Camp Ramah New England Special Camper Experiences

Here are more Camp Ramah New England Special Camper Experiences, organized by theme:

Kindness, Inclusion, and Caring for One Another:

One young non-bunk staff member wrote: the evening of the first yom meuchad, I happened to be sitting alone; some girls from tzrif 74 (Bogrim) saw me and invited me to come sit with them. After dinner, they and their madricha said that I had an open invitation to come sit with them anytime.
Hi Rabbi Gelb. I love this! One thing that has really touched many of the med shed nurses this year is that one camper, Matan, found out that the evening med shed nurses are usually unable to get Shabbat brownies because they are busy giving campers their meds when the brownies are passed out. Since finding this out, every Friday evening this summer Matan has thoughtfully saved two brownies from his table and brought them to the two nurses working in the med shed! It is a very sweet gesture and makes our night every Friday!
One of my campers got sick in the Marp and was upset to miss Shabbat and asked for all the campers in our tzrif and I to visit a lot and without me asking as soon as tefillah ended the whole tzrif went to the Marp to say hi and see how the camper was feeling.
One of my campers missed out on our sneakout because she was sick and the next day when she got back from the marp all of her friends helped her make candy sushi with the ingredients that we saved so she wouldn’t feel like she missed out
One of my campers chipped her tooth during boating, and was really upset about it. Her friends were super supportive and made sure she could see the bright side in it since she wasn’t severely hurt.
One of my campers broke his nose during camp and had to wear a face mask. When he got it from the Marp we made it a big thing because there is a famous basketball player that used to wear the same mask. He came out of the bathroom wearing the mask for the first time and all bunk chanted “MVP”. I think it made him feel much better about the whole situation.
A camper who was in my MiNi bunk last year randomly came up to me yesterday to tell me about how he had been upset at not winning the Tikvah block party raffle, but then he thought to himself that maybe one of the other kids had been having a bad day and Hashem decided to make them win the raffle instead of him to cheer them up.
Some wonderful experiences I had with campers: A few days ago I was in a bad mood and a few of my campers came up to me to ask me if I’m okay, really lifted up my spirit.

Jewish Growth, Tefillah, Torah, and Spiritual Questions:

My camper who doesn’t read any Hebrew or connect with tefillot very much was asking for help to follow along during Kabbalat Shabbat in the transliterated siddur
I sat with a group of campers at the start of the kayitz in tfilot that didn’t speak Hebrew and barely practice Judaism at home. Now I see them everyday in tfilot following along with the transliteration of the prayers.
I had a camper who came to camp not knowing any of the tefillot or any Hebrew (and it’s her first kayitz) and a few days ago she said she was looking forward to Kabbalat Shabbat because she is starting to pick up on the words and tunes
I worked on a Torah reading with a camper who was not confident about it and she was so proud of herself when she learned the first verse and came up to me later in the day to tell me she had been practicing the verse all day.
Gabe got really interested in the Torah portion last week in which he was concerned about Bnei Yisrael’s conduct towards the Midianites, and it’s led to a variety of questions about the Torah, what the Torah is, how to understand parts of the Torah that challenge our modern sensibilities, Torah laws regarding war and more. His questions have led me to look into a variety of sources and have interesting conversations with him.
During alternative Tefillot, one of my campers wrote a poem about what her Jewish identity means to her and shared it with the whole group, and another girl memorized a Yehuda Amichai poem for fun that she now recites all the time in the bunk .
An Israeli Madricha writes: And also I am proud of myself for really connecting to the prayers and participating with the campers even though I don’t come with this sort of prayers in Israel.
I ran a Ruach Battle in tfillah this morning and gave out the award for MVD (most valuable davener). Finally got the edah to enthusiastically participate in tfillah. Each seating section is a team competing against each other for the most energy during tfillah (loud and clearly praying, being quiet during the kedusha, having the biggest suns during Or Chadash, etc.).

Vulnerability, Emotional Connection, and Belonging:

