Camp Rahmah Tikvah

Original Article Published On The New York Jewish Week

Inclusive Jewish summer camp options for children and young adults with disabilities now abound.

This is part of a series of essays in honor of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month.

When the Ramah Camping Movement started including campers with disabilities through its Tikvah Programs in 1970, the world was a very different place.  Tikvah’s founders, Herb and Barbara Greenberg, two Long Island school teachers, faced opposition and roadblocks almost every place they turned. They were told that “including people with disabilities would bankrupt the camps, disrupt the structure, lower the level of Hebrew and cause the ‘normal’ campers to leave.”  

One Ramah director, Danny Adelman, z’l, (director of Ramah Glen Spey in New York, and later, Camp Ramah in New England in Massachusetts) felt it was a Jewish value and imperative to include people with disabilities.  With that “yes” in the late 1960s, the Jewish inclusive camping movement was underway! Every Jewish summer camp, school, youth movement and Israel which program which supports and includes people with disabilities should pause to remember and pay tribute to the pioneering, brave work of the Greenbergs.

It wasn’t easy going at first.  Once the camp agreed to Tikvah, the Greenbergs first had to find those campers.  As the Greenbergs, long-time citizens of Israel after 29 years directing Tikvah, report, “They weren’t in the synagogues!”  Rabbis weren’t very helpful in identifying participants since families of children with disabilities weren’t coming to the synagogues—they didn’t feel welcomed.  They managed to find eight participants for that first Tikvah summer. 

That first summer 50 years ago laid the groundwork for inclusive camping within Ramah and in all of Jewish camping. Now, all 10 Ramah overnight programs and it various day camps support campers with disabilities and their families through camping programs, vocational training programs, supportive employment, Israel trips and Family Shabbatons.

In the past ten years, we have seen in increase in the number of Jewish overnight and day camps supporting campers with a range of disabilities, and a general shift in attitude toward inclusion.  Camps are doing a better job training their staffs, providing tools to support all campers. The Ramah Camping Movement offers an inclusion track at its twice a year national trainings, and the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) has a network for inclusion specialists, and offers a disabilities inclusion track at its biannual Leaders Assembly. 

Families of children and young adults with disabilities now have more choices in summer camping—by location, religious affiliation, and type of camp.  And camps with camping programs are increasingly looking for ways to expand vocational training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities as they get older.  Keeping Jews in Jewish camp for as long as possible continues to be a goal of Jewish camping—for people with and without disabilities.  

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I will be visiting Camp Ramah and here is my schedule:-

  • Camp Ramah in New England; July 1-2
  • Camp Ramah in the Rockies:  July 25-28
  • Camp Ramah in the Berkshires: July 31-Aug 1
  • Camp Ramah in the Poconos and URJ Camp Harlam August 5-7

Here are some photos when I was teaching from Camp in Rockies

This summer, Howard will also be visiting creative job sites in Wyoming, Colorado, New Jersey, New York and beyond.

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Original Article Published on the Camp Ramah In New England

By Miriam Benson

National Ramah Tikvah Network Director Howard Blas paid a visit with a special delegation including (from right to left, above): Cindy Dolgin, National Ramah Commission Development Director; Allison Kleinman, LCSW, Director of Jack and Shirley Center for Special Needs at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, and Michelle Wexler, LMSW, who wears three hats: Camp Settoga CIT Director, Center for Special Needs School Age and Transitions Coordinator, and Center for Family Life Tween Coordinator.  The group toured our Machaneh (camp) led by Howard as well as Dr. Bonnie Schwartz, Ramah Palmer’s Tikvah Director.  For Bonnie’s recent reflections on Tikvah, please see here:

Tikvah: Realizing the Hope by Dr. Bonnie Schwartz, Tikvah Director

The purpose of the visit was primarily to share the vocational education program at Ramah with colleagues from the JCC of Manhattan Center for Special Needs. Allison Kleinman has been Director for 10 years, and she is also co-chair of the UJA NY Task Force on People with Disabilities.  All the members of this delegation share a serious interest in job training for people with disabilities, and the very real issue of what happens for people with disabilities after they graduate from high school.   On the tour, the delegation visited members of Voc Ed and Voc Ed Maavar (Transitional group) hard at work at many jobs around our machaneh. The group below successfully performs the daily essential work in our mailroom, including sorting and delivering hundreds of pieces of mail and packages.

Pictured here:  preparing hundreds of sandwiches in the kitchen for Tuesdays Six Flags trip, making up guest rooms in the guest house, filling snack orders at the Makolet (Snack Outlet) and baking in the Voc Ed bakery”.

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Original Article published on The Camp Ramah Northern California

Tikvah changed my life. In 1984, I was hired to work in the kitchen at Camp Ramah in New England. A day before my arrival, I was asked if I would fill a last minute opening in the Tikvah Program. “What is Tikvah?” I asked. My experience that summer led to my pursuing a career in disabilities inclusion. I spent a total of 21 years working with Tikvah at Ramah New England and have been working as the director of our National Ramah Tikvah Network for five years. In that capacity, I work with the Tikvah directors of all Ramah camps, sharing best practices, discussing vocational training, staff recruitment, Israel trips and more. Three years ago, I was privileged to have my Ramah affiliations include Ramah Galim.

When I speak about Tikvah nationally and internationally, I point out that there was a lot of pushback in the late 1960s when Herb and Barbara Greenberg proposed the idea for Tikvah. Tikvah opened in 1970 in Glen Spey, New York and soon after moved to Ramah New England. Camp by camp, Tikvah was incorporated in to each camp. We recently celebrated 50 years of Tikvah in Israel during our recent Tikvah Ramah Bike Ride and Hike.

At Ramah Galim, Tikvah was fully a part of camp from the outset. Rabbi Sarah Shulman and the board of directors felt strongly that Ramah Galim should not open its doors without Tikvah. How far we have come in four years!

In 2015, my colleague Elana Naftalin Kelman, the longtime Tikvah director at Ramah California in Ojai, directed a one week Tikvah Program. I was privileged to join the Galim family the following year when Tikvah expanded to a two-week program. With the support and visionary leadership of Rabbi Sarah, we started a two week Ezra vocational training program that summer—with two participants. We soon expanded the Ezra Program to two sessions (one or two session option), and our numbers increased in both Amitzim and Ezra.

Amitzim campers are full members of the camp community. We participate in all camp-wide activities, live in the bayit and eat meals with the camp community in the chadar ochel, participate in Shabbat davening and daily mincha moments—and boogie board, kayak, ride horses, climb the climbing wall, farm and more with our peers from other edot.

Members of the Ezra Program set up the dining room, sort and deliver mail and packages, sort and deliver nishnoosh (snack), work with farm animals at the horse barn, and will soon launch an as of now “secret” in camp business (shhhhh!).

We are pleased that to report that Tikvah has 13 members this session—7 in Amitzim and 6 in Ezra. The participants are excited for their first Shabbat with members of the larger camp community, and they are preparing for their masa (camping trip) next week.

I have been privileged to direct Tikvah year round and in person for the past three years. My in-person work with Tikvah is drawing to a close. In my National Ramah role, I will continue visiting Tikvah programs across North America. I will also be visiting innovative vocational training programs across the country. I will continue to be in close contact with Tikvah and with the Ramah Galim community. We are so proud of the inclusive community Ramah Galim continues to be!

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