"Hello Ima, Hello Abba"
Tamarack’s stepped-up Judaic and Israel programming

Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Staff Writer

One of the best things Eve Posen heard all summer was from a pre-teenager who said her two favorite things at Tamarack Camps’ Camp Maas were water-skiing – and Jewish activities.

“We work very hard to slip a Jewish education into our curriculum without the kids even knowing it,” said Posen, director of the camp’s Jewish programming along with Eli Rockowitz.  “But to hear that it’s working is amazing.”

Rockowitz agreed.  “Tamarack has always been a camp that’s had its good name on water sports, horseback riding, nature and tripping,” he said.  “And we’ve always had a Jewish angle.  But now we’re trying to build it up to be one of the stronger elements that we offer kids, but in a fun way.”

With brand-new initiatives, such as Israeli-style tree planting and a replica of the Kotel (Western Wall) ready to receive camper notes, Tamarack has enhanced its Judaic and Israel programming to highlight a subtle, fun Jewish experience. 

“We do a lot of things a lot of camps do, but we are further defined in that we are a Jewish campthat combines the other activities with Jewish values, Jewish learning and Jewish ethics,” said Jonah Geller, executive director of the Fresh Air Society and Tamarack Camps.  He has overseen some significant changes during his first year in the leadership role.

Noting that campers come from different religious backgrounds and that Tamarack is not affiliated with any Jewish movement, Geller said, “We don’t force anyone to do anything.  The essence of informal education is to show how Judaism can be cool and exciting.  What they want to embrace – and what they want to take with them – is up to them.”

Rockowitz explains that the programming balance must satisfy those who come from day school or religious school backgrounds as well as those for whom camp is their only Jewish experience. 

“This is a huge mission for us and we feel the weight of this responsibility – and it’s a labor of love,” he said.

Jarrett Gorman, 10, of Lake Orion was a first-time Tamarack camper this summer.
“We live in a community where there are not very many, if any, Jewish kids,” said Jarrett’s mother, Marci, “so we were looking for opportunities to expose our kids to Jewish history and tradition.

“To do that, we joined Temple Beth El – and we sent Jarrett to Tamarack.  We chose it partly so he could gain some independence and have fun and partly for its Jewish programming and for him to be around other Jewish kids.”

Geller is aware that kids come to camp for many reasons.  “We know they are here to learn about themselves, to be a part of a community, for personal growth – and to have fun.  But we allow them to do these things in a camp that is really a living laboratory of Jewish education.”

According to Ron Sollish, president of the Fresh Air Society, Tamarack’s umbrella agency, “Residential camping has been found to be one of the most important places, outside the home, for a Jewish educational experience.”

Declaring his oft-repeated adage learned at a camping conference years ago, Geller maintains, “If you want to give children a Jewish background, you’ve got to give them a Jewish playground.”

Camp staff learned long ago the key to sneaking in some subconscious learning can be through a kid’s stomach.

Sometimes it’s as simple as using the camp’s Hebrew-letter cookie cutters to bake chocolate chip treats for a lesson in spelling out Hebrew words.

But both Posen and Rockowitz’s personal favorite – the Israel cake program – is a little more involved.

“We cut Israeli maps into puzzle pieces and the kids go through missions that acquaint them with the geography of Israel,” Rockowitz said.

For each activity they complete, they receive a piece of the puzzle.

Next comes the food.  “When the puzzle is complete, we bring in a sheet cake and the kids decorate it to look like Israel,” Posen said.

They make the sand of the desert with graham cracker crumbs, use blue sugar for the ocean and upside-down ice cream cones for the mountains.

“The kids have a great time,” Posen said.  “And then they get to eat what they’ve learned.”

One Friday afternoon in mid-July, campers showed up at Shabbat services to see a staff member in the middle of the lake, covered in a green sheet, with his arm up high, holding a torch.

He represented the Statue of Liberty, greeting campers who were about to spend an entire Shabbat participating in the celebration of the first 350 years of the North American Jewish communities.

Campers were given a “visa” with their name on it that included a history of where they might have come from if they had just arrived in America.  To get their visas stamped, campers completed missions related to becoming new Americans.

As they snacked on red, white and blue cupcakes, each camper was given a family tree to begin at camp and finish at home with the help of parents and grandparents.
Each camper also received a handful of unique, superhero trading cards, including notables from biblical times through modern Jewish history.

The deck included 18 Jewish Detroiters ranging from U.S. Sen. Carl Levin to the late U.S. Ambassador to Norway David Hermelin to the famous Detroit Tiger Hank Greenberg and Chapman Abraham, the first Detroit Jew.

After a campwide card-trading session, those who were able to collect – and review – all 40 cards were entered in a quiz bowl.

