(JTA) — At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, and as recently as a couple weeks ago, some Jewish camps had hoped they could run for part of the summer. For a growing number of camps, that hope now appears to be vanishing. Two Conservative Ramah camps look increasingly likely to cancel their sessions this…
One of the most prominent Jewish summer camps in North America is warning area rabbis that the camp faces an “existential threat” and might not stay solvent if they don’t receive a massive influx of donations. Without donations of hard cash, said Jacob Cytryn, executive director of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, the camp would have…
I have a list of 20 names on my phone. It’s sacred to me, one of the most important artifacts of my life. I created it on June 29, 2013, the year I was Program Director at the Goldman Union Camp Institute. It was also the year three campers were sent to the ER after…
After the Union of Reform Judaism, which operates North America’s largest network of Jewish summer camps, sent an email last week to thousands of families announcing that all its camps were cancelled, an independent camp in Pennsylvania issued an email announcement of its own. “Camp Zeke is not a URJ camp” it declared, in bold…
Stacie Funk is afraid to tell her son that there might not be summer camp this year. Jonah, 21, has severe autism. Funk playfully calls him “one and done”: He’ll talk incessantly about a movie he wants to see, for example, and as soon as he sees it, he never mentions it again. But for…
For nearly two weeks in late November 2018, wildfires ravaged parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, much of the damage in and around the oceanside city of Malibu. The fires burned nearly 100,000 acres, destroying 1,643 structures and killing three people. Also left in the ruins were Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s two summer camps, Hess…
On Thursday afternoon, a long-dreaded email arrived in inboxes throughout the Reform Jewish community. Amid concerns about operating safely during the coronavirus pandemic, it announced, the Union of Reform Judaism had decided to cancel all sessions in its large network of summer camps. 10,000 campers ages four to 18 are affected by the shutdown, and…
The 10,000 children who attend the Reform Movement’s sleepaway camps learned on Thursday that coronavirus had cancelled their summer. The news left some devastated, but the impact on children, their families and the camps themselves has just started to unfold. “Camp is always the best part of my summer!” wrote a girl named Hanna Pearce…
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