Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to figure out the Jewish world. We don’t have it all figured out, but we’re going to try to figure out some big items together.
Mijal: As we always say, we love to hear from you. So please email us at wonderingjews@jewishunpacked.com, call us, keep leaving those voicemails, try, even though it’s hard to make them under 30 seconds, we’ll take them anyways no matter how long. And just remember our number is 833 WON-JEWS.
Noam: And today we have a third wonderer. That’s actually a really hard word to say, wonderer. I actually couldn’t say R’s until I was six years old. Thank you to my speech therapist for allowing me to say the word wonderer. Anyway, we have a third wonderer with us.
Mijal: So today we’re very excited and lucky to have Mac. Mac Linder is the camp director for Camp Young Judea in Texas. But before we go for the full bio, Mac, so we have this thing that we start each episode with a listener question. So Jeremy sent the following question. He wrote in to say, good question. He said he’s about to go to Israel for the first time, and he’s very excited and he wants to know what’s the one thing he cannot miss on this trip? What’s the one thing that he should absolutely make sure he does? So Mac, go for it. And I’ll just say by the way, Mac, because not everybody can see you, but you’re wearing like a blue cap with like a white Macintosh, so it’s a good question for you.
Mac: Wow. Yeah, no, it’s actually a hard question because there’s so many things, but if I was to pick one unique experience, I would say going to Machane Yehuda on Motzei Shabbat, like right after Shabbat ends, walking around Machaneh Yehuda in Jerusalem, there’s nothing like it in the world. And I think to me, that’s like a bit of the heart and essence of Israel and really gets outside of what you normally see on a day-to-day trip.
Mijal: That’s awesome. Noam, what about you? Your one thing.
Noam: I love Mac’s answer. I’m just going to add a second stop, which is go to Gan Shlosha. Go to Sachne. I don’t know if anyone’s ever been to Sachne. You guys been to Sachne? But it’s like the Garden of Eden.
Mijal: Is the food place, the food place now? No?
Noam: No, it’s not food. I didn’t say, don’t pigeonhole me. Don’t pigeonhole me. I don’t only talk about food. I often talk about food. So it looks like the Garden of Eden or what I imagine the Garden of Eden, being in a physical space, even though it’s probably a spiritual space. Anyway, it’s just gorgeous. It’s incredible. And there’re Jews, there’re Arabs together and swimming and in paradise. And I guess that really is messianic.
Mijal: Noam, I feel like I haven’t been there. And I’ve been to Israel so many times, so I have to go there next time I’m there.
Noam: Well… I feel like I just did something positive.
Mijal: That is a positive thing, thank you. Yeah, I would add to this just like walking in the beach in Tel Aviv, I really, I just love how alive it feels. And I’m always wondering when I’m walking there, like how everybody has jobs.
Mac: Yeah.
Noam: I was also going to say something slightly antisemitic. But like when you go to Tel Aviv, you go to the beaches, you’re like, wait, Jews look like this. Like what’s going on here? Amazing. I’d be incredible.
Mac: Or can play sports like that. You feel like the volleyball stuff.
Noam: All right. So let’s talk about stuff. Let’s talk about real stuff. Let’s talk about camp. Mac is the camp director of Camp Young Judea, Texas. Mac strongly believes Jewish camp is one of the best experiences young people can have. The opportunities to try new things, develop strong friendships, and personally grow within a Jewish context is an invaluable experience and hugely impactful to living a Jewish life in later years.
I feel like I just attended an open house. That was awesome.
Okay, so Mac, some people say I’m a camp person. I don’t know that I’m a camp person or that I’m not a camp person. Actually, my wife would say I’m not a camp person because I did not go start going to sleepaway camp until I was going to 10th grade. And she says that therefore I never actually really went to sleepaway camp. She is very much so a sleepaway camp person. But my kids go to sleepaway camp. I even go to camp myself for a few weeks every summer for two weeks. I go to a sleepaway camp and I serve as a scholar in residence and I give a class a day there to staff, to teens, it’s awesome. I love it, I love it.