“They were asked historical questions about things including the Holocaust and the Soviet Jewry movement,” Rockowitz said.

“The older kids also discussed issues like what makes a person a hero,” said Posen, an incoming master’s degree candidate and rabbinical student at the University of Judaism’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

“They talked specifically about the leadership qualities of those on the Detroit hero cards.”

While campers aren’t typically squeaky clean by the end of any summer’s day, this year they were actually encouraged to get down on the ground and dig in the mud.

“Every kid was given the opportunity to plant a tree,” said Lori Weberman, a longtime Fresh Air Society board member, who met her husband, Daniel, at a Tamarack reunion.  “They were involved in tikkun olam [repair of the world] as a way to be able to give something back to camp by planting for future generations.”

Funded, in part, through a donation campaign spearheaded by Fresh Air’s First Vice President Brian Kepes, 1,600 trees were planted at Camp Maas this summer.

“We asked families to support this project in the same way they would do it in Israel,” Sollish said.  “The kids know their roots are here and also in Israel.”

The planting was done during the last two days of camp.  “We did this purposely as closure for the community the kids established during the session,” Geller said.  “The timing is similar to what people in Israel do on their departure day as a way to leave roots in Israel.”

After the planting, each village held an intimate circle ceremony to share those they had in mind when they planted the tree.

“I planted one in honor of my family,” said Nikki Braverman, 14, of West Bloomfield.  “Other kids planted in memory of a relative or of victims of terror in Israel.”

In addition to newfound knowledge about keeping kosher and the enjoyment of Shabbat, Jarrett Gorman learned some Hebrew words during his first Tamarack experience. 

“We eat in the cheder ochel, which is the dining hall,” he said of the phrases kids come to use automatically, without realizing they’ve learned to speak Hebrew.

“Instead of a color war, we have Maccabiah,” Weberman said.  “The nature program is called teva and instead of free time, the kids ‘shmooze.’”

Because songs are part of Tamarack tradition, Rockowitz says music can be a fun way for Hebrew words to seep into campers’ vocabulary.

“The kids who attended the concert given by Rick Recht [a Jewish rock singer] went there to have fun, but also had the opportunity to be exposed to some new Hebrew music,” Weberman said.

Other Jewish activities are more thought provoking, such as a discussion involving contemporary Jewish values.  Campers pondered such questions as “What would you do if you found out a designer you love or a politician whose policies you like, made an anti-Semitic comment?”

Arts and crafts, too, can have a Jewish bent.  Some visitors to camp this year, including outgoing Fresh Air Society board members, were given mezuzot decorated by campers.

While Rockowitz described some of the Judaic-based programs of the past as “fragmented,” newly instituted initiatives now make them staples.

“Each village now conducts age-appropriate tzedakah outreach programs,” he said.  “Some go to old age homes or homes for people with mental challenges to visit, to perform, to sing.”

This year, the Fresh Air Society established the Jewish Life Committee, which is chaired by Dr. Jeffrey Devries of West Bloomfield.  “It was set up to insure we were finding ways to incorporate elements of Jewish life, Jewish identity and Jewish programming into various aspects of camp,” Sollish said.

All food served at camp and on trips outside camp is kosher and under the supervision of the Council of Orthodox Rabbis of Greater Detroit in Southfield.  Also the level of Jewish observence maintained at camp is continued on trips.

“Not only doesn’t it diminish a camping trip to light candles on a beach over Lake Superior, it enriches the experience,” Sollish said.

Outside Connection

Some campers this year became part of a new traveling band led by new staff member Bishara Naddaff, a Christian Israel-Arab drum instructor from Detroit’s Partnership 2000 region in the Central Galilee of Israel.  That partnership promotes economic, cultural, educational and social ties.

The band played during Friday night services at Congregation Shir Tikvah and at a Shalom Street archeological dig at the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield.

Specialty Village campers performed an advance preview of their annual play at Fleischman Residence in West Bloomfield.

“Some of our kids made Shabbat candlesticks and Kiddush cups and have given them to new Jewish immigrants,” Rockowitz said.

In addition to campers going out on trips, some non-campers came in.  All of the rabbis from the multi-stream Michigan Board of Rabbis were invited to come up to camp to visit kids from their congregations.

Adat Shalom Synagogue Rabbi Daniel Nevins even participated in a Friday afternoon Shabbat concert, “rocking it out on stage on the drums,” Geller said.

Bringing Israel To Camp

Rockowitz brings not only Israeli programming, but the spirit of Israel from his home in Jerusalem. 

A former American college professor of economics and Wall Street investment banker, Rockowitz made aliyah 18 years ago to become a tour guide in Israel.

