Former campers serve Valley's Jewish community
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
Studies show that attending Jewish overnight camp strengthens Jewish identity. Additionally, a study conducted by the Wexner Foundation found that young people who attend Jewish camp are more likely to pursue a career in the Jewish community.
Jon Levin is the director of Camp Pearlstein in Prescott - the only overnight Jewish camp in Arizona. Levin, 40, credits his own positive experiences as a young staff member at a Jewish camp with his decision to become a Jewish camp director. Looking toward his 30th year at a Jewish camp, Levin has moved through the ranks from camper to staff member to director.
"Camp provides me with my strongest Jewish contact," he says. "I would miss that if it wasn't there."
Likewise, John Magoulas, 31, senior campaign associate at the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, sees Jewish camping as the most influential aspect of his Jewish upbringing.
"The reason I'm doing what I'm doing in the Jewish community is because of my camping experience," he explains.
Like Levin, Magoulas also started as a camper, became a staff member and eventually became a day camp director and a programming director for the camp he attended as a child.
Courtney Cabot, 26, daughter of Jewish News Contributing Editor Vicki Cabot, finds that attending Jewish camp helped form her Jewish identity.
"I really got involved with Judaism and it helped me figure out where I fell on the spectrum between Reform and Orthodox," she says.
Cabot is now pursuing a degree in education and hopes to become a Jewish day school teacher.
What is it about Jewish camp that led these adults on paths to work in the Jewish community?
"Camp is such a unique environment," says Levin. "It's the only place, other than Israel, that you really live within a Jewish community. "Everything runs by Jewish life from wake up to bedtime. That's unique and I think that's what does it - the comfort, the feeling of camaraderie with the people around you. You're not a minority anymore."
Cabot, who attended Camp Ramah in California, says she had the opportunity to experience a more traditional Jewish lifestyle at camp than the one she shared with her family. Among other things, the camp was kosher, Sabbath observant and prayers, blessings and rituals were part of daily life.
"You also had your activities, but they always revolved around Judaism. So, if you were cooking, you were learning how to make sufganiyot (jelly donuts), or if it was theater, you were doing a play in Hebrew," she explains.
And, like most current and former campers, Levin, Magoulas and Cabot all see the camaraderie at Jewish camps as one of the most important elements.
Cabot says the friends she made at camp remained her friends during the school year - young people from Phoenix, Tucson, Vancouver and Southern California.
"They had the same morals and values that I did," she explains.
The friends Magoulas made were like a "second family."
"It was a very good part of my life - spending time and getting to know other Jewish kids and sharing our stories and spending time together and just growing. We all grew together," Magoulas says. "It came to the point when it was bar mitzvah time, and these were the kids that were at my bar mitzvah."
The strong ties made with other Jewish youth at camps are not easily broken, according to Levin.
"The friends I had at camp as a young teen are still my friends today," he says.
Magoulas says that some of the close bonds were formed through the continuity of the camp he attended and worked at - Camp Akiva, a program of his synagogue in Culver City, Calif.
"You're a camper for nine years and then you become a CIT (counselor-in-training). Then you become a junior counselor, a senior staff member and a unit head. ... Every staff member there now was once one of my campers," he recalls.
Levin also points out that the educational aspect of camp is important.
"Camp puts them a step ahead of kids who don't go to Jewish camps in terms of their knowledge of the prayers and tunes and rituals because we do it every day," he says. "When they come home and they learn prayers, preparing for bar and bat mitzvah, they're 10 steps ahead."
Cabot also appreciates the educational opportunity camp offered her.
"Although my secular school had ended and I had these three months off, I was still learning another type of education during the summer, and my mind was still being stimulated and I think that's important."
Contact the writer at beth_olson@jewishaz.com.
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