But it’s not just me. We’re recording this in early July. Across the entire country right now, thousands of young Jewish people are in camp. And when I say camp, I mean reform camp. I mean ultra -orthodox or Haredi camp. I mean modern Orthodox camp, pluralist camp, secular camp, Yiddish camp, Zionist camp, Jewish sports camp. Any camp you can imagine, it exists. So we want to just start with the basics. Tell us about your camp. What’s it like?
Mac: Before I get into camp, I gotta say, you know, I’m not a camp person either. I didn’t grow up going to summer camp. I found myself here after high school and just never stopped. So, you know, camp is for the kids, but there’s also a lot of benefit for the staff and the adults that, you know, we can talk about in a little bit. But our camp is, we’re a Zionist pluralist camp. So what that means is, we’re non-denominational. We have kids that come that have an Orthodox background, that have a reform background, secular.
Most of our campers are conservative, but in terms of our Jewish practice, we open space for really everybody and that plays through in a lot of different ways.
The main focus for us is Israel. To me, it’s more important right now to be talking about Israel and to be engaging in developing our relationships with Israel. And to us, that’s the thing that grounds all of our programs. So for us, it’s important that our Israeli staff are in -bunk counselors, that they’re engaging with the campers every single day and building those relationships. Because at the end of the day, as much fun and excitement as we can have in camp with all the different activities, the relationships we build are the most important. That’s really the crux of what we do and really brings out the magic. So for us, a day might involve ropes course, sports, pool. We have programs that we call chinuch or education, which is kind of a weird word to use in camp a little bit. But that’s also really where we start to talk about our values and start to talk about how we really want to be in the world and how we interact with the global Jewish community, but also just within our local communities.
A lot of our campers come from the Texas area. And the truth is, we don’t have huge Jewish communities out here. And so, for campers being able to come and live in a Jewish space and just wake up being Jewish, is an incredible value and something that doesn’t get to happen in really any other parts of their lives.
Mijal: Mac, I’m curious how big is the camp and what percentage are kids who this is like the only real Jewish institutional environment versus one of many?
Mac: Yeah, so we have just under 700 campers this summer. And then another 150 staff. lAnd that’s not counting, you know, any guests or scholar in residence or, you know, anything like that. We do have a lot of campers that go to day school or have a Hebrew high or Hebrew school or something, some other form of engagement. A lot of our campers will do things like BBYO or USY or NCSY. But I would say in the 30 to 35 range is probably this is our only Jewish experience.
Noam: All right. So you just started saying youth groups, NCSY, USY. These are different Jewish youth groups for those of you who don’t know about it. But I want to play a game, my favorite game called Either Or It’s a game that I just made up right now, but it’s my favorite game. I’m playing with you, Mijal also, if you only had money, you had $10 and you could only spend it on Jewish day school or Jewish summer camp? Which would you spend it on?
Mac: For me, It’s not even a debate.
Noam: So it’s the number one value. It’s the number one value for you. It’s your summer camp.
Mac: 100%.
Noam: Why? Like what’s the real reason?
Mac: Yeah. The real reason is I think we provide a space for kids to be able to see life through a Jewish lens. You know, I think often for campers when they’re out in the real world, Judaism, it happens at a specific time, in a specific place.
And here, you get to go play basketball and you can have the debate of, you know, is playing basketball in a Jewish setting a Jewish experience? But when someone makes, you know, their first hoop and we get to celebrate that and maybe even throw in a shehecheyahu or something like that, that’s a Jewish moment. You know, that’s really special and it provides an opportunity for campers to understand that they can go through regular moments of life, playing sports, doing dance, theater, or whatever other extracurricular, even school, and still have that Jewish lens and still have Judaism be, if not their primary, one of their primary identities. I think other Jewish experiences don’t tell it.
Noam: I like that by the way. I like that. I like that. I like that Shachiyanu post first hoop I like that by the way for those of you haven’t seen this I’ve seen Mijal play kickball Not bad pretty good. You should you should have seen her first their first single. It’s very impressive.
Mijal: I don’t think it was Sheheyana worthy, but I have to aspire to that.
