Tag: Camp Ramah

Letting Go, Living in Community, Making Friends

Camp Food

Jen

Earlier this week, we joined 10 or so other families in the Chader Ochel* on the kibbutz for a potluck communal dinner.  I got really excited when the invitation arrived in my inbox; for one, I understood the Hebrew flyer almost in its entirety without the assistance of my part-time translator (who also acts as my husband.) But also,  a communal dinner in the Chader Ochel reeked of summer camp, and this, my friends, is why I moved to a kibbutz.

When I think back to the most dramatic, intense, inspiring moments of my childhood, I’m transported back to camp. I split my adolescence between two overnight camps: Camp Wohelo, an all-girls camp in the Blue Ridge mountains of Pennsylvania; and when Wohelo closed, I joined Camp Wekeela, a co-ed camp in Maine. And perhaps it’s the intensity of once having been a part of those camp communities that has me continually seeking to replicate the experience.

I would come home from camp at the end of each summer and instead of hopping off the bus with utter joy at finally being reunited with my parents, I would weep in despair. I remember one summer my parents picked me up at the IKEA by the Plymouth Meeting Mall where the bus dropped us off, and we stopped at Pizza Hut for lunch before getting on the road to Cherry Hill. My parents tried to engage me: Asking me to share tales of my adventures or filling me in on the local gossip. But I just cried into my pan pizza, in between hiccups moaning, “I want to go back. I want to go back.”

The dinner in the Chader Ochel on Wednesday was only vaguely reminiscent of the camp dining hall. While there was plenty of noise and chaos, there were no twenty-year-old Scottish lads delivering big plates of steaming hot schnitzel to my table. Instead, I was doing the waitering, filling up my kids’ plates with homemade pizza and mac and cheese; while said kids ran around like wild maniacs. I have to admit, though, since running around like wild maniacs is a regular evening activity for my children, I’d rather it be in someone else’s noisy dining room than my own. 

I sat across the table from my new friend Anat, who arrived to Hannaton with her family only a few days before we did. Anat was explaining the traditional kibbutz movement to her 10-year-old daughter; particularly the part about the children living together in a house, only seeing their parents a few hours every day. Anat and I both shared with sparkles in our eyes that, as kids, we both thought the idea of living on a kibbutz was cool.

Anat’s daughter wasn’t sold on the idea. She thought that children would want to spend more time with their parents, and she might be right. There is an Israeli film (which I have not seen) called “The Children’s House and the Kibbutz” which supposedly emphasizes the “emotionally deficient childhood that [kibbutz members] experienced in the children’s house of their kibbutz.”

However, thanks to sleepaway camp and a library filled with young adult books set in boarding school, I’ve always had the impression that living with other children far away from your parents was the best way to live. In my mind, only in dormitory-style rooms or in the woods behind said dormitory style room did fun and exciting things happen.

And, perhaps, I still retain that notion today. Is it possible that my choice to live on a kibbutz is partly inspired by my unfulfilled dream of year-round summer camp?

Yes.

There are a lot of similarities, as I can tell so far. Seeing and interacting with the same people day-to-day; moving from activity to activity in groups; retreating to the quiet solitute of your cabin when you need some down time.

Making friends on a kibbutz is camp style, too. I almost feel like the camper who arrives for the second four-week session super excited to become part of what looks like an awesome scene, but hesitant to integrate herself into the groups and cliques that already organically formed earlier in the summer. My kids, thrust into school and Gan without a choice, are getting over the shy hump a lot faster than their parents. But kids have a lot less relationship baggage to keep them from sharing of themselves authentically and without hesitation, don’t they? 

Have no fear. Just as it’s impossible for me to be late to a party no matter how hard I try, I know that I won’t be able to maintain this level of shyness for much longer. It’s not in my nature.

My nature is to play, to laugh, and to make others laugh: And sooner or later I will need to leave the safe confines of “Ani lo m’daberet Ivrit” to get a much-needed fix.

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GLOSSARY
Chader Ochel = Dining Hall
Ani lo m’daberet Ivrit = I don’t speak Hebrew

Learning Hebrew, Love, Work

The Israel Experience

Jen

Part of the reason I feel so safe and secure in my decision to move to a foreign country is because my husband is not only fluent in the native language, but he lived here as both a child and, for a short time, as a young adult. Furthermore, he spent many years leading and coordinating teen tour programs through Israel. He even has an Israeli passport. In my mind, he’s Israeli.

But, as he keeps trying to tell me, there’s Israeli and then there’s Israeli.

The other day, we were driving around Tiberias on our way home from Misrad HaKlita (the most important government office for new immigrants since they are in charge of issuing us our monthly stipend) when I saw an interesting looking building.

“What’s that building? Do you know? It looks like a museum,” I asked Avi.

“I don’t know what that building is,” he responded.

“What? It says yad v’levanim. That sounds like yad vashem. Is it a museum?” I asked more emphatically.

“I really don’t know. Maybe it’s a museum,” he responded a little more impatiently.

“Well, what does yad vashem mean? Doesn’t it mean hall of rememberance or something?”

“No,” he said. “Yad means hand. Shem means name.”

“Yes, I know,” I said finally exasperated. “But maybe yad is like an official word for rememberance museum, even though it doesn’t mean museum or rememberance?!?”

“Jen! I don’t know what Yad V’levanim is,” he said. “I don’t know why they called it Yad Vashem. I don’t know everything! I can tell you what it’s like to swim in the Dead Sea, or what time of day you should climb Masada, or where to find kosher pizza on Ben Yehuda street. I know the Israel experience! I don’t know Israel LIFE!”

And suddenly I got it. Avi is a newbie, just like me.

Neither of us are freshmen, thank goodness, which is why we had the courage to make this move.  I’d probably place myself with the sophmores: I know enough Hebrew to read road signs and enough Arabic to know that the billboards in this village are not in Hebrew.

Avi is easily a rising senior, with his fluency and ability to seemlessly switch from an American to Israeli accent. He can order a double espresso and flirt with the Israeli barista; he can explain our son’s nut allergies to the waitress; and he can talk his way out of a speeding ticket. But he still has a bit to learn: There are words he needs to know now that he never learned as a kid, like “income tax” or “down payment.” Though an experienced professional for many years, most of which involved interacting with very high level professional and community leaders in both the States and Israel, Avi now needs to learn how to be an Israeli businessperson and consumer.

This isn’t the JCC Israel Experience, where we get a driver, a tour guide, and an air-conditioned bus, not to mention thousand of shekelim to keep in our fanny packs “just in case.” This is no vacation. This is no three-hour tour. This is our life.

And we’re not counselors looking after a bunch of teenagers from Syosset for five weeks — we’re parents of three young kids, who happen to have a few challenging needs to navigate in Israel. In particular, a sesame allergy for one and a nut allergy for the other.  But, that’s a rant of a different color.

I’m lucky. I know this. I don’t need to clutch my Hebrew-English dictionary. I have a husband who, for the most part, serves that purpose. I’m also fortunate to have a few friends here, who have already crossed the bridges I need to cross, and can advise me as to which is the smoother trail.

But, for sure, my husband and I are now seeing Israel through new pairs of eyes. Not as eager young tourists or upbeat, energetic counselors who know that a hot shower, a soft bed, and a familiar home-cooked meal are only weeks and a plane ride away.

Nope.

This is our home now. And it’s going to take both skill sets — his and mine — to make it feel that way.