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July 2008
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Spotlight on Nivonim
Posted: 7/31/2008
The oldest eidah in camp is Nivonim, for campers entering 11th grade. Everyone looks forward to their Nivonim summer because it means being the oldest campers in camp, which comes with extra privileges and extra responsibilities. The Nivonim campers are the role models for the younger campers and in that position, they have the opportunity to do many exciting things around camp, such as being counselors-in-training (CITs) and having internships in the different departments around camp. The Nivonim also have many special programs, such as their two-day trip to Wausau and their three-day campouts in the Porcupine Mountains in Upper Michigan.
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Northwoods Ramah Theatre Festival
Posted: 7/30/2008
This past weekend, camp hosted the Northwoods Ramah Theatre Festival, now in its fourth summer. Some of the events have included a staff poetry reading Friday night, an open reading of a play Shabbat afternoon and performances on Saturday evening. The festival culminated in the performance of three pieces of theatre on Sunday. These pieces were created at camp over the past two weeks by the Northwoods Ramah Theatre Company and were performed for the whole camp throughout the day on Sunday.
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Israel at 60 Celebration
Posted: 7/29/2008
A week ago, hundreds of campers, staff and visitors alike gathered around the Kikar on a chilly July evening as the Nivonim campers played a voiceover of the declaration of the state of Israel from 1948. Representing different countries from around the world, members of each eidah waved their respective nations' flags they had just made from construction paper during peulat erev and cheered as they heard their country declaring its pivotal decision about the existence Israel as a state. Organized by Nivonim, the celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary continued with several Nivonim campers marching with Israeli flags and a dance performance. The following day, campers attended activities focusing on Jewish history, ranging from trivia games about Jerusalem to tug-of-war, symbolic of past conflict between Israel and Jordan.
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Spotlight on Tikvah
Posted: 7/27/2008
Tikvah, which is Hebrew for "hope," is a program at Camp Ramah for campers with special needs. The campers represent a range of disabilities, including Asperger's Syndrome, high functioning Autism, intellectually disabled, ADHD and other impairments in social functioning. While Tikvah does have its own programming, they also participate in classes and programs with Machon in order to integrate the Tikvah campers into the mainstream camp program. Most of the Tikvah campers stay for the whole eight-week summer, but there is also a program called Taste of Tikvah which allows campers to come for four weeks during their first summer.
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Bogrim Play - Oliver
Posted: 7/25/2008
Thursday night Bogrim presented the musical "Oliver," and it sure was a unique performance. Somehow a bat got into the Bet Am and spent a good portion of the show flying around the front of the stage as it tried to find its way out. The audience members who were in the front row flinched every time it flew by, but the performers on stage didn't miss a beat! The chorus members also got a surprise as it unexpectedly started to pour while they were waiting outside the door to come on stage. They didn't seem fazed at all, just a little wet, and went on to perform a wonderful play!
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Gus Ramah Basketball Tournament
Posted: 7/24/2008
Cheering rang from the basketball courts all day long as campers from every eidah competed in the annual Gus Ramah tournament. Created by Coach Gary Peckler, Gus Ramah is a three-on-three basketball tournament that remains an athletic tradition at Camp Ramah.
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Boating at the Waterfront
Posted: 7/22/2008
There are always lots of exciting activities going on at the waterfront at Camp Ramah. From sailing and kayaking to "Blobbing" and water basketball, campers are sure to find an activity they enjoy. Aside from the usual classes the waterfront staff teach during the day, there are also special events at the waterfront, such as open swim on Shabbat, the weekly swims to the island, and the Polar Bear swim (which happens at 4:30 in the morning!).
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Spotlight on Atzmayim
Posted: 7/21/2008
The Atzmayim program started in 2004 as an extension of the Tikvah program. Parents of Tikvah campers wondered what their children would do after they graduated high school and no longer had others planning activities for them. Ramah, with the help of Dr. Margaret Silberman and Rose Sharon, decided to help the Tikvah campers make that leap, and Atzmayim was born. As part of the Atzmayim program, the participants work at a job site in Eagle River five mornings a week. In 2004, Atzmayim had four participants at one job site, and this year there are nine participants at eight job sites the Best Western, the library, Trig's (a grocery store), Glik's (a department store), Wee Care Early Childhood Center, Sullivan's Flowerland, Jabberwocky (a book store/coffeshop), and Eagle River Roasters (a coffeeshop). In the afternoons, the Atzmayim have various Judaic and independent living skills classes.
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Spotlight on the Kollel
Posted: 7/20/2008
Because Camp Ramah is more than just a summer camp-it's a Jewish summer camp-one of the most important parts of the Ramah summer is Jewish learning. Campers take Hebrew and Jewish text classes throughout the day and throughout the summer, in addition to having opportunities for independent study. One of the places campers can go to study is the Beit Midrash, and within the Beit Midrash there is a group of staff members who make up the Kollel. Kollel members are people who were recruited to come to camp to both teach and study, and to serve as role models for the entire camp community.
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Solelim Play - Free To Be You And Me
Posted: 7/18/2008
Thursday night, Solelim performed the play Free to Be You and Me and left the whole camp wanting more! The performance was only about half an hour long and the campers were so into it the whole time-smiling, singing, just having fun. It is a joyful show to begin with and the campers really showed just how much hard work and how much fun they put into preparing for their play.
