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Fall 2013 s”ga, u,x
From Jacob Cytryn, Director This past summer, we welcomed Nivonim 2000 to camp for their thirteenth-year reunion. As usual, it was a wonderful weekend for the alumni, their spouses and children, and it was great fun for me to reconnect with an eidah for which I hold a special affinity: my sister is in that eidah, as are many of the counselors I worked with as a Rosh Eidah. As we were reconnecting on Friday afternoon, however, little did I expect the treat that one alumna, Shira Goldstein, who now works at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, would offer: an aerial map of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, drawn by camper Bill Agress in 1963. The map itself is a bit like visiting an old house or neighborhood that we lived in many years ago. There are familiar landmarks but much is different. I am sure many alumni can shed some light on some of my questions: Why are cabins 3 and 6 connected, while halfway across camp sit 4 and 5? Did campers play in the swamps? What is amazing, especially when we compare the 1963 map to recent aerial photographs, is how much of the camp is still where it once was, from the “main house” (now our business office) to beito (the “director’s cabin”), the merkaz (then “arts and crafts’), and the bet am (“social hall”), as well as many of the cabins. We now call the “guest house” OGH – the “original” (or, as some prefer, “old” guest house), having been supplanted by a newer version sometime in the intervening 50 years. We know, however, from testimonials of grandparents who were themselves campers as well as many alumni who return to visit, that the physical changes in the camp, so noticeable upon one’s first arrival after years or decades away, are quickly overwhelmed and made irrelevant by that Ramah feeling which permeates the place. It still feels like the same place it once did; and many of the conversations, activities, and experiences that we see campers and staff having around the campus bring back sometimes visceral, often vivid memories of our own experiences years ago. This past summer, my first as director, I remember clearly watching our youngest male campers schlep their bags across the basketball courts, down between the Beit Am and Beito, and then up what we once called “Halutzim Hill” to the boys cabins (in 1992 when I arrived, as in 1963, #1-2). Every once in a while I’d catch a smell – French toast wafting through the Moadon during Shacharit or the indescribable fragrance of the trees along the garbage trail – that hauls me back to some moment in my Ramah past. In the office, we love those moments when we hear from alumni of all ages about their Ramah memories, which confirms for us what we know: the place slowly changes and evolves, with hairstyles and how the kids wear their shorts and jeans and Shabbat outfits; but the experience, our mission and the core experience we provide to campers and staff, remains constant from generation to generation.
The Story Behind the Map By Bill Agress The question you may ask is, “How does a teenager from New Jersey go to Ramah in Wisconsin and how does a map he drew in 1963 wind up in Philadelphia 50 years later?” My parents had heard about the Ramah camps from friends in New York. Now no child from Congregation Brothers of Israel in Trenton, New Jersey, had ever gone to Camp Ramah. By the time we inquired the only camps with room for me were Wisconsin and California. Since Wisconsin is closer to New Jersey, that’s where I went. continued on page 6
Ramah Wisconsin then…and now
Stay in touch with Camp Ramah via our blog and youtube channel at www.ramahwisconsin.com. To receive our weekly e-newsletter, HaMirpeset Shelanu, send an email to arosen@ramahwisconsin.com.