[Alt Text: 3 girls sitting on a lake doc edge forming a heart with their hands at a Jewish summer camp.]
By: One World Publishing
Summer camp is a staple of American Jewish life.
Ask many Jews across the United States about the summer camp they attended while growing up—they’ll all give you different camp names—and you’ll hear about lasting memories and positive experiences. But summer camp is about more than learning archery or making new friends: it’s about encouraging youth to embrace their Judaism and contribute to securing the Jewish future.
“Sending my kids to camp felt like an obvious and important choice for me as a Jewish parent,” said Janine Lowy, a Jewish philanthropist and advocate in California. “Camp is essential to helping young people form their identities and connect with other Jewish kids.”
In 2021, Lowy’s nonprofit, the Winkler Lowy Foundation, started a grant program at Camp Ramah in Los Angeles to inspire more Jewish teens to return to camp through age 16, at which point many age out of traditional summer programs.
For Janine Lowy, the decision to launch this grant program was deeply personal.
Lowy sent all four of her children to Ramah, and they each continued going to camp until they returned as college students to work as counselors. This was pivotal in their journeys of Jewish learning, Lowy said.
Lowy said that her children—now all adults—remain in close contact with many of their fellow campers decades after those summers in the Southern California foothills.
“My children see their cabin mates from Jewish overnight as family,” she said. “I’m so thankful to Camp Ramah for giving my kids this second family and inspiring them to explore and embrace their Jewish identities.”
During a national uptick in antisemitism, Jewish overnight camps can hold an even more important role in providing Jewish youth with a refuge from the discrimination they may be facing elsewhere.
When Jewish overnight camps were first founded in the United States, they were started and sustained by Jewish leaders who feared that European immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s would lose their Jewish culture, traditions or pride while assimilating to American culture.
In 2024, this is more relevant than ever before.
“Young people should feel safe showing their Jewish pride anywhere, but we know that this can be right now,” Janine Lowy said. “This makes the role of Jewish overnight camps all the more important for today’s youth.”
For many, these camps are the spaces in which youth celebrate their first Shabbats without the company of their parents or learn to regularly recite prayers like the Birkat Hamazon, which takes place after meals.
Many children, Lowy said, find the opportunity to learn more about their identity without feeling pressure from parents empowering. Camp encourages youth to take initiative in other spaces to learn about their Judaism.
In this sense, Lowy said, “Camps are a pathway to lifelong involvement in the Jewish world.”
“The more Jewish youth we have who are excited to return to Jewish spaces alongside Jewish friends, the closer we are to ensuring that our youngest generations care about the Jewish future,” Lowy said.
Published by: Khy Talara
