — he’s not sure.
Read MoreWe 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 MoreOver 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“Including campers with disabilities in summer camp is beneficial for campers with disabilities and neurotypical campers,” says Howard Blas, Director of the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah in New England and the National Ramah Tikvah Network. In an article published earlier this year in The Canteen camp blog at MyJewishLearning.com, Blas encouraged parents to consider summer camping for their special needs children for the following reasons:
The Ramah Camping Movement and the Ruderman Family Foundation are delighted to announce the winners of “TIPTOE (The Inclusion Project: Through Our Eyes),” an inclusion-themed video contest for participants from all Jewish camps. The goal of TIPTOE is to increase awareness of the inclusion work happening at Jewish camps across North America. The Ruderman Family Foundation will award a cash prize to the top three winners and make donations to the inclusion program at the winners’ camps.
Read MoreRamah Darom, the Conservative movement’s summer camp in north Georgia, announced the launch of a new Tikvah Program for summer 2015 and the addition of Audra Kaplan to its professional staff. The Tikvah Program will offer a four-week summer experience for children ages 12 to 17 years who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Kaplan, who will direct this new program, is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience in Jewish camp and in working with children with disabilities.
Read MoreTwo years ago, a delegation of Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) and Jewish Funders Network (JFN) members visited eight Jewish summer camps in the Northeast in three days. Despite their different locations (from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts), sizes, and movement affiliations, the camps had one important thing in common: They were successfully including campers with disabilities in the camp community.
Read MoreThe National Ramah Commission has announced that Howard Blas has been appointed as the first Director of the National Ramah Tikvah Network, in order to promote the growth of programming for campers with disabilities within the Ramah movement and beyond. Blas, who has served as the Director of the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah in New England for 14 years, is an award-winning disabilities educator who is widely recognized as a leading national expert and spokesperson on behalf of inclusion and Jewish education for young people with disabilities.
Read MoreJewish memories are made of this: sneaking out with my bunkmates for a thrilling nighttime swim. Israeli dancing on the lawn in the sunshine before lunch. Singing the birkat hamazon with gusto after dinner, concocting elaborately goofy skits for the talent show, playing friendly pickup games of GaGa, and sending a “Secret Shabbat-O-Gram” to my crush in Tent Gimel. Much more than the hours spent in synagogue or in religious school, I can directly trace my continued connection to Judaism to the unforgettable summers I spent at Camp Ramah in California. As it turns out, Ramah would play an even more crucial role for my son Nathan, who was born 14 years ago with Down syndrome.
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