Camp Ramah - History

History

During the 1940s, the Jewish Theological Seminary established Camp Ramah as a tool for furthering Jewish education. The founders envisioned an informal camp setting where Jewish youth would reconnect with the synagogue and Jewish tradition, and a new cadre of American-born Jewish leadership could be cultivated. The founders of Ramah camps were inspired by Camp Massad and Camp Cejwin.

The first camp opened in Conover, Wisconsin in 1947. The program was drawn up by Moshe Davis and Sylvia Ettenberg of the JTS Teachers' Institute. In October 2007, Ettenberg was awarded Pras Ramah (the Ramah Prize) as part of Ramah's 60th anniversary celebrations. Many of the early staff were ex- Camp Massad people and JTS students. In 1950, the second Ramah camp opened in the Poconos and in 1953, the third Ramah camp opened in Connecticut (this camp was later moved to Massachusetts).

Today, Ramah camps are attended by over 6,500 youngsters, ranging in age from 7–16, with a staff of 1,500 counselors, co-counselors, specialists, and teachers. In addition to typical summer camp activities, Ramah camps offer an educational program focusing on Judaism, Zionism, and Hebrew-language instruction on different levels.

Camp Ramah offers sleep-away camps with an option to stay for either 4 or 8 weeks, day camps with busing, an Israel summer tour program for teenagers, a day camp in Jerusalem for American and Israeli children, and a variety of high school programs in Israel.

The camps operate under the aegis of the National Ramah Commission, the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, which provides oversight and educational planning. The mission of Ramah is to create summer camps and Israel programs which inspire commitment to Jewish life and cultivate a new generation of Jewish communal leaders. In addition to its university-aged American counselors, the staff of each camp is joined by a corps of emissaries from Israel known as the "mishlachat/מישלחת".

Ramah operates overnight camps in the Berkshires (New York); California; Canada; Darom (Georgia); New England (Massachusetts); Poconos (Pennsylvania); and Wisconsin. The three day camps include Nyack (New York); Philadelphia; and Chicago. Ramah Outdoor Adventure in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Ramah’s first specialty camp, opened in the summer of 2010. Additionally, Ramah runs summer and high school semester programs in Israel, and partners with summer camp programming in the Ukraine, Argentina, and Israel.