16 | SEPTEMBER 19 • 2024
J
N

I

t was a summer of great meaning
at Tamarack Camps.
The Elaine and Michael
Serling Israeli Camper Program,
now in its 22nd year, brought
approximately 140 Israeli campers
— almost twice as many as a typical
summer — to Ortonville for a
summer of respite.
The extra campers were made
up of two evacuated groups from
Kibbutz Gevim and Kibbutz Be’eri.
After Oct. 7, in partnership with
the Jewish Agency for Israel, the
opportunity was offered to bring
those kids from the Gaza envelope
to Tamarack for the summer.
The team at Tamarack Camps, led
by camp director Carly Weinstock,
and the team at the Jewish
Federation of Detroit (JFD), led by
Allison Gutman, worked together

almost every day since fall 2023
to ensure the expanded program’s
success.

PUTTING A PLAN TOGETHER
Both teams met after Oct. 7, not
knowing how long the war would
last at that point, to brainstorm the
systems they would need to put
in place to bring children in a war
zone to Tamarack.
The plan they implemented
included bringing in Israeli
social workers and extra staff
and counselors for those Israeli
campers. It meant finding room
at camp for the extra campers
and staff; Tamarack had 70 Israeli
staff (including an Israeli Camper
Program supervisor) and 28 TLV
(counselors-in-training), more than
ever before.

It meant dedicated training
and professional development for
American and other international
staff for kids coming out of a war
zone and altering activities that
might evoke anxiety for those kids.
It meant meeting with each of the
kids from the Gaza envelope and
their families, who all had major
trauma and had no idea what camp
was like, and communicating with
them about how camp would care
for and support them.
Reflecting on the summer,
Weinstock says the expanded
program went as smoothly as it
could’ve gone, made possible by
program leadership preparing as
much as possible in addition to
having leaders such as Gutman
and Lior Zisser-Yogev, Detroit’s
community’s shlichah, on the

ground at camp.
Both camp sessions (24 days
each) had groups of campers that
came from evacuated areas.

KEEPING THE MAGIC
OF TAMARACK
Second session was a little
more challenging than the first,
Weinstock says. There was a push
to put all the campers who came
from evacuated areas together in
their own village and to not mix
them with Americans or other
Israelis.
Weinstock was firm in keeping
the magic of Tamarack.
“I said no. The success of our
program is that they are a part of
camp, they are doing everything
with camp, and we need to let them
do that.”

The Elaine and Michael Serling Israeli Camper Program brought
almost twice as many Israeli campers as a typical summer.
A Summer of Respite

DANNY SCHWARTZ SENIOR STAFF REPORTER

OUR COMMUNITY
Session Two Israeli campers
pause their welcome dinner with
their host families at Hillel Day
School for a group photo with
Elaine and Michael Serling.