Enrolment of Toronto youth in Jewish overnight camp grew by 14 per cent in the summer of 2014, topping 2,550 campers. This year’s expansion builds on last year’s eight per cent growth. Camp is now the fastest growing setting of Jewish education in Toronto.
It’s no surprise that summer camps are growing. All of us who spent summers at camp remember the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of camp. We remember the nervousness of the first day, wondering who would be in our cabins and what our counsellors would be like; juxtaposed to the tears on the last day lamenting that we would no longer wake up next to our best friends. We remember swimming in the frigid lake and warming up by a camp fire. We remember the ruckus singing in the chadar on Shabbat and the swaying in circles at Havdalah.
But the growth in Jewish camping is more than just the result of fond memories.
The field of Jewish camping is maturing. The Foundation for Jewish Camp, a New York-based agency that builds the capacity of Jewish camps, is a catalyst to the professionalization of the field. Through fellowships for directors, programmers and senior counsellors, FJC has built the human capital, and through parent surveys, FJC has held a mirror up to camps showing them places to hone their practice and facilities.
FJC also spearheaded the One Happy Camper initiative, which offers a $1,000 incentive grant to first-time campers. Facilitated and funded by UJA Federation’s Silber Family Centre for Jewish Camping, over 2,000 Toronto youth have taken advantage of the grant and attended camp for the first time.
FJC and other proponents of Jewish summer camp have also fought hard to demonstrate the educational value of camping. Research demonstrates that participants in Jewish overnight camps are more likely to donate to Jewish causes, light Shabbat candles, attend synagogue, and be proud of their Jewish identity. These are important factors that support Jewish identity formation and buttress the value of Jewish camp.
Unfortunately, with the growth of camp, I have increasingly heard families articulate a choice between camp and school. For some enrolled in day school the refrain is “they do Jewish all year, why should they go to a Jewish camp.” For others, it’s a matter of budgeting and considering where you can get greater Jewish bang for the buck.
Jewish education cannot be a zero sum game. As powerful as the research demonstrating the impact of camp, school, or Israel experiences on a child’s Jewish identity may be, the greatest predictor of a strong Jewish identity is having multiple touch points to Jewish living and learning. Children who have their Jewish identity reinforced at school, at home, in the synagogue, at camp and elsewhere are more likely to lead meaningful and engaged Jewish lives than those with only one point of connection.
It is incumbent on us as parents and us as a community to consider education holistically – to think about the ways in which one experience can complement and lead to another, and another, and another. As parents, we have to actively cultivate a Jewish life with multiple touch-points for our children, eschewing the idea that limited deep experiences will suffice. As a community, we have to work towards ensuring that finances are not a barrier to engaging in multiple Jewish experiences while developing programs and professionals that naturally feed one into the other.
I don’t want to bury the headline. Camp enrolment amongst Toronto Jewish youth is up 14 per cent from last year. This staggering growth can only serve to strengthen our community today and into the future. Enrolment for summer 2015 has started and bunks are filling up faster than ever before.
Daniel Held is executive director of the Julia and Henry Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Education at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.