When the idea of including campers with disabilities in Ramah camp was proposed in the late 1960s, there was a great deal of pushback. Fortunately, we have come a long way since the first Ramah camp began including people with disabilities through its Tikvah Program in 1970. Following in this Ramah tradition, Ramah Galim was founded with inclusion as a core value with Tikvah as part of our camp from the beginning — and we get more inclusive each summer.
This year, we began in-depth discussions about inclusion—for people with disabilities and for everyone—during staff week. The Tikvah staff led a Shabbat afternoon program consisting of stations where we learned texts, discussed benefits and challenges of inclusion, and shared concrete strategies for facilitating inclusion. The Tikvah staff also modeled spirited musical Tikvah davening (prayers) for the camp over Shabbat. The entire staff was more excited than ever before to genuinely include and model inclusion for their campers.
Ramah Galim has reached new levels of inclusion. Inclusion is no longer a “program;” rather it is a mindset and an attitude that reflects our values. Two of the 12 campers who started the summer in Tikvah selected Ocean Exploration as their maslul (specialty track), which they seamlessly attended daily with campers from other edot (divisions). The rest of the Tikvah campers rotated through such activities as kayaking, biking, wall climbing, gardening, and performing arts with peers from other divisions. Additionally, each day, Tikvah joined Bogrim and Nachshonim for morning prayers. I have lost track of the number of Friday afternoon, and Shabbat day and weekday evening peulot erev (evening groups) that have included Tikvah and another edah.
The most wonderful part is that inclusion is no big deal. Campers with and without disabilities participate in camp activities daily—from maslul, to meals, Havdalah, singing and dancing, and Yom Sport.
In this very special summer, when children have been apart for so long, it is a delight to see all campers playing, learning, and enjoying being Jewish together, in their special home, just a short walk from the waves of the Monterey Bay. May we continue to grow our naturally inclusive Ramah Galim community.
For Team Israel and members of the media who spent three tense, very exciting nights at Maimonides Park in Coney Island, N.Y., back in September 2016, July 11 was a true homecoming.
Team Israel played a Sunday afternoon game against the FDNY (Fire Department of New York) in Brooklyn, N.Y.—at the same stadium as the miracle games of 2016—before embarking on a series of exhibition games on the East Coast that will then see them fly to Tokyo to compete in the Summer Olympic Games. Israel will face Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the United States and the Dominican Republic. While their medal chances are uncertain, the 24 players on the Olympic roster could not be more excited.
In 2016, nobody took Team Israel seriously as they played in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers. That began to change after they defeated Great Britain once and Brazil twice, and advanced to “Pool A” in South Korea in March 2017 against South Korea, Taiwan and the Netherlands.
Team Israel proceeded to battle through the World Baseball Classic and won the 2019 European Baseball Championship. By finishing in the top five, Israel earned the right to participate in the 2020 Olympics qualifiers. As the winner of that tournament, Team Israel qualified to be one of six national teams to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, the 2020 Olympics were postponed to July 2021, where, being that COVID remains an issue in Japan, they will largely take place without fans and with players living in a bubble reminiscent of the NBA bubble in Florida in 2020.
Nevertheless, July 11 was a day for nostalgia and celebration for the journey and for what Team Israel represents for Israel and the Jewish people. The 12 pitchers, three catchers, six infielders and three outfielders are mainly American-born players of Jewish descent, although there are some native-born Israelis on the team. In order to represent a country in the Olympics, a player must be citizen of that country; thus, all members of Team Israel hold citizenship. Some are former Major Leaguer Baseball players with extensive MLB or Minor League experience.
Team Israel (again) playing at Maimonides Park in Coney Island, N.Y., on July 11, 2021. Photo by Howard Blas.
‘Crazy, rewarding, hard, fun, tough’
Pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, 42, was born in Tel Aviv, played college baseball in the United States and has been affiliated with Israel baseball for more than 30 years. At the World Baseball Qualifiers in 2017, the right-handed pitcher was the only native Israeli on the team.
Baseball and Team Israel have helped keep him focused throughout the pandemic. “The fact that I just keep playing the game kept me really sane while doing my day job,” he says.
