Let me begin by telling you that I know this is frivolous. We are in the middle of a horrific pandemic that has upended our lives; more importantly, it has ended tens of thousands of lives But there is another situation that threatens our expectations: Summer is over before it has started—some day and overnight…
(JTA) — Two Orthodox overnight camps have canceled their 2020 summers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They appear to be the first two of that denomination to do so. Camp Morasha in Pennsylvania, a Modern Orthodox camp, announced in an email Wednesday that it had come to the decision following “months of deliberation, alternative planning,…
(JTA) — Here’s a story that would have been unremarkable until just a few months ago: A Jewish camp is planning to open this summer. Camp Modin in Maine has announced that it will open July 9 — two weeks later than originally planned — despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And it has set out…
A New York state assemblyman representing a Brooklyn neighborhood with a large Orthodox Jewish population continued to press Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday to encourage local health officials to allow summer camps. Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein of Borough Park noted in a tweet on Sunday that Cuomo had allowed public beaches to be open on Memorial…
Many of the most prominent Jewish summer camps in America have announced that they will not be operating this summer, or have privately admitted that opening will be close to impossible. But there is another segment of the Jewish camping world that’s still holding out hope: for-profit camps that attract a heavily Jewish clientele but…
Lift weights using the wackiest objects you can find in your home. Stage a puppet show for a friend’s kid. Take a snapshot of yourself enjoying a bubble bath (but just the toes, please). These are just a few of the challenges you might face as a participant in Expedition Nai, an online competition that…
(JTA) — The Conservative Jewish youth group United Synagogue Youth is canceling its summer travel programs for teens, the latest in a string of canceled Jewish summer programs. The announcement, made Thursday, comes as several Conservative Ramah summer camps are set to announce that they are canceling their sessions amid the coronavirus pandemic. Some two…
(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…
