Ramah Solidarity & Service Trips to Israel

Israel needs us right now. Since December 2023, we have run dozens of solidarity missions to Israel. Participants have volunteered in the fields, planted gardens, painted homes, worked with displaced families, and barbecued for soldiers. We have visited Hostage Square and met with families. We have mourned with other families. We have been active listeners as a traumatized nation tells its story. We have been fully present.

We hope you will consider joining your fellow Ramahniks on one of the upcoming solidarity and service missions being led by Ramah Israel. This is our opportunity to be counted and to let our family in Israel know that we stand alongside them. As Israel faces perhaps her greatest challenge in 75 years, we are proud of our community’s response and Ramah’s deep and enduring commitment to Am Yisrael.

Our Next Mission

  • December 3–7, 2024

Glimpses of Current / Previous Trips

“The most meaningful moments of the trip for me were the everyday moments of connection with local Israelis. It was hearing the stories of people like Tamar as we volunteered at the lettuce fields that brought a sense of the overwhelming unity. It was seeing the appreciation each store keeper on Ben Yehudah street had just for the fact that we chose to come to Israel during the war that showed that the importance of this trip extended way beyond the work of our hands.”
— Kira, Ramah Wisconsin
“It was an incredibly difficult Fall semester at NYU. However, going to Israel has absolutely wiped away the burnout I was sitting with and reinvigorated my passion for next semester. I felt healed and am absolutely ready for next semester. I have gained a network of 22 new friends and allies in the fight against antisemitism, and know that whenever I am experiencing my next challenge on campus, I have a sounding board of Ramah family to reach out to.”
— Jake, Ramah Darom
“Participating on the Ramah Israel support mission was an incredibly meaningful experience. Being in Israel during these challenging times was emotional and heartbreaking, inspirational and personally fulfilling.”
— Cliff, Ramah Berkshires

Ramah Birthright Israel Onward Missions for College Students

Ramah Birthright Israel Onward Missions for Summer 2024 Staff | May 2024

In May 2024, 300 members of our summer 2024 Ramah community—North Americans and shlichim representing each of our North American camps—came together for two powerful back-to-back missions. Read: “Leading 300 Ramahniks in Israel for Volunteering, Learning, and Connection”

"B’Yad Ramah” Winter Break Volunteer Experience for College Students | December 19-January 3, 2024

To give is to receive: לתת זה לקבל. Our 25-person trip had an incredibly moving experience supporting and giving back to the people and land of Israel.

We worked in the sunny fields of Kfar Truman planting, picking, and shipping lettuce; we organized and packed fruits and vegetables at Tachlit for Israeli soldiers and families that have been displaced by the war plus shipped and packaged produce at Moshav Azaria.

In Jerusalem, we spent a day making sandwiches for soldiers and volunteered at a farmers market that sells produce from farms on the border of Gaza. We met several times with a group of Israeli teens on their Mechina gap year and visited several important sites like The Kotel and Kikar Hatufim (Hostages Square).

Throughout the trip, we had important and difficult conversations about Israeli current events, the rise of antisemitism in America, and what experiences and reflections participants will take from this trip back to their college campuses and local communities. We return to North America reignited with pride for being Jewish and Zionist, with a strong cohort of friends, and as advocates for Israel.

This trip was funded by Birthright Israel Onward and with NRC support, organized by the Israel Experience, and staffed by Ramah. 

Bring Them Home

We pray for the safe return for all of those who are being held captive in Gaza, including Omer Neutra, a former Ramah Day Camp in Nyack swim staff member.
Facebook: #bringomerhome | Instagram: #bringomerhome

OneMinADay

The website www.OneMinAday.com has been established to make it easier to advocate for the immediate release of all hostages with U.S. elected officials. By making thousands of direct, urgent and repeated appeals to our elected representatives, we can place actionable pressure on the U.S. government to prioritize the return all 167 remaining hostages to their loved ones.

If we all reach out to our elected officials—now and constantly—we stand a much better, realistic chance of ensuring that the return all hostages continues to remain a top U.S. and global priority.

Hostages and Missing Families Forum

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum was formed by the families of the abductees less than 24 hours after the horrific attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7th, in which more than 1,400 innocent civilians were murdered and hundreds were taken hostage. The Forum is volunteer-based and laser-focused on bringing the hostages back home to their families, to us.

The forum offers families holistic medical and emotional support as well as professional assistance, and advances the ongoing efforts locally, regionally and globally, to bring the hostages and the missing back home.

American Jewish Committee

Join American Jewish Committee (AJC), the global advocacy organization for the Jewish people, in urging the U.S. Congress and the UN to secure the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

In Memoriam

We mourn all of those who lost their lives on October 7 and since then in the continuing violence, including the following members of the extended Ramah family. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and all of those who love them.

