What does it feel like to live on kibbutz?

Personally I really like it; you grow up in a very caring environment and are supported by a very good education. By age 13 you have a bar or bat mitzvah with all your relatives and by age 14 you get a job (I think that’s an amazing skill that not all kids have or get). You are always aware of the community around you.  School is on a different kibbutz, five minutes away by bus and is a school that is attended by all the surrounding community’s children, mostly from kibbutzim. On kibbutz we have a youth club house were we usually go after school to do our homework, relax, or anything at all.

But to answer the serious questions on everybody’s’ minds!

No, we do not have camels.

Yes, we have TV’s and IPods (even the new ones)

And yes, we do feel kind of isolated from the rest of the world.

~ Raziel Churgin attending camp Tel Yehudah in 2014 and is a second generation Judaean, his parents Sharon Benheim and Neil Churgin both grew up in Young Judaea before moving to Israel and Ketura. 

Hello, my name is Nadav Cohen and this is my Young Judaea story.  And it is a real Young Judaea story. It all started in January 1997 when my mom, Tamar Paul Cohen, was sent as a “Shlicha” (emissary) by the Jewish agency to Long Island, NY. She was working for UJA federation of New York and Young Judaea. During the summers my mom worked in the Young Judaea camps, first in 1997 she was the “merakezet” of Machane Hachsharah in Tel Yehudah and then in 1998 she worked as the Israeli “shlicha” at C amp Sprout Lake. While my mom worked in Sprout Lake she was pregnant with me, which is something that always reminds me how long and special my connection is to Young Judaea.

I was born in Plainview, Long Island, in September 1998.  When I was 4 months old, my family returned to Israel after staying in USA for two years. We moved to a house in Ness Ziona which is a small city not far from Tel Aviv.

 In 2002 my mom decided to work for CYJ Sprout Lake again, this time not from the Jewish Agency, but directly with camp.  She was an Omanut specialist. While my mom was working in Sprout Lake, my sister, brother and I enjoyed being a “Chanichim” (campers). Although I was only 4 years old and couldn’t connect to any of the campers because I didn’t know English at all, I still remember having fun as a “Gan” kid. Through 2007 my entire family attended Sprout Lake  for second session. In those years I was a Gan kid

In 2008, after going on a 6 months worldwide trip with my family, I decided to stop going to Sprout Lake. It was hard for me there as an Israeli and my mom stopped working in Sprout so I didn’t want to go. The different culture and the language made it hard for me to fully enjoy camp.

In 2012, after not going to camp for 4 years, I decided to go back to YJ. During the years I attended  other camps in Israel, However I always felt that need to go back to YJ, to go back to the place where my brother cried when he had to leave, the place where my sister calls “my second home”, the place where I grew up. So I went to camp alone for the first time as a “Bogrim” camper. I still remember how afraid I was but now I know it’s one of the best decisions I have ever made. From 2012 until this summer I have been going to YJ. I feel now that YJ is my home, YJ is me. Camp is amazing in all ways: I met a lot of amazing friends; I become connected to my Judaism and improved my English. When I tell my friends about camp they are jealous and they should be because camp YJ is the best and most educational experience I have ever had.

~Nadav Cohen

Nadav is in the 11th grade and lives in Tel Aviv. He hopes to continue to be involved in YJ while in Israel and can’t wait for his friends to get to Machon next summer.

Chicago Young Judaea started off the year with a blast! Stepping up to the challenge of planning consistent year round events, nine teens met with Chicago’s YJ rep, Lee Gruen at the home of Kayla Lesch last Sunday for an afternoon of leadership training. Discussing what it means to be a leader and what they hoped to see happen in Chicago, the group laid out a schedule for the upcoming year including laser tag, social action events, and overnighters. After the leadership training, all Chicago Bogrim were invited for dinner and a campfire. The event had a great turn out, with almost twenty kids coming from all over the Chicago area and even Indiana. The evening was spent playing ice breaker games, catching up with friends, and of course, eating s’mores. With the music playing and kids sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows, the atmosphere in the Lesch’s suburban backyard felt like it was right back at camp.

“I’m so excited to see real events happening in Chicago. And it was great to work with Lee, “ -Ben Hirsch, 15.