Noam: Okay. Fine. Fair enough. Mijal, what’s your answer? Jewish day school or Jewish summer camp?
Mijal: I’m thinking, you know, I don’t like your game.
Noam: By the way, I don’t like my game either.
Mijal: Yeah, you were never answered. You’re just like asking the questions. I actually think, and I’m saying it as somebody who doesn’t know the camp world, Mac, like you do, so I’m just a little bit of an outsider here. I think it really depends on the kid and the family. If you ask me, this is a kid, this will be like their singular experience. I might actually think about camp, but I would think about camp mostly because I think that camp gives a sense of joy and a sense of just like excitement. And to me, if you can make a kid fall absolutely in love with Judaism, that’s like the most important thing to give them a space to encourage them to keep exploring as an adult.
But then there’s other kids and other families and other settings, where I think like prioritizing the kind of like literacy that I think a Jewish day school education gives you, I think that’s really important.
So I don’t think it’s a one size fits all. I think it really has to do with the family, the kid, what, you know what I mean? And I think that aspirationally, I think it’d be wonderful to live in a Jewish community where families don’t have to make that choice.
Noam: Would be wonderful.
Mijal: Wait, but Noam, Noam, you worked in school. What would you say?
Noam: By the way, I’ve been at schools and I’ve been at sleepaway camps III my real answer is that school should feel like summer summer camp.
Mac: 100%.
Mijal: No, that makes it not special. If you want school to feel like summer camp.
Noam: No, I’m telling you, I’m telling you what I think and what I tried to do when I ran a school. I deeply believe that the values of sleepaway camp, the immersive Jewish experience, and people don’t even realize how Jewish it is. Everyone should check out this Unpacked website article on the history of Jewish summer camps. It’s awesome.
It’s just a great article about the history of how we got to where we got to. I don’t know if you know this, but historically camps were agents of Americanization, meaning the purpose of camps back in the day was to take Jewish kids that may have come from other parts of the world and then teach them American sports or teach them what American food was like or American pastimes. And now Jewish summer camps have become about the exact opposite. It’s to take the American, to take the Texan and make them : more Jewish or make them feel Israel, feel Zionism. And the reason Jewish summer camps were such a big thing, I found this so interesting when I came across one of our articles, was that Jewish summer camps became a thing because they often were blocked out of other vacation options, either because of antisemitism or nativism, the article said, or finding the camps unaccommodating to their religious and cultural needs. And so the camp, what you are now leading, has become this great place of I was going to say accommodation. It’s not really what is. It’s a form of I might even call it this and tell me if you disagree with this line of healthy indoctrination.
What’s your reaction? Mijal, what’s your reaction?
Mac: I don’t.
Mijal: I don’t think we should use the word healthy. I think socialization is a better.
Noam: Why? So what, fine, non-doctrination. So what is it? What are they doing in a sleepaway camp? Mac, what are we doing? Is there a –
Mac: I’ll agree. I’ll take Team Mijal on this one. I think the idea of indoctrination is a little bit of a scary one. And, you know, there are things that we do in camp that can be like, Maccabiah. It can be a little almost cult life, you know, some of the cheers and things like that. But I do agree that it’s much more socialization.
And I think, Mijal, what you said about camp bringing joy and creating a sense of community, I think that’s really what it’s more about. It’s a sense of belonging. that you can put on this identity and you don’t have to feel like an outsider. There are many people in the world and this is the time for us to kind of come together and create that space for us. Whereas, back in the day, when camps originally started, people lived in those close communities. All the Jews lived with each other, all the Russians lived with each other and they had these outside assimilation camps because they needed to learn how to kind of function within the larger community.
And we flipped the page on that where Jews are kind of spread through all out, right? It’s much harder for us to feel like we’re part of something connected and there’s a much larger Jewish community across the seas and in every country that we’re a part of and as a camp provide that space to really feel like you’re part of that fabric.
And the truth is, like, the relationships we build at camp, they don’t start and end at camp, right? As long as they find their people, camp becomes a great space.
You’re not going to see those large impacts until much later on in life. And there have been studies done that do prove, you know, going to Jewish summer camp, even if it’s for a few years, are a larger indicator of a longer Jewish identity than even things like having the bar mitzvah or going to Hebrew school.
