Spotlight on Tarbut, Part 2

Ben Phillipson (Rosh Radio): As a camper I really enjoyed being in the radio station. I hung out in here a lot. I learned a lot about music here, about Hebrew. Last year I helped run the station and decided I wanted to try and run it myself this year. Camp gave me the opportunity to do it, and I'm glad to be back.

We have four shows a day. We have Rockimah to wake everyone up in the morning. We have Nikayon News, when we play the Israel Broadcast Agency's English version of the news. We also have a sha'at menucha show when we play more relaxing music so the campers can take a nap or relax. We also have yishun shows at night when staff members can come in and do shows that highlight talents or favorite music or talk shows, or whatever they want to do. Outside of the shows, we teach classes every day. We teach everyone from Garinim to Nivo. Garinim doesn't deal with a lot of the technology in here, but we teach them Hebrew and have them pick music, teach them about what good music is. The other aidot do basically the same things at different levels of expertise. They run the station during their class time-they run the equipment, do the Hebrew, choose the music.

Jewishly speaking, having a radio station is not necessarily a major priorty. However, we are a camp that doesn't have a PA system, and that tries to encourage its campers to learn about every aspect of life as well as expand their experiences in different ways. So, having a radio station that plays music that people consider to be quality, that gets kids away from the hip hop mentality, helps to teach Jewish values through popular music.

Hilla Ariel (Rosh Nagarut/Woodworking): This is my second summer at Ramah, and my second summer in Nagarut. I originally found out about Ramah through one of my friends who heard they had an opening in Nagarut. Woodworking is not my profession, but a few years ago I had decided that I wanted to build things. So, I found a master carpenter who was about 75 years old and had been doing woodworking forever. I worked with him for a few months and learned about different types of wood and all the different methods for working with wood. After I worked with him I worked with a friend of mine who had a workshop-it wasn't a profession, more of an extended hobby. So, I've made furniture for home and friends, some artwork, a lot of different kinds of things.

Here at camp in the woodworking classes, we don't tell the campers what to do. We always start with safety because that is the first priority in the woodshop. We also show them how to use all the tools and how to do different techniques and projects. Then we tell them to think of what they want to make. With the younger campers, we give them a little more guidance by helping them come up with their ideas and figuring out how to make their projects. The older campers are a little more independent, but we are always there to guide them. Last year we had a camper who wanted to make a baseball bat, and he did a great job-it looked very close to the real thing.

Nagarut is important here at camp because it is fun and interesting and it's good to know how to do some of these things. Personally, I love it. I love teaching campers how to do it. More than that, we treat these campers like adults in the woodshop. It's a lot of responsibility. After we go through the safety rules with them, the campers do act like adults in the woodshop-they don't run around or fool around and are very serious. Also, in woodworking, they learn how to plan out a project, how to plan all the steps and execute it.

We don't push the campers to necessarily make Jewish objects, but a lot of them do. Many make presents for their parents, challah boards or mezuzot, things that they can put in their homes and have forever. I hear stories from a lot of older counselors that they still have the things they made in Nagarut when they were younger.