“I love seeing all my daughters camp friends together in our backyard,” -Debbie Lesch, mother of campers Kayla, Ben and Aryeh.

“I can’t wait for the rest of the year!” – Sam Honan, 16.

~Kayla Lesch

Last month, Young Judaea South Florida had an amazing kick-off event! We had an outstanding number of kids in grades 4-7 show up. The kids were eager to bring YJ back and everyone was excited to see all their friends. We also had many new faces show up who shared that they loved the event and can’t wait for more. We started off the event with mingling and free play for the returning kids to see their friends again and the new kids to get to know everyone. We then split up into two groups -4th-5th graders and 6th-7th graders. The groups rotated between different stations. One station had a Jeopardy game all about Israel and Young Judaea. We even snuck in a Rikkud category which was extremely fun for everyone involved. We played a few seconds of the music and to get the question correct they had to get up and do some of the dance. The other station was different mixer games that involved a lot of laughing kids. For the third station everyone joined together and did a great round of Shira Shketa and Rikkud. Every single kid was dancing and singing just like they would be if they were at their respective junior camps. Overall it was a great event with an even better turnout! I am thrilled that each kid is excited to come to more events throughout the year and that the parents are even more thrilled that their kids get to experience Young Judaea like they did growing up! I can’t wait for future events that YJ South Florida will have in the coming year!

~Adina Tuchman

Click HERE for pictures of the event.

Adina is part of the leadership of South Florida Young Judaea.  She participated in Hadracha and Hamama at Camp Tel Yehudah this past summer.  Next summer, she will be in the MIT program at Camp Judaea.

I’ve never been a fan of Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day – a day on which masses of soldiers visit schools, cemeteries and houses of mourning, like swarms of uniforms and insignia coming to give their last respects to a fallen friend, father, brother or sister.

I have trouble with this day. Something in me doesn’t relate to sadness (although I have had friends who have fallen in action) or to collective memory (I’ve never seen myself as part of a collective), or to memory for that matter (even though I have served myself). But for some reason, every year I was drawn to the Memorial Day ceremony at school.  Why?  Maybe because I wanted to feel like I belonged, or like a hero because I showed up in uniform, or to comfort mourners because the tissue always peaked out of the pocket of my wrinkled uniform.

For many years I tried to understand why although I had no connection to this day, but was still drawn each Memorial Day to the same place.

One day, it hit me: What if it happened to me? What if this happened to my children? What would I do then?

On February 4, 1997, two Israeli Air Force helicopters collided in mid-air over the Hula Valley. One crashed in the moshav She’ar Yashuv, the other in an open field. 73 soldiers were killed in this disaster, among them soldiers of the Golani Brigade, Nachal, and two dogs in active service.

They were not killed by enemy fire, or by an explosive device while evacuating a building in Gaza, or by a rocket attack launched from one of the countries calling on Israel to be destroyed because we are living on their land – but from a mistake, a fatal mistake that took the lives of people’s children, brothers and friends.

Lieutenant Erez Stark, one of the soldiers killed in the tragedy, left behind a notebook with poems, songs and essays.  In one of these poems he wrote:

Nothing will hurt me, nothing,
Not a woman, nor a terrorist’s bullet, nothing,
Because that’s what I swore to my brother, my sister, my parents
And I cried by night and took care by day
Because I was afraid something would hurt my parents
And my father’s voice echoes in my head

After Erez was killed in the crash, the group Knessiat HaSechel (The Church of Reason) took the poem, put a melody to it, and released it for Memorial Day. The song was received very positively by Israelis and became a sort of national anthem for Yom HaZikaron. But more importantly, it encapsulated the pain that every Israeli feels on this day – and that some feel every day. That we promise to our parents that we will be ok, that we will come back healthy, victorious and not losers, with  our heads held high and not with our tails between our legs.  But what if we do not?  What if we are hit not by a terrorist’s bullet, but by something else?

In the second verse, Erez wrote:

If you’re standing above me now
I must not have kept my word
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry

Then it hit me: Maybe I come back each year to say that I am still here, like a checklist to verify that I still exist and I didn’t go anywhere, and even though some of my friends didn’t keep their promise and are no longer here, I still am, and I’m keeping my promises. And if I’m still here, I can change something so that it won’t happen again.