Machon had a meaningful firepit at the treehouse on Sunday for their Peulat Erev. They sang heartfelt songs and held each other in ruach and friendship, touching the spirit of camp. To end the night, they chalked the Tzad Bet tennis courts not as individuals but as one work of art, one edah, one connected heart.
A moment from this summer was when for a harga’ah, Cyrus and I shared our favorite moments from our Magshimim (or equivalent year) and then each kid shared a vulnerable moment on what camp meant to them.
All of the machon boys had a harga’ah with Simon where we sang and it was really meaningful. We just sang Saturday night shira and then taught them Ben Adam which is a song that the boys in my edah sang every night when I was a camper.
As we approach the end of the first session, the vibe in our bunk has become a little emotional as some of the girls prepare to leave. Last night, we had our Edah campfire, where we sang songs together and realized that it was the last campfire of the first session for some members of the little family we’ve built together. We all hugged each other, and we all cried—not out of sadness, but out of excitement, gratitude, and joy for all the memories we’ve shared together as a bunk, as an Edah, and as lifelong friends.
My girls hosted a “crying party” last night because they’re all devasted about leaving camp and I sat with them while they all cried and were sad about camp.
I have a first time camper that didn’t want to stay, and really wanted to go home in the first week. During check in a few days ago, I asked her if she is excited for camp to be over, she said no and that she is sad to leave.
I had a kid that was super upset about the bunk he was in at the start of camp. And last night he told me that he thinks this might have been his best summer in camp.
I was doing check-ins after my day off and I asked my camper how her day was. When she responded with “fine” instead of “good”, I asked her why and she responded with “it’s because you weren’t here”. Then when I tried to move to a positive by asking her what the highlight of her day was, she responded by saying “when you came back”. It was very sweet and made my day.

Confidence, Courage, and Trying New Things:

The camper’s sense of accomplishment and joy in sirot (boating) when a camper takes their first solo voyage on one of our 3 sailboats.
I encouraged a camper to go to the highest point of the rope swing and they ended up having a lot of fun despite their nerves.
I work on ropes staff and last night my bunk went, and a girl who is usually afraid to go higher up was encouraged by the rest of the bunk as well as the counselors and had the courage to go the full height for the first time and loved it.
At Six flags one of my campers didn’t want to do a ride, but I told him to trust me which he did and he ended up loving the ride, and he thanked me for encouraging him to do it.
One of my campers was really freaked out about going on some of the higher thrill rides at Six Flags. We got to Batman and he was freaking out up until the final moments. The ride was about to get going and he was still standing in front of the seat panicking. I managed to convince him to get on and he said he loved it and was so glad I got him to go. We even went another time. Then he even got other scared campers to ride the Batman.
At the start of the summer the three gan kids I am teaching to swim were unwilling to get in beyond their necks, and now they all are comfortable and happy to swim and spend time in the agam.
We had Friday night a cappella as a harga’ah one Sunday and one of our campers sang a song that they were shy of singing and it was beautiful and everyone was involved. He played the guitar for that song as well.
My camper got really happy because I taught him how to do a rubix cube.
I’d been noticing some of the nikayon jobs getting swapped around, and one camper was constantly putting themselves on trash duty. I talked to him about it and kind of got the feeling he just didn’t know how to do any other task and was too embarrassed to ask. We switched him to another task instead, and I took a few minutes to walk him through it step-by-step. He killed it! It was just a confidence thing.

Bunk Culture, Ruach, Creativity, and Play:

My tzrif yesterday had a fun menucha at the tree house. We had a dance party and everyone had a blast dancing.
Hi! One special thing that my tzrif has done is we have made a shoutout basket where our chanichot can right nice things about each other and then we read them out every few days during hargaah.
I’ve started the tradition of anonymous Shabbatograms in our tzrif every Friday. We assign a camper to write another camper a Shabbatogram and it creates a super positive environment within the tzrif and really sets a good mood going into Shabbat.
Recently we had a fancy dinner and a lot of them didn’t like the idea of dressing nice but when they finally arrived they all got into the bit and started talking and acting fancy as well.
We did a fancy dinner that the campers really enjoyed and got into. Other than just dressing nicely, they all spoke in accents and ate very properly such as eating french fries with fork and knife.
During the heat wave we were at the bunk. We tried to think of somthing cool to do when our girls pitched an idea “ugliest outfit” competition. We made it into an entire thing and had some of the girls be judges photographers and put on music so that everybody got their moment on the ‘runway’.
Every Friday night we do a fashion show after Kab Shab which runs like Miss Universe. They give speeches and answer politically charged questions. The final round is a presidential-like debate. The winner of the fashion show gets to do a harga’ah during the week.
We have weekly “shabb-a cappella” on Friday nights in the Tzrif, and a couple of them were underwhelming, so we all decided last week we’d make it better. It was one of the best harga’aot I’ve ever been a part of, and everyone loved it.
I came back from my day off and they all organized a bit where they mosh and chant peoples names while wearing hoodies and glasses and sideways hats.
I was coming back from my day off and walked into the chadar and all my campers were doing a bit where they wore sideways hats and glasses and hoodies and ran up to me and started jumping around me and hyping me happy that I was back.
On our sneak out to the treehouse we did not have the right materials to start a fire so instead we shifted over to a game where campers faced off against each other acting as an object and everyone got into it and was laughing the whole time making it a very special experience.
When we had some spare time in between shira and havdalah on Shabbat, my whole tzrif played an impromptu monkey in the middle with counselors against campers across the whole upper A-Side migrash.
This is the best one: on the second night of camp all of our showers and toilets broke because there was a tree growing in our pipes and the girls took in like champs and we went to the Beit Knesset and did karaoke + movie and turned the entire night around. Core memory for everyone.
My campers surprised me on my birthday with a basketball poster that they all signed and they all made me cards + friendship bracelets and made the day super special.
Ida made up a whole edah-wide bit that she taught to everyone during tefilot and then they did in the chadar ochel.

