By Ariel Stein

I have always loved social media and blogs as a place of inspiration. Around the time my older daughter was born, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, looking for Jewish parenting and lifestyle ideas and I realized that I was hardly following any Jewish mom accounts on social media. Then I realized that there really weren’t many Jewish moms on social media putting out that kind of content and it inspired me to start sharing my own Jewish motherhood journey. It began with posts about my daily life with kids, Shabbat, and Jewish holiday celebrations. Now it’s been almost 5 years since I started my blog, and it has evolved into an amazing place where I have connected with thousands of people. It has been so nice to have this online space where we can share each other’s homes and family traditions to get inspiration and a sense of community, especially during the last year and a half.

 

Shortly after the pandemic began, my older daughter’s preschool closed and my husband began working from home. I found myself taking care of a 1-year-old and homeschooling a 3-year-old full-time from our modest 2-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, while my husband worked remotely out of our bedroom. This time forced me to get more creative with practicing Judaism at home. Without the regular programming of our local synagogues or typical family gatherings, I realized it was up to me to make the Jewish holidays and Shabbat feel meaningful for my family. Despite the fact that we had a virtual seder over Zoom for Passover 2020, I made sure to cook special recipes and teach my daughters about the holiday through fun crafts and activities. The same was true for the high holidays and Hanukkah later that year. For the first time in my adult life, the responsibility of making the Jewish holidays “happen” for my kids fell on me and not my parents or the greater community.

 

I was inspired to share my experiences of raising kids with a strong love for Jewish traditions more on social media and I got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback. And thus, Jewish Family Magic was born! It is an online platform that supports parents with resources to bring Judaism to life in their homes and a community where parents raising Jewish children can come connect and collaborate.

 

My experiences growing up in Young Judaea have influenced me as a person and in the way that I parent. I was a camper and staff member at Sprout Lake and Tel Yehudah for 7 years and was an active member of my local YJ club and region throughout high school. My time serving on my club, regional, and national Young Judaea mazkirut taught me invaluable leadership skills that I still use today. My experiences on Machon and Year Course also played a huge role in fostering my love of Israel. I majored in Judaic Studies as an undergraduate at The George Washington University, staffed a YJ Israel summer program in college and went on to earn my MA in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Later on, I served as the Director of Israel Programs at Northeastern University Hillel in Boston, MA for three years and got to work with hundreds of students to help strengthen their Jewish identities and their connection to Israel.

 

To this day, I still use the pillars I learned in Young Judaea to guide me in life –  Jewish identity, Israel, pluralism, leadership and social action. One of Judaism’s principal beliefs is that all humans are created “B’tzelem Elohim” – in the image of God, and therefore of inherent dignity and value. Every person on this earth – regardless of race, gender, religion, orientation, age, or anything else – contains Godliness within them. Now more than ever, I am thinking about what actions I can take to uphold the value of B’tzelem Elohim and being an example and teacher to my daughters. I’m committed to practicing empathy, compassion, and set a personal example for my children everyday. The Jewish value of “Tikun Olam” is the idea that the world is broken and it’s up to each of us to repair it. Our world is hurting and my prayer is that we all continue to do our part to heal it together.

 

“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” -Pirkei Avot 2:21

 

The pillar of social justice is always at the top of my mind and heart. At times, I have felt overwhelmed with the amount of work I still need to do personally and how far we still have to go as a global community. But I’m reminded from my upbringing in Young Judaea that big, systemic change doesn’t happen overnight and we can all make small changes in our own lives everyday.

 

Today as a mother, online content creator and Jewish activist, I often think about my time in YJ in the work I do. I am incredibly grateful for the lessons I learned and skills I developed in YJ, which still impact me today. I hope to raise my daughters with a love of Israel, Jewish values, and to be proud of their Jewish identities and to inspire other Jewish millennials to do the same.

Named one of the New York Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 Jewish change makers in 2021, Ariel Stein is the founder of Jewish Family Magic, an online platform designed to make Jewish living fun and accessible for the whole family. Ariel is the founder of the motherhood blog ‘Ariel Loves,’ where she shares Jewish living inspiration. Ariel is a former Camp Sprout Lake (2001-2003) and Tel Yehudah (2002-2004) camper and attended Machon (2005) and Year Course (2006-2007). She served on the Tel Yehudah Board of Directors from 2012-2016. Keep up with Ariel on instagram @Ariel.Loves, @JewishFamilyMagic, and visit JewishFamilyMagic.com.

Written by Nicole Perez, Camp Judaea and Camp Tel Yehudah Alum 87-98

I always knew that Camp Judaea was a magical place, but after what transpired this summer, I am convinced that someone spread magical pixie dust all over the campground. This is the only way I can explain how a rustic campground in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains holds so much meaning and touches so many people across the continent year after year, and one generation after another.

At Camp Judaea, it doesn’t matter if doesn’t matter if you are coming to camp for the first or second session, or if you are from Puerto Rico or Atlanta, because the moment you receive two new Camp Judaea laundry bags, you are officially part of the CJ family. From then on, the Adon Olam will be sung while playing imaginary musical instruments, you will find yourself making up silly bagel songs, and before you know it, you are already starting the countdown for the following summer to do it all over again.