Noam: Yeah, I’ll tell you just on those stats, I’m going to be a stat guy today. People who went to summer camp, Jewish summer camp, are 21 % more likely to say that being Jewish is an important part of their identity compared to those who didn’t. And listen to this one. There was a 2010 study that two thirds of Jewish leaders attended Jewish summer camp.
I mean, that is, do you hear that number? Two-thirds of Jewish leaders attended Jewish summer camp. That means that it’s very possible that Mijal represents one-third of Jewish leaders. It’s amazing.
Mac: Hahaha.
Mijal: That’s very funny. I did work at a summer camp one summer as a sleepaway summer camp.
Noam: Where? Which one?
Mijal: It’s like a Haredi all girls, Camp Dina. I loved it. I’m very intense. So like I fit in right in, you know what I mean?
Mac: You gotta be intense to be in camp.
Mijal: Yeah. well, Mac, you started off by saying you’re a Zionist and pluralistic camp. I’m curious, you know, this summer after October 7th, what are the things that you’re seeing in the kids like new, new needs or new opportunities in how you’re, you’re doing this work?
Mac: So basically starting October 10th, you know, we started having the conversations of what this summer is going to look like. And we’ve just been updating and updating and updating. And we’ve actually found ourselves in a space that we actually decided in terms of our educational outcomes, we didn’t actually want to make a huge shift because for most of our campers, you know, our first, second, third, fourth, fifth graders, they’re still in the beginning stages of their relationship and still creating that foundation. And so we really kind of push forward with really emphasizing that they still need these basics and that the relationships they’re going to build are still forming. They’re not totally in the place to wrestle with some of the more challenging things that are going on right now.
For our older kids, we’ve done a little bit more. So for example, we had a Yom Hazikaron Memorial program where some of our Israeli staff spoke with the with the campers about some of, you know, again, age appropriate, not sharing, you know, the dark details, but sharing the personal connection that, you know, maybe they had a friend that got pulled up into miluim, or they had a friend who was at the Nova Festival. There’s four or five former staff members that I’ve worked with, some of my co-counselors that have either fallen in the festival or in the war after. And so it’s really been personal for us.
So we have some things in camp, a few signs, you know, bring them home. And we have some of the yellow ribbons around and things like that. But in terms of our education and the kind of goal of camp this summer, it hasn’t changed a whole lot because again, going back to that idea of just living in a Jewish space, having a joyous experience and really solidifying that identity is still the main goal and that is still what’s gonna kind of push us forward.
Noam: Do you, you said something interesting earlier, Mac. I go to, like I said, every summer, the last four summers, I’ve been at the Sleepaway Camp called Camp Lavi in Pennsylvania. And it’s a really tremendous experience, but you use this term. You said education. What did you mean by that? Because my guess is not what I heard. Education for these two months or four weeks or six weeks, depending on how camps do it, are some of the most formative educational experiences that young people will ever have. So what did you mean when you said education is like a funny thing to mention in the context of sleepaway camp?
Mac: Camp is fun, run around, ropes and sports and music and even within those other activities there are you know personal growth moments, there’s trying new things, community building, helping each other out, there’s a lot of learning that comes through that naturally.
But what I mean more is, you know, the kind of let’s sit down and talk about something specific. Let’s wrestle with an idea. Let’s look at a certain value from different perspectives. Let’s study a little Torah, you know, things like that. I think just aren’t the norm when you first hear about summer camp. And I think it’s important to know that there is education that’s a little bit more formal. And I use that word very lightly, formal, because, you know, we’ll do it in very fun ways and it won’t feel like education, but it’s pointed. You know, we have outcomes that we lay out for every age group in camp because we want there to be a trajectory. We want them to start in a certain space and end in a certain space.
And so I think it’s something that just, it’s not intuitive to think about when you think of summer camp. I think you often just think of, you know, the lake and jumping on the blob or, you know, going down the slide or, you know, the zip line and things like that, rather than some of these educational outcomes and some of these programs that take a lot of time and a lot of intention to build and come from a space of really an educational background rather than a recreational.