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New Sports Additions This Summer
Posted: 7/17/2008
Camp has a wide variety of sports from which campers can choose, including softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, soccer, floor hockey, wrestling, and krav maga. Campers participate in sport activities almost every day, and they have the opportunity to try several different sports. Thanks to a grant from the Foundation for Jewish Camp as part of its Camper-Centric Initative, the sports program was expanded this year with a new floor in the Bet Am and new lights on all the outdoor sports fields (before, only the basketball courts had lights). Now eidot can play sports at night and take advantage of the new lights, and having the new floor in the Bet Am opens up a fourth full basketball court.
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Spotlight on Shoafim
Posted: 7/17/2008
Shoafim, for campers entering eighth grade, is a year of giving back, of learning what it means to be in a community and what it means to be a responsible Jewish adult. Many of the campers are just coming out of their bar/bat mitzvah year and their summer in Shoafim is about becoming comfortable with their new responsibilities. It's also a summer, like every other summer, about having a lot of fun. Wednesday afternoon, Shoafim campers went around camp in groups on a photo scavenger hunt. The clues were quotes that the campers had to interpret creatively and then take a picture based on the clue. You can see some of their work in the photos that were uploaded this afternoon.
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Visitors' Days and Garinim Departure
Posted: 7/15/2008
The summer is going by so quickly! It's hard to believe the first half of the summer is already over. It seems like we just got here yesterday, but suddenly it was already Visitors' Weekend. On Sunday and Monday, camp's gates opened to welcome hundreds of visitors. There were lots of hugs and tears on the tennis and basketball courts as campers greeted their loved ones and welcomed them into their summer home. The kikar was busy with activity as the Ramah band played and families set up chairs and blankets. The weather even cooperated for us and though it was cloudy most of the day Sunday, it only rained for a few minutes here and there, and then Monday was beautiful. Visitors had the opportunity to see many of the different activities Ramah has to offer while spending time with their campers and simply enjoying two wonderful days at camp.
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Tikvah Lunch Theater
Posted: 7/13/2008
Traditionally, the campers in Tikvah have participated in the Machon musical because Machon is the eidah that they do many of their activities with. Starting in 2001, Rosh Performing Arts Jonathan Ross decided that Tikvah should try doing a play of their own and Tikvah Lunch Theatre was born. Together with their Machon chaverim, the Tikvah campers spent several weeks learning about a subject and developing and writing short skits based around a central theme. The first summer's theme was Creation, and since then Tikvah has explored many different themes including Biblical sidekicks, siblings, and love. This year's theme was "Lost: Jews Throughout History" and the campers outdid themselves. It was plain to see that they were having a great time on stage and everyone in the audience enjoyed themselves as well.
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Shoafim Play - Newsies
Posted: 7/11/2008
Some of the many highlights of the Ramah summer are the musicals that each full summer eidah performs. These musicals are done completely in Hebrew and everyone in the eidah participates-either by acting in the musical or by working behind the scenes on the stage crew. Thursday night we came together to see the first musical of the summer, Newsies, performed by Shoafim, with Garinim as the chorus in one of the songs. Newsies is a new show to the Ramah line-up and everyone was excited to see how the campers would perform. Because it was the first musical of the summer, the campers had the least amount of time for rehearsal, so they have been working so hard from the day they arrived to get the show ready. Their hard work definitely paid off and they put on a great show!
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Spotlight on Bogrim
Posted: 7/8/2008
Bogrim is a summer of transitions. They are no longer in the group of younger campers and they are getting ready to start their first year in high school. As they transition to being older campers, they gain more privileges, which means more responsibility, and they spend their summer learning how to be successful in their new roles. They also have a lot of fun-Monday night they had an "I Love the '90s" night and each cabin dressed up and performed a dance to a song from the '90s. Everyone in the audience cheered for the cabin on stage and they all performed their dances with smiles on their faces.
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Yom Sport
Posted: 7/7/2008
Each summer the whole camp comes together for a day called Yom Sport. It's a day full of fun activities including traditional sports like basketball and softball, camp sports like Gaga and Greased Watermelon, and games like Torah trivia and Israel geography. Every camper is assigned to one of four teams, represented by a color, and each team is made up of campers from every eidah. It's a great chance for campers to meet people outside of their eidah and it's a time for the camp to really come together in the spirit of friendly competition. Campers find as many articles of clothing in their color as they can, paint their faces, and make up cheers that can be heard throughout camp.
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Ya'ar Etgar - Challenge Course
Posted: 7/4/2008
As you drive to camp along Buckatabon Road, you might notice a patch of asphalt that looks new. If you look closer, you'll see that underneath the road there is a tunnel that connects the main campus of Ramah to its property on the other side of the street. In the past the area on the other side of the street has been used for overnight campouts or campfires, but now there's something new, something Philip Sherman, the division head for the challenge courses, calls, "a huge, wonderful thing." It is a brand new high ropes course, which gives campers and staff an opportunity to do something that's never been done before at camp.
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The Zimriyah
Posted: 7/1/2008
Most nights, each eidah has an evening activity of its own, whether it be "Make Your Counselor Laugh," a singdown, a sports night, or any number of creative ideas the cabin counselors can devise. But, every once in a while, the whole camp comes together for a campwide evening program that's truly amazing. The first of these campwide events each year is the Zimriyah, or music festival. The music staff works hard to put the program together, teaching each eidah its song, putting together an orchestra, and having lots of rehearsals. The campers love to show off what their eidah can do as each eidah performs its songs for the rest of camp.
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