And maybe, just maybe, one day in Israel people won’t have to promise their parents, friends and siblings that they will return. They just will.

To listen to the song, click here

Yoav Levin is Young Judaea’s New England Shaliach. Read Yoav’s bio HERE. To read the article in Hebrew, click HERE.

Hadracha Plus (H+) was one of the most influential and unique Young Judaea experiences of my life. Going into the program this summer, I had no idea what to expect, but was very hopeful and open-minded. I went to Camp Young Judaea Sprout Lake both sessions for six years, and vividly remember having an H+ counselor stay in my bunk for second session almost every summer. I remember treating them the same as I would any other counselor that I’ve had.  They were always very passionate about camp and really enjoyed being around the campers. As a camper, I couldn’t wait to be in Hadracha Plus when I was older. When my final summer as a camper at Tel Yehudah finally rolled around, I was exceptionally excited to make this summer the best one yet.

After having an amazing first session at TY in the Hadracha program, I was anxious to start the H+ program. My peers in the program were many people from my previous summers at camp and it made me feel both excited and nervous to become closer to them and to share in this unique experience of Hadracha Plus together. One of the head staff members at Sprout Lake assigned me to the kesher girls, who are 12 years old. I felt really happy to be assigned to this age group because they’re at such a transitional stage in their lives and I felt  could make a lasting positive impression on them..

The H+ program was both exhausting and exhilarating. I loved being able to have mature and interesting discussions with all of my friends in the program and also get the opportunity to help lead activities for my kesher girls’ bunk. During H+, you’re constantly being critiqued by your peers and by your madrichim (counselors) in order to help condition you to become a better madrich/madricha (counselor). This process helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses and use them to my advantage in life in addition to becoming a better counselor. I am so thankful that my co-counselors were not only helpful, but that I got along with them very well. I was also very grateful to have had a well-behaved, sweet, and fun-loving group of campers.

Towards the end of the summer, I’d come to the realization that I knew myself better than at the beginning of the session.  I knew it was going to be difficult to leave a place that had taught me so much and had given me a lot of amazing memories that will never be forgotten. We had all become so close with each other during H+ and it was amazing to have been in this program with some of the most incredible people I have ever met in my life. Hadracha Plus made me so excited to become a camp counselor!

~Halley Gerber

Halley is from Poughkeepsie, New York and is excited to be part of the new Young Judaea group forming at her synagogue, Temple Beth El.

I believe that in order to make a change, the world needs to recognize the problem. According to the ADL, in America particularly, anti-Semitic attacks have risen by 21% in just the year of 2014. Anti-semitism isn’t being treated as seriously as it should because people are comparing it to the atrocities that occurred during the holocaust. After going to Washington DC with my Hadracha tikun group and lobbying against anti-semitism, I have been inspired to do something about this issue. Although I cannot “fix” anti-semitism as a whole, I can start by making the public aware of how often anti-semitic acts occur world-wide. In efforts of doing this I, along with my tikun group leader, Tomer Kornfeld, created a Facebook page called “Humans Against Anti-Semitism”. Through this page, I have been sharing stories of anti-semitism that are submitted and exposing them to the world.

If you are fortunate to have not dealt with anti-semitism in your lifetime, you can show your support by writing the words “Humans Against Anti-Semitism” on your hand, and messaging it into the Facebook page. If you have encountered anti-Semitism I encourage you to do the same and add a short description or story of the anti-semitism you encountered. Together, hand and hand, we can make a difference and eliminate hatred, one person at a time.

To participate in the Humans Against Anti-Semitism Campaign on Facebook, click HERE.

~ Rachel Powell, New Jersey

Rachel is the Administrative Vice President of the New Jersey Region of Young Judaea and is attending Machon in Israel this summer.

Simon Klarfeld, Young Judaea’s visionary Executive Director had an article recently published in the Center for Jewish Peoplehood (CJPEmost recent publication released earlier this month “The Peoplehood Papers 16.”  This edition, entitled “Developing Teen Leadership with a Peoplehood Orientation: What Does It Take and Where Do We Start?” focuses specifically on teen engagement: Simon’s article Mifgash and Meaning: Challenges and Opportunities for Teen Leadership Development in the 21st Century” discusses the challenges and opportunities of the Mifgash (encounter) for teens in the 21st century.