Mijal: Mac, speaking of education, when I think about different educational programs or environments, I can often speak about their strengths and I can speak about some of their core weaknesses. So for example, I can say for day school, it can be very structured. I can also speak about it being very expensive, about it separating us from the rest of society. So what would you say are like the weaknesses of the Jewish summer camp experience?
Mac: Yeah, I mean, one is time. We have kids for a very limited amount of time in camp. You know, our longest session is 23 days, 24 days. And we don’t want to spend, you know, five hours a day, you know, in a classroom setting, so to speak. And so balancing camp being fun, joyous and exciting, with some of these, you know, more pointed moments is always a challenge.
I think also going home, there’s very little follow-up. That’s something I know the camp industry, we’ve always been struggling with, how do you get camp home? And I know schools, you’re nine months and you’re always worried about that summer attrition. We have nine months of attrition. And so how much are we really building versus how much are they kind of one-off each year and hope that they’re being supplemented by other experiences throughout the year.
Mijal: Mac, do you ever wonder about like whether the intensity of camp, like I think about going from like the intensity of, you know, 24 seven and then going onto like regular life. You go from like such an immersive intensive. So is that a question for you guys about how to kind of deal with those two modes?
Mac: Yeah, definitely. And it’s actually something that this year in particular, we’ve really tried to push ourselves to make camp a little less intense, not necessarily for the programs to be anything less, but we’ve built in new moments in camp to kind of slow down a little bit. Because that’s something we’ve seen, you know, there’s almost no process time.
Mijal: Hmm. What does that mean?
Mac: Like, when you’re in camp, you’re just, you’re going, going, going and… You come back and your friends say, you changed so much. I’m like, what do you mean? No, I haven’t. But you have. You just haven’t had time to really sit and process. And so this summer, we built a new program. So right before kids go to dinner, there’s a moment to stop and reflect and understand a little bit more of how the day went. At the end of the day, campers have another moment to stop and share rather than just self-reflection.
What was your highlight of the day? What was your struggle today? And then even one more time as a bunk, as a smaller group, something that’s a little bit more intimate rather than just, you know, go, go, go, brush your teeth, get ready for bed, you know, do a quick activity. We’ve really tried to create more intentional activities for campers to be able to process information and be able to just slow, our brains and the time that we can really understand what we’re going through and what’s happening in real time because that is very much a challenge of ours is that it is go, go, go.
And, you know, the days are long and the weeks are short, you can’t remember what you had for breakfast when you’re at dinner, but you have a Shabbat and then all of a sudden you turn around and Shabbat again. And you can’t really explain how you got there. And you look back at the week and you look at every day and you realize how much happens.
It’s hard. It’s really, really challenging. And for some campers, it can be a little overwhelming. And so for this year, we really tried to, we brought in some new experts, you know, to really provide intentional programming for campers to be able to slow down process and share a little bit so that they can try to understand or feel a little bit more.
Noam: Let me ask you this ridiculous question. Should visiting day be abolished?
Mijal: What is visiting day for those of us who are not camp people?
Noam: Visiting day when parents or grandparents or guardians or loving others come to visit. When these kids go to it’s crazy. Just think about this This is part two of my question sleepaway camp is this crazy place where like you have an 11 year old kid or nine year old kid and you say okay, you’re gonna go on this bus now and we’re gonna see you in seven, eight weeks. Okay, like as though that’s a normal thing. It’s crazy.
Mac: Yeah.
Mijal: No, that’s why my community doesn’t do it, by the way.
Noam: I know your community, your community really doesn’t do it as much, right? It’s fewer. Your community, Mijal’s community is a Syrian community. It’s a Sephardic community.
Mijal: One of my communities.
Noam: One of your, I know you’re complicated. You’re a lot of different things. You’re polychromatic.
Mijal: Yeah, my kids’ community. Yeah. Sorry. Go for it now. Thank you. Thank you.
Noam: But the community with which that I am describing right now is a Syrian community. They stay together and it’s awesome. And it’s amazing. And like, they’re with their parents.
