Alternative Winter Break Flashback to Camp

By Year Round Programs
Rebecca helps at Hope of the Valley

Camp is an single experience made up of multiple amazing experiences. Those of us who are now too old to go to junior camps or Tel Yehudah often forget just how much we are missing. Today was Saturday, which is debatably the best day out of the camp week. It is a day filled with fun shabbat services, learning about the week’s parsha by watching the parsha players perform, extra chofesh(free time), havdallah services, and of course rikud(dancing). This is the day that made not only me, but multiple other people, miss camp more than we had any other day this week.

Once we started singing the old songs and dancing the same dances that i had done back at Camp Young Judea, I immediately picked up right where i had left off in middle school. It felt like i had never left in the first place and I had this overwhelming feeling of community accompanied by pure joy. I was overcome with love for my both my religion and the people that were surrounding me. It felt like home.

Camp Young Judea Texas is not just someplace I went for a few summers when I was a kid and then will forget as I grow older. Camp is a place where i made memories that i will have with me forever and a place where i made friendships that will last a lifetime. Camp is and will always be my home and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Dedicated to the place where my heart lives.

~ Rebecca Stetzer – 11th Grade, Houston, Texas

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