This year, after months of uncertainty, Summer 2021 arrived and the gates of 48 Camp Judaea Lane opened to parents and campers full of anticipation, excitement, and smiling faces. Unfortunately, a few weeks in, sadness, heartache, and unimaginable loss flooded the gates with the collapse of Champlain Towers South. Campers of all ages, staff, and alumni were faced with a mix of emotions. Coming together was the only next logical step, because truth be told, that is what Young Judaea had taught us. Wasn’t that the meaning of Tikkun Olam? It was our turn to try to heal, and it was our own community that needed mending.

In typical Young Judaea manner, we did not waste any time and got to work. Private messages were exchanged to check on the families and friends that were personally affected by the tragedy. Messages were sent to the families offering clothing, food, and even temporary homes, anything that they needed to get back on their feet. CJ families were posting on social media messages of hope, strength, and support. Old camp pictures were posted to remind us of all the good times we had shared. Campers left camp for just one day so that they could be a shoulder to cry on for their CJ friends who were victims of the collapse.

This tragic accident has also personally brought me a mix of emotions, especially in the case of the children who lost their father in the Surfside tragedy. In the very near future, my two children will be losing their father to ALS. Every summer I see the pictures of my two beautiful kids either dancing Rikkud, screaming with excitement during Bikkurim, or playing sports, all with huge smiles on their faces surrounded by their camp friends. How will those pictures change once they lose their father? Will I see them dance again? Will they lose their beautiful smiles? Will they want to be embraced? How resilient will they really be? But after witnessing CJ’s involvement in the Surfside tragedy, I think I can take a step back, take a deep breath, and thank my lucky stars that my family belongs to the Young Judaea movement. It gave me a sense of gratitude.

This summer while in CJ, three long-time Judaeans decided to return to camp after losing loved ones to this horrific tragedy. They could have chosen to be anywhere in the world, a vast array of places to choose from to try make sense of this nightmare, but they decided camp was where they wanted to be. It was so comforting to know they had a place where they could go to be surrounded with so much love, a place their loved ones probably would have wanted them to be.

 

Their decision to go back to CJ also served a much higher purpose for my family and for that I will forever be grateful because it taught us one of life’s most valuable lessons, and one day, maybe not now, they will be able to fully understand what I am talking about. The three that returned to camp did not know my children prior to this summer, even though as life would have it, I went to camp with their parents. But it was destiny for them to meet, to spend time together, and to learn from one another.

In one specific situation one of them walked right next to my daughter with a big smile on their face. My daughter noticed it immediately and it made such an impact on her that she wrote to me about it. She wrote that she was so amazed that a person who had just been through such loss would have such a huge smile on their face and look so happy all because they were back at “home.”

While reading this from my daughter, I could not stop the tears from pouring out. First, I was in awe that of all the smiles she had seen in her lifetime this one had resonated with her.  I also felt a sense of relief, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. These three teens had just suffered an incomprehensible loss and they chose to be at camp with their friends, a place where they felt at peace and surrounded with such an immense amount of love from their CJ community. In the end, what happened was that we all learned one of life’s most valuable lessons and that is: whatever you think you can’t handle, you actually can, and that we have more strength than we give ourselves credit for.

I think I finally got the answers to my prayers. Yes, my children will be resilient; yes, the smiles will return; yes, they will have many shoulders to lean on when they will need it; and no, my kids will not go through life’s challenges alone. Their camp family goes beyond their eda (age group), it will be any person that at one point or another was part of the Young Judaea movement. They will be surrounded by love because that is what we do as a CJ family. And every year, from June to August, my kids will be at 48 Camp Judaea Lane, scurrying on those awesome white rocks, and wearing a big smile on their face, and who knows, maybe someone else might be watching them and need that smile on that day.

Young Judaea thank you for providing us with the most beautiful, supportive family anyone can ever ask for. And more importantly, thank you to the person that decided to spread their magical pixie dust over camp 60 years ago because now we all have a place, we can call home.

 

By Raffi Schieir

During my time with Young Judaea I participated in summer camps, went on Year Course in Israel and continued as a Peer Leadership Educator with Young Judaea in my early 20s. At Young Judaea we were empowered with skills to truly make a difference in our communities and my life’s mission, to prevent ocean plastic pollution at scale, no doubt stems from these critical experiences.

Research shows, if we continue on our current trajectory, the annual flow of plastic entering the ocean will triple by 2040, to 29 million metric tons. I was convinced there must be a plastic packaging solution that prevented damage to the world’s oceans and ultimately, I have made this my career.

Originally from Canada, I have lived in the UK for the past ten years. I founded Bantam Materials over a decade ago and established the Prevented Ocean Plastic program in December 2019. Our Prevented Ocean Plastic program diverts plastic away from our oceans and supports coastal communities in developing countries by assisting bottle collectors, collection centers and local recyclers based there, by paying for the collection of waste bottles and other plastic.  I am proud to say it is currently the largest ocean plastic prevention program in the world.

My work has taken me all over the world pushing for and structuring initiatives for ethics of Tikkun Olam and I have been lucky enough to meet people from every walk of life. I’ve even met with government ministers and industry leaders about national recycling policies to advise them on what needs to change based on what I have seen first-hand.

The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated to all of us how interconnected we all are. This is something I have given a lot of thought to, particularly in an environmental sense. Waste plastic from the west litters coastlines of developing countries causing pollution and harming the communities who make their livelihoods from the ocean.

95% of plastic packaging loses its material value, equivalent to $80-120 billion annually, after one time use. With programs like Prevented Ocean Plastic in place collection of these waste plastics can help support people living in poverty, by providing a reliable income, while helping clean up the natural environment and protect oceans from plastic pollution.