Mijal: Yes.
Noam: There’s something in the broader Ashkenazi world, obviously, this doesn’t… Everyone listening, relax, take a chill pill. It’s not… I’m not generalizing, it’s just making this easier. It’s like, okay, see you later. Is that normal? Is that good for our identity? Is that like, is that healthy? It’s scary as a parent. What do you think, Mac?
Mac: Yeah, I mean, I think the question is they’re inherently connected, right? Like I think one, just to answer directly, visiting day on a big fan of no visiting day, I think it has a disruption in camp. I know it’s a lot of fun for parents. But really to me, camp is camp and let it be camp. This is my hot take also and parents on the call, please don’t.
Noam: I like a hot take. I like a hot take. Give me a hot take.
Mac: Photos in camp, they’re the worst. I know parents love them. I know they’re big things, but, and I know it’s important, but I wish, I wish I could.
Noam: No, they’re the worst abolish it Mac Mac speak speak to the foundation of Jewish camps and you tell them that we should abolish all of it all. They’re they’re looking for their kid. They want to know if their kid is like miserable is happy Why is their kid not there? Why is it those kids? my
Mac: across the board. No more salad.
Mac: I do.
Mijal: smiling.
Mac: they’re the best detectives that have ever existed. They’ll find their kids in the tiniest little background of the photo. No, listen, it’s great to be able to share a camp outside. I do truly believe that, but photos are a challenge.
But it does actually speak to the point of, are we crazy to send our kids away? Absolutely not, in my opinion, absolutely not. I think this is something that builds resiliency and grit and understanding that they can take care of themselves, that they can rely on other people outside of the people that are in their immediate space. It also allows them to build trust in others. And I think especially where we’re at right now as an American society and just kind of the world as a whole, trust between people is so low, finding opportunities to be able to build that and understand you can meet someone, you gotta feel them out a little bit, you don’t have to give them full trust right away, but to build that relationship and to build that trust with people is so important and it just doesn’t happen in so many other places in the world. And so to me, I don’t think we’re crazy, I think this is actually a nugget of amazingness that we have within our community and I hope other people start to see it.
But I will say, you know, so I don’t have a lot of interactions with the Syrian community, but we have a large Israeli American community. And they also are very wary to send kids to camp. But it’s something that once they’re in, they see the benefit and it starts to spread through their friends because they really understand that, you know, you can move to the States, but you’re not going to necessarily keep your Judaism or keep that identity forefront if your kids are just going to public school and playing sports, they’re gonna lose a little bit. And it’s really hard to watch your kids go through that.
And camp is a great buffer. Camp provides that space to really bring them back and give that grounding so that when they go home, you have a common language, you have a common experience that, and even though they didn’t go to camp, again, the experience and language and getting to talk about my Madrich from Tel Aviv that I got to meet this year.
Noam: Madrich, one second, Madrich means counselor. Yes.
Mac: Yeah, we use a lot of Hebrew in camp. That’s part of that immersion experience. It’s not always correct Hebrew. We like to call it camp Hebrew, but you know, it’s some language we get to learn.
Noam: Yeah. Camp Hebrew, I like that.
Mijal: I have one last question. I would love, you know, someone who hasn’t done camp in the same way. Could you just give us some stories of like the magic, just some stories that bring us right inside to like the, you know, the smell of camp, the feel of camp. Like, what’s it like?
Mac: Yeah. Of course. I think there’s two stories that come to mind. One, this happened last summer. We had Tisha B’Av in camp over the course of the session. And so we have alternative programming for it. And we allow the opportunity for campers to fast if they want. And there were the campers, 11 years old. And he comes up to me, you know, at the beginning of Tisha B’Av and says, you know, I think I’m going to fast. That’s awesome, man. Like, yes, please give it a try, but be careful. Right?
Like you’re young, it’s something new, it’s really hot in Texas, especially last summer, it was like 105 plus every single day. It was brutal. And so, you know, at the end of the day, my job is health and safety, number one. And so I’m, you know, trying to give them a little bit of a buffer to be ready that maybe he’s not going to make it and that’s okay. There’s still success in that story. And so, you know, he goes through the day, I’m checking in on him and he comes to me, you know, about 10 minutes before breakfast.