Lipetz is vice president of programming for City Winery. He says he is proud of how far Team Israel has come since 2017. “It is no longer the underdog mentality—that we are just happy to be here. With the help of some of the big league guys, folks like Ian [Kinsler] and Danny [Valencia], I think that really helped change our mentality to something of ‘we belong here, and we can make some noise!’ ”
Pitcher Josh Zeid, 34, has played for the Houston Astros and is currently working for the Chicago Cubs in Phoenix, where he is the rehabilitation pitching coordinator. He also pitched for Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic, where he was named to the 2017 All-World Baseball Classic Team.
At the end of the WBC, Zeid thought his baseball career was over. As he looks back on the past four years, he says “it has been crazy, rewarding, hard, fun, tough, but it is crazy. We are standing here today in Brooklyn. Four years ago, we were all here. I thought my career was over at the end of the season. We had a swan song starting in Brooklyn; it is pretty surreal, pretty special.”
The right-handed pitcher uses a bright-blue mitt with the expression “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” inscribed in Hebrew. “My grandfather died six months ago, and these were his last words to me,” he reveals.
Zeid pitched the second inning of the FDNY game and struck out all three batters. “I am honored to play for Team Israel in the Olympics,” he says. “It’s a lifelong dream come true. I feel I have been blessed. Just putting in the work and care and effort to making sure this one comes true as well.”
Pitcher Joey Wagman, 29, was also all fired up to return to Brooklyn as part of Team Israel. Drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the 17th round of 2013 draft, he recalls, “The last time I was here was five years ago for the qualifiers, so it definitely brings back a lot of memories.”
Wagman did not play in 2020, though he resumed training with Team Israel teammate, Zach Weiss, when both lived in Southern California.
“I used the time to refine some things in my movement and delivery and shore up my mental game,” he relates. Over the past three months, Wagman has played professional baseball in the Czech Republic. “It was a different pace of baseball. After an 18-month layoff, it was a decent, relaxed environment, where I could control pitch counts and innings, and it served its purpose as prep for the Olympics.”
Of the opportunity to reunite with his teammates, Wagman says: “It has been years since I’ve seen all these guys—being together brings back so many good memories. There have been so many good memories with Team Israel in the past five years.”
‘We need to start playing some good baseball’
Danny Valencia is arguably Team Israel’s most accomplished player. Valencia, 36, has played for eight Major League teams, and had 795 hits and 95 home runs in 3,000-plus plate appearances. He says he is looking forward to representing Israel in Tokyo. “It is a really cool experience, and it is going to be an awesome memory for all of us.”
Valencia also knows what being in the Olympics will take, noting that “we need to start playing some good baseball.”
Valencia knows this Olympics will feel different due to COVID precautions. “Obviously, we will be in a bubble. There will not be many fans at the games, but it should be an amazing experience. We will be around a lot of great athletes. And we’re there to handle the job but also to enjoy the experience.”
Ben Wanger, 23, a right-handed pitcher, also serves as a designated hitter. His parents, David and Gwen Wanger—both clothed in “Wanger” jerseys—traveled from Newton, Mass., to Brooklyn and watched their son from behind the Team Israel dugout. While they’re unable to attend the Olympics in Tokyo, they dream of the day they will be able to visit Israel for the first time—and celebrate what they hope will be a medal for Team Israel.
Whether Israel ultimately wins gold, silver or bronze, the Wangers are practically glowing over the accomplishments of their son and his teammates—and of what the experience has done for everyone’s Jewish identity.
“The experience for these players, especially American Jews who made aliyah, has been incredibly enriching,” says David Wanger. “They are so much more attuned to their heritage, and they feel incredibly connected to Israel and to the Jewish people.”
The Wangers and the good-sized observant Jewish crowd that showed up in Brooklyn are praying that the miracle of Team Israel will continue. The team is off to a promising start with a 12-3 victory over New York’s bravest: the FDNY. Israel scored an impressive 12 runs on 15 hits, with the first run at the top of the sixth.
Team Israel in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 11, 2021, before they are off to the Tokyo Olympics. Photo by Howard Blas.
In the late 1960’s, Herb and Barbara Greenberg, two teachers working in the field of special education, approached several Jewish summer camps with a novel idea: why not include children with disabilities at camp?