“I work showing the land of Israel to tourists,” he said.  “I love to show Israel and get people connected with their Jewish roots.  And that’s what I’m doing here at camp.”

He was joined by his wife, Naomi Rockowitz, a member of the staff of the Jerusalem-based office of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.  And she brought with her a delegation of 100 Israeli campers.

Both Geller and Eli Rockowitz come to Tamarack with Zionist backgrounds – Geller as former director of Young Judaea’s Camp Tel Yehudah in New York State and Rockowitz as music and educational director there.

“Some of our counselors are from Israel – and in the Israeli army,” Weberman said.  “They offered to take messages of encouragement and support [from campers] back to the soldiers in their units.”

Jarrett Gorman learned about Israel directly from his bunkmates.

“There were two brothers in my bunk who live here now, but were born in Israel,” he said.  “They talked about Israel and showed us pictures.  It was the first time I saw real pictures of Israel that weren’t in movies or posters at school.”  From the boys, Jarrett also learned how very long it takes to fly from Israel to Michigan.

Naddaff and his musical instruments are part of the camp’s Israeli culture staff, a first-year program that includes Israeli dancers and musicians.

“The dances they brought are not just traditional horas,” Rockowitz said, “but modernistic line dances that sometimes the kids just break into at the flag pole.”

Each camp session includes an Israel Day.  “It’s a chance for kids to learn more about Israel, about the culture, the way of life, the food, the music and sights and sounds,” Geller said.

“All during first session, we kept seeing signs and hearing, ‘The Wall is coming.  The Wall is coming,’” camper Nikki Braverman said.

Other signage read: “Got Wall?”

Then during the last week of the session, a new permanent model of Jerusalem’s Western Wall appeared.

“It’s small and symbolic, but it’s a replica that’s pretty darn close to the real one,” Rockowitz said of the wooden, weather-restraint construction.  “We explained the tradition of people putting notes of hope or prayer between the stones of the real Kotel.”

Campers and staff wrote hundreds of their own messages and slipped them into a slit cut into the “Wall.”

“We periodically removed them and FedExed them in big envelopes to Israel, where Detroiters on Federation’s 2004 Teen Mission put them directly in the cracks between the stones of the real Kotel in Jerusalem,” Rockowitz said.  “Any notes still here after the end of the Teen Mission, either I – or some of our two dozen Israeli counselors – will take to the Kotel personally.”

Twenty-seven of this year’s 91 mission participants are Tamarack alumni.
“It was really exciting to put a message in the ‘Wall,’” Nikki Braverman said.
“It was amazing knowing it would end up in the real Kotel in Israel.”

Rockowitz spoke with the kids about the hope that someday they would have the opportunity to be in Israel placing notes in the actual Western Wall.

While Shabbat has always been a highlight of the Tamarack week, new initiatives have made it more relaxing and more memorable.

“We slow things down and take a break,” Geller said.

On Shabbat, the business office is closed.  Meals are served in a more leisurely, family-style fashion.  A member of each village is invited to light Shabbat candles before the blessings and Shabbat songs are sung.

“On Shabbat, everybody sings and gets up and dances,” Nikki Braverman said.
“Nikki told me the whole spiritual togetherness was emotional, but still very upbeat,” said her mom, Gail.

There are few holidays during camp, but Tisha b’Av, a solemn fast day, fell during second session this summer.  While some old-time campers remember the days when there was no specific policy in place for those who were observing the holiday, this year Rockowitz scripted a program so everyone could commemorate tragedies associated with the Ninth of Av.

“Everyone met at the flagpole, bringing items that were sentimental to them – a teddy bear, a letter from home – and a few articles of their clothing,” he said.

The group was then led to stations, representing different times in Jewish history.  At each station, they unpacked their possessions and listened to staff members tell a personal story of a family who could have lived at that time.

“Then someone gave the edict expelling them,” Rockowitz said.

The group packed up their things and moved on.  “They walked in a long, silent carvan in the dark, with torches around them,” Rockowitz said.  “The pain on the faces of our ‘actors’ was passed onto the kids, and not a word was spoken.”

The final station of the program was a PowerPoint presentation by Posen, showing Jewish communities around the world today, including in Israel.

“This was not ‘oy vey’ Judaism, where we sit the kids down and tell them Jews were expelled over and over again,” Rockowitz said.  “We showed them in a fun way that was a learning experience for everyone.”

And that’s the point.  “We want Tamarack to be comfortable and accessible and inclusive of our entire community,” said Sollish, who, in addition to being a Fresh Air board member, is a Tamarack parent.

“Our programming is not intended to establish a level of observance.  It is intended to give all participants a chance to gain a better connection with their Jewish identity.”