And he throws his hands in the air, he jumps, he skips, he says, I did it! And it was just like, there was such excitement for him. And I asked him, I said, I’m just curious, like, you know, why? Why’d you wanna do that? He said, well, I’m gonna have my bar mitzvah next year, and I gotta start getting ready for this, because now I’m gonna be an adult, and so this was my chance to try it, and I knew I could do it in camp, because I had the support and I had the people behind me. And so I thought I’ll just do it and I did it.
And it was just such a great moment in camp that I was surprised. I’ve worked in camp as a professional for 10 years, another six or seven as a seasonal staff member. And even that moment, I hadn’t really seen too many of kids really understanding the kind of forward trajectory and looking down the road and saying, I’m going to have to do some of these things or I’m going to be presented with these opportunities and these options to live a Jewish life. And here’s a chance for me to try something in a space that I know I can try it. And even if I don’t get all the way, there’s still going to be a success that’s celebrated and there’s still going to be something for me to grow through. I never had that kind of thinking when I was 11. And I mean, obviously he’s a special kid, but it was just a moment that was just so, so, so happy in camp.
We also, then we brought him onto the stage, the whole camp cheered for him, and then he went and got a bagel and some cream cheese and stuff right after. But that was a really special moment for me, just kind of personally, but also I think for camp as well.
Another story that comes to mind is from this summer that we, we were doing staffing and we were really looking for our sports director. We’re having a really hard time and we got to about March and we haven’t found them yet. And one of our full-time staff members traveled to Israel to do some volunteering and just to kind of, you know, live our values. And so he goes to Israel to do some volunteering and he ended up meeting up with a counselor of his from literally 11 years ago. The last time this guy was in camp was in 2013. And they stayed in touch kind of throughout the years and ended up meeting up once, really just hit it off as adults. He’s a teacher in Israel now.
They met up a couple more times and through those conversations, our staff person realized that being in camp was really important to him this year. This year, especially beyond other years, the impact that he could have on the larger Jewish community and the relationships that he could build were much more important than what he was gonna be doing in Israel over the summer. And so he called us up a couple of weeks later, asked if we had any jobs.
I said has a great sports background in Israel, teaches some competitive basketball teams and things like that, but then is also a teacher. And so we talked about it, made it work. And I think that to me, that is like the most camp story I can think of. That relationship that lasted literally 11 years and is continuing now, where the camper is the one who brought this older staff person back, is just an amazing thing. This camper, he went through camp, he became a full-time staff member, has changed programs for all the better in the last couple of years. But for him to be out there, have those relationships and bring other people back from literally a decade long is, like I said, that is the most camp thing I can think of because it doesn’t matter, you know, all camp friends are kind of like best friends. It doesn’t matter the amount of time that goes in between. When you rekindle, you kind of get back into that head space and you learn each other again. But you know who you are at the core, you know who the other person is at the core. And learning what they’ve been going on for the last 10 years is just adding to that. It’s not something like you have to redevelop a friendship. The friendship’s already there, you just have to catch up a little.
Noam: I love it. I love it. Mac, this is amazing. For a lot of people that don’t know a lot about sleepaway camp and Jewish camp, what an amazing thing to hear about this from you and your experience and to wonder out loud together about this experience and to see what we could do to maybe get Mijal and maybe we’ll do a tour. Maybe we’ll do a tour of Jewish summer camps, Mijal. That’s our next project. Okay. Anyway.
Mac: You guys are more than welcome. I promise we have probably some of the best facilities of the summer camp you’ll ever see. So come down, check it out. Everything’s air conditioned. We have shade structures around. Our food is good. No, not soft protection.
Noam: Very cool.
Mijal: With air conditioning Mac, as you said 105, just making sure.
Noam: Soft, soft, air conditioning, soft, soft. I’m kidding. All right, Mac. Exactly. Mac, thanks so much for joining us and keep on doing amazing, holy important communal work.
Mijal: Thank you so much, Mac.
Mac: Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you both.