At the time, this was an unheard-of idea, and the Greenbergs encountered a lot of pushback and opposition.
“People worried it would cost too much, disrupt the order of camp, lower the level of Hebrew, and that the [neuro] typical children would leave,” they reflected, years later.
But Donny Adelman z”l, the camp director who was running a Camp Ramahprogram in Glen Spey, New York (the camp later moved to a New England site), responded enthusiastically. As Barbara Greenberg explained in The Jerusalem Post last year, Ramah recognized the Jewish moral imperative that this initiative signified.
It was that recognition, and a willingness to move the needle on Jewish camping, which ultimately led to the establishment of the first Ramah Tikvah program in 1970.
Identifying and recruiting campers that first summer wasn’t easy. Jewish communal professionals were not yet engaged in or thinking much about how to include Jewish children with disabilities in Jewish camping life, and it would be many years before inclusion became a buzzword. But that summer, Herb and Barbara managed to recruit eight campers, and the first Tikvah program was born.
It wasn’t smooth sailing at first. In fact, that inaugural summer, the Greenbergs spent a great deal of time serving as diplomats within the camp community, advocating for their ideal of inclusive camping, and reassuring people at camp who didn’t understand at first how a model like this could work.
But their dedication paid off. Over several years, Tikvah programs began to spring up in Ramah overnight camps across North America, and in dozens of other Jewish summer camps as well (Today, all Ramah overnight camps and day camps serve campers with disabilities, with offerings including camping and vocational training experiences, salaried employment for adults with disabilities, Israel programs, weekly video meetings, and occasional reunions and get-togethers for participants and alumni.)
This model of inclusion was so successful, in fact, that it has begun to serve as an “industry standard” for how Jewish communal spaces welcome children with disabilities into their programming.
While summer programs for campers with disabilities were much needed, there was more to be done. Families still felt there were not enough opportunities for their children to experience Jewish learning during the calendar year and for programming that included the whole family. In addition, accommodations for children with disabilities still weren’t quite meeting the standards necessary for true inclusion (which include, among other things, accommodating for sensory and behavioral needs during prayer services and community-wide events).
Families longed for a place where they could attend a Shabbat service with their child, knowing that a child’s different behavior (loud noises, or an outburst) wouldn’t be deemed a disruption. They desired an environment of acceptance as well as camaraderie with other families.
Rabbi Loren Sykes, a veteran Camp Ramah director and a 2006 Covenant Award recipient, was listening. In 2004, he launched Camp Yofi, a Jewish family camp experience for children with autism, their parents, and their siblings. (Camp Yofi received a Signature Grant from The Covenant Foundation in 2005.)
“We created Camp Yofi out of a desire to establish sacred space for and warmly welcome back Jewish families who were being excluded, actively and passively, from the Jewish community,” Rabbi Sykes shared.
Family camps for children with disabilities take place at Camp Ramah sites once or twice per year in California, the Poconos, and New England.
While inclusive camping clearly benefits people with disabilities and is praised by their parents, the impact on the rest of the camp community is also worth noting. For nearly 50 years, Ramah campers and staff members have been returning home to their synagogues and Jewish communities with a greater awareness of and comfort with people with disabilities. Each camper, staff member, mishlachat (Israeli delegation) member—the entire Ramah community—interacts with people with disabilities in a very natural way—through Shabbat programming, camp-wide field trips, meals in the chadar ochel, special events, free swim, barbecues, and special buddy and peer mentoring programs for campers and staff.
And this bears out in reflections from campers who experience the enrichment of Tikvah firsthand.
“Inclusion has taught me many lessons including patience, tolerance, and acceptance,” said Julia Wolf, a 21-year-old veteran Ramah camper. “These are qualities I take with me in my life, everyday.”
Campers at Ramah who are between the ages of 13-16 also have opportunities across the camp sites to be peer mentors, and often chose to work as inclusion or Tikvah counselors when they return as staff members at age 18. This helps assure a steady pipeline of sensitive, qualified staff.
The Jewish camping community has come a long way since the days of Herb and Barbara Greenberg’s foundational work. Today, many Jewish summer camps offer inclusive programs and the Jewish community as a whole has become far more attentive to the needs of people with disabilities.
But it’s the effect that Tikvah has had on families that is the most resonant of all.