Friendship, Peer Support, and Campers Helping Campers:

An Israeli camper who doesn’t speak English wasn’t gonna be able to present his creation at a peulah, so an American camper who usually doesn’t get involved stepped up to translate for him and made him very happy.
One camper played spit with another camper for thirty minutes and abided by all of her rules and really built her social capital.
A new kid from Ramah Darom taught Izzy a card game and they were playing it during menucha having a good time. In the middle of the game Izzy said to Natan that Natan was the best thing to come out of Ramah Darom.
My messiest camper who always has all of her clothes and books on the floor, started receiving help from her tzrif friends and little by little became one of the more organized campers in the bunk.
One of my campers loves to make friendship bracelets but nobody in the bunk had really showed interest in it so I decided to ask that camper if they would mind making me a bracelet and obviously he was very happy so he made me one and I decided to tell everyone and show them the bracelet the camper had made and then each camper in my bunk sent orders on what bracelet they wanted and even other counselors got in on the fun.
Most kids in my bunk play Magic and one kid has never played before but he really wanted to play – so everyone gave him some cards and helped teach him and now he has a full deck of cards and knows how to play Magic.
On our sneakout, we had a medurah, and one kid told a kind of boring story, but the other kids really enjoyed it and said it was a good story and I could tell it made him happy hearing their appreciation.
The entire tzrif cheering when a chanich was able to get out of the Marp and arrived at our treehouse sneakout.

Meaningful Learning, Identity, and Big Conversations:

Magical moment at camp – with Solelim we do theology – we begin with the existence of God, to mini-theologies to God and evil (you walked into that class). After separating discomfort from bad from evil, we check on how God can be connected to these moments. We explore five to seven (depending on time left) explanations. The Holocaust inevitably comes up, and one chanich said, at the end of class – thank you for this. Now I have different ways to think about the Shoah. This helps a lot.
Magical moment at camp – With Ilanot we explore how to be good, and why to be good. God is part of that discussion but not the center. Chanichim learned with one another of reasons and understandings of goodness, and we moved from “you should be good because if you are bad there will be unpleasant consequences” towards “you should be good because good is, in itself, a value that moves the world forward”. In subsequent classes we look at different difficult cases, and one of them is “telling the truth”. It was great to see that now, with 45 minutes classes, kids remember what other teachers told them, so Hillel had told them about the ugly bride, and they brought that to decide the specific case of lying to Saba. The chanichim are definitely absorbing Jewish ideas, it made me happy and proud to work at camp alongside so many good teachers.
Three of my campers have started a group with me where they ask to have serious conversations about how to navigate their values within the camp environment, what it means to have friends who believe different things than they do, and what it means to be liberal Zionist teenagers in the year 2026.
One of my campers moved to Guam last year and last week she gave a harga’ah for the bunk all about Guam and what it’s like to live there. And all the other campers asked great questions and even I learned about a lot about Guam, and how it’s similar and different to many other campers school years away from camp.
We created an anonymous question box for the tzrif. Created a stronger sense of safety and connection between the bunk.

Staff-Camper Bonds and Moments of Mutual Appreciation:

A special moment for me was before our first Shabbat with the campers. Before we went to Kabbalat Shabbat, one of my campers made me a little keepsake during arts and crafts that says “Shabbat Shalom” on it and it’s very special for me.
I am a big Argentina fan and one day I promised my campers that if they do a good nikayon I will let them watch the game with me. I held the phone and all of them surround me, when Argentina completed the 3-2 comeback I was almost crying from joy. They knew how much it meant to me and when Messi scored the winning goal they all collectively hugged me and it was very heart warming and it made us bond as a bunk.
My camper calls me au pair Yaelie every single second because she thinks I’m going to be her au pair.
Last week, I felt like I really connected to each of my campers because I took the time to give them all their own check-ins. Normally, me and my co-counselor split our campers to half and half but I was able to give them all my attention and many told me later how much they appreciated it.
During my first time this year being madrich lavad (being solo, which was very difficult with 16 campers), my campers all committed to dressing up in a silly way, and we walked around B-side playing music and enjoying ourselves before dinner.
This week we did morning boating with the tzrif.
One of my campers told me that she usually gets nervous performing in front of crowds but doesn’t at camp because everyone at camp feels like her family.