  • Lt. Yaacov Elian, age 20, first cousin of Dor Levi, longtime Ramah Day Camp in Nyack staff member and rosh mishlachat. Yaacov fell in battle in the north of the Gaza Strip. He was a cadet in the Gefen Battalion at the officers' training school and served as a class commander at the Givati ​​training base.

  • Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was murdered while in Hamas captivity. Hersh served as a madrich for Ramah Israel programs, and his extended family attended Ramah Darom's Passover retreat for many years. Hersh's mother Rachel, has served for many years as a Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim staff member. Facebook: Bring Hersh Home | Instagram: Bring Hersh Home | Watch: “What Can We Do?” an open discussion with Rachel Goldberg

  • Adi Vital Kaploun, age 33, daughter of Jacqui Rivers Vital, alumna of Camp Ramah in Canada and a participant in the Mador leadership training program in 1972. In this interview with Anderson Cooper, Jacqui describes Adi as “a superstar…everything she touched was golden.” Adi's family has relocated to Jerusalem and needs significant funds to start rebuilding their life. Please consider making a donation to the Adi Vital Kaploun Memorial fund to help support them.

  • Rose Ida Lubin, age 20, niece of Minda Snitkoff and Rabbi Ed Snitkoff, former director of Ramah Israel Seminar and niece of Elise Kosofsky, board member of Camp Ramah Darom. Rose died in a stabbing attack while serving as a border police officer. She made aliyah two years ago and joined the army through Garin Tzabar. Read “ Israeli-American Border Police officer, 20, Killed in Jerusalem Stabbing Attack”

  • Eden Nimri, age 22, sister of Hadar Nimri, Camp Ramah in the Berkshires mishlachat 2016 and 2017. Eden, a commanding officer in the “Sky Raiders” (Rochev Shamayim), died on October 7 while protecting her soldiers.
    Read “Israeli International Swimmer Eden Nimri Killed in Fighting in Nahal Oz”

  • Ari Yehiel Zenilman, age 32, cousin of Ava Lang Soffer, longtime staff member of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, was killed while fighting with the IDF in Gaza. Read "The Day It Hit Home: Farewell to My Friend, My Cousin, Our Hero Ari Zenilman hy”d"

Recordings of Past Programs

A Conversation with AJC CEO Ted Deutch
January 9, 2024 | View Recording

Informative and enlightening Q&A with Ramah alum Ted Deutch, current CEO of AJC and Member of Congress from 2010 to 2022.

What Can We Do? An Open Conversation with Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin
Thursday, November 2, 2023 | View recording here
Moderator: Jonah Platt, alumnus of Camp Ramah in California

This Zoom conversation with Rachel Goldberg was both heartbreaking and important. More than 700 participants heard Rachel talk about Hersh, and together we prayed for the return of Hersh and all the other women, men, children, and babies who are being held captive by Hamas in Gaza. Also among the captives is 22-year-old Omer Neutra, former staff member of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack. Bring Hersh Home #BringOmerHome

Co-sponsored by the World Zionist Organization and Ramah

Ramah Mishpacha Solidarity Gathering for Israel,
October 15, 2023 | View recording

Hundreds of Ramahniks from across the world and across the decades joined together in song, reflections, and prayer to show support for Israel. Our warm sense of community helped to bring some light into these dark days.

Ramah Israel: Strength in Unity, Strength in Community
October 22, 2023 | View recording

Ramah Israel’s “Ramah B’Yachad” solidarity gathering was followed by a discussion with Neil Lazarus, educator in the fields of Middle East politics, public diplomacy, and communication training. Click here to view Neil’s FAQs on the current war.

Article: “The War Hamas Always Wanted,” in Foreign Affairs, October 11, 2023.

“The War that Hamas Always Wanted”
October 24, 2023 | View recording

This session was moderated by Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, Senior Advisor, National Ramah Commission, with the following Ramah parents as guest speakers:

  • Cary Gleicher, former senior FBI official who most recently served as an associate for the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism of Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel

  • Uri Rosenwald, an FBI Special Agent currently serving in Minnesota on the FBI’s Minneapolis Hazardous Evidence Response Team.

Unity in Harmony: Standing in Solidarity, Solidarity, Song, and Prayer for Israel
October 26, 2023 | View recording

Some of the top music artists and thought leaders in the Jewish world participated in this concert, including Ramah alumni Rick Recht and Rabbi Josh Warshawsky. Presented by Judaism Alive (the nonprofit parent organization of Jewish Rock Radio, JKids Radio, Songleader Boot Camp, and Jewish Star).

Major partners: Foundation for Jewish Camp, Jewish Federations of North America, Harold Grinspoon Foundation, JCamp 180, PJ Library, Life & Legacy, JCC Association of North America, Union for Reform Judaism Camp and Immersives, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, USY, The Jewish Theological Seminary, Ramah Camping Movement, Young Judaea, Sing Unto God, Rabbinical Assembly, Cantors Assembly, American Conference of Cantors, and Guild of Temple Musicians.

Educational Resources