“The Tikvah program at Camp Ramah in New England is Molly’s happy place,” said Hannah Jacobs, the parent of a long-time Tikvah camper.
“It’s more than just a second [summer] home for Molly,” Hannah continued. “It’s also the only place that allows her the freedom to be her true self.”
Tough times demand tough Jews. If Jon Loew has his way, Jews in the United States and around the world will invest the time and energy needed to learn self-defense to protect themselves. Loew has been worried about the safety of the Jewish community for years and has been passionately making this case for Jewish self-defense, often feeling that the Jewish world wasn’t listening.
In 2001, the Long Island native who is a lawyer, businessman and firefighter started Fuel for Truth, Israel education and advocacy training in response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City and Pentagon in Washington, D.C. “After I saw the buildings burning on 9/11, I knew this would have implications for American Jews. I was worried about what would happen on college campuses.”
Loew found that most in the Jewish community did not share his level of concern: “Jewish organizations said there was no problem—in academia, the media, etc.”
His self-funded training program continued to expand in its quest to educate college students about Israel. Loew continued to worry about the Jewish community. “With the summer conflict in Gaza (‘Operation Protective Edge’) in 2014, I saw a correlation between the war against Israel and attacks on Jews outside of Israel.”
Again, he found the organized Jewish community to be unresponsive with many saying, “it will never happen—they had their head in the sand—again!”
That same year, in response to what Loew felt was a “rising tide of physical attacks against Jews,” he established the Legion self-defense and counter-terrorism training program.
The nonprofit has grown to facilitate the training of Jews in 12 U.S. cities, including in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Florida. Credit: Courtesy.
Legion’s mission is to train and equip civilians with the skills needed to defend themselves and their families. The founders of the organization sought to establish deterrence so Jews would not be seen as “easy targets.” The nonprofit has grown to facilitate the training of Jews in 12 U.S. cities, including in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Florida. The Legion has also announced the addition of the first two gyms outside the U.S., in Toronto and London. To date, more than 400 men and women from age 20 to 70 have received training from instructors, which include v special-forces veterans from the United States and Israel, senior intelligence officers, combat medics, and MMA (mixed martial arts) and Krav Maga professionals.
Legion is expanding and making it easier for Jews across the country to access self-defense training. “We have become a networking organization to connect gyms and people who want to train there,” notes founder and former chairman Loew. He is committed to “hooking people up with self-defense gyms in their area, wherever they live.” He’s even looking to expand outside of the United States.
Loew is concerned that violence against Jews continues to increase, that Jews are not properly acknowledging the problem and that they are not learning to defend themselves. “We want Jews to increase awareness of the threat, to restore some level of deterrence and to increase their ability to defend themselves,” he explained. “As a result, they will feel more confident.”
Loew even imagines a day when every Hebrew school and Jewish day school will teach self-defense as part of regular PE (physical education). “I want every Jew to be a Ninja!”
Loew is concerned that violence against Jews continues to increase, that Jews are not properly acknowledging the problem and that they are not learning to defend themselves. Credit: Courtesy.
‘Self-defense can no longer be a foreign concept’
Meredith Weiss, co-founder of Legion and its voluntary chief operating officer, shares Loew’s concerns and supports his approach to addressing the problem.
“I fully believe Jews must take a proactive approach in their own safety. It’s all about deterrence. We cannot leave our physical well-being or security in the hands of others.”
Weiss, who grew up in Lawrence, N.Y., has always been strongly connected to Israel and went through Legion’s programs, though she notes that it was a bit challenging in the beginning. “We had people laugh at us when we started up. ‘You’ll never get a room of Jews training.’ We did exactly that. Then, we did it again … and again … and again.”
The first chapter was in Manhattan, and by 2015, they were training a full class of students.
Weiss firmly believes that “self-defense can no longer be a foreign concept to American Jews. It must become the absolute norm.”
She is passionate about the organization and the need for Jews to learn to defend themselves. She playfully, yet seriously, notes that fitting self-defense training into an otherwise busy schedule is both possible and necessary: “Wake up, have coffee, get a day of Zoom meetings in, grab the dog at the groomer, learn how to get out of chokeholds and then be home in time to see the kids before bed!”
