Mexico City’s Congregation Bet El.
Camp Guide ❉
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Mexican Jewish campers at Colorado’s Ramah in the Rockies
2139360
All Are Welcome
Colorado’s Camp Ramah builds bridges
by welcoming Mexican Jewish youth.
Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman | JNS.org
E
ver since President-elect Donald
Trump talked about building
a “big, beautiful wall” divid-
ing Mexico from the United States,
Colorado’s Ramah in the Rockies
Jewish summer camp has been build-
ing a bridge between the camp and
Conservative Bet El Synagogue in
Mexico City.
This year, after several years of plan-
ning and considering, more than 20
Mexican Jewish campers, three coun-
selors and Bet El spiritual leader Rabbi
Leonel Levy spent two weeks from July
20 to Aug. 2 at the camp, joining bunks,
taking part in traditional camp activi-
ties and sharing some traditions of their
own.
“Hachnasat orchim [welcoming
guests] is a big Jewish value, and I can-
not think of a better way to express that
value than to welcome any kid who
would want to come to our camp,” says
Eliav Bock, founding director of the
camp.
Bock’s relationship with Levy started
several years ago when they met on
Bock’s vacation to Mexico. They hit it off
immediately and excitement grew about
Ramah hosting Mexican campers. But
funds and other challenges meant that
only a handful of students have managed
to come.
This year, Levy got organized and
raised money. “It’s expensive for
Mexicans,” says Levy, who also arranged
a group flight and other transportation
to the camp. Mexico City is more than
1,700 miles away from Ramah.
During the two weeks of the Mexican
campers’ attendance, Ramah hung a
Mexican flag alongside the traditional
Israeli and American flags. Levy led
Spanish-language prayer services and the
camp integrated the Spanish language,
and other opportunities for Mexican
campers to share their culture with the
camp.
One night, the Mexican campers
joined the kitchen staff to whip up tradi-
tional Mexican cuisine.
“They made real Mexican food,” said
Bock. “It was awesome.”
American counselor Mikaela Gerwin
staffed a four-day camping trip with a
mix of Mexican, Israeli and U.S. camp-
ers. The first night, the campers talked
about their hometowns. Though lan-
guage was a barrier, they tried to com-
pare and contrast their lives.
“In the beginning, language made it
difficult,” says Gerwin. “But by the end of
the trip, the boys were building a bridge
together — without speaking. They
played this game where someone would
ask a student who spoke a different lan-
guage a question he couldn’t understand.
And the camper would have to answer
yes or no — sometimes it was really
funny, like ‘Do you like eating dessert for
breakfast?’ They would all start giggling.”
For Mexican camper Dalia
Stosennacher, 16, the experience
was religiously eye-opening. While
Ramah is a Conservative camp — and
Stosennacher comes from a Conservative
family — she says observance is strik-
ingly different.
“The Mexican Conservative synagogue
is way more Orthodox,” Stosennacher
contends. “I was surprised to see women
wear teffilin or read from the Torah.”
However, she says she took away new
religious lessons, too, such as a deeper
spirituality and a concept of respect for
the environment.
Ramah in the Rockies has a tradition
of being open and inclusive, according
to Bock, by reaching out to the LGBT
community and to children from fami-
lies whose parents are in recovery from
drug and alcohol abuse. It hosts students
from Canada, Israel, China and the
Netherlands — though mostly from the
U.S. The Mexican group of students is
the largest concentrated group of inter-
national campers Ramah in the Rockies
has ever hosted.
*
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