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♪ Music Playing: Turn the World Around by Dan Nichols and Eighteen ♪
Rabbi Isaac Saposnik: Camp began as a dream ten years ago. People
sitting in a room saying, "it's time for the Reconstructionist movement to come up with
a summer camp. To really engage our children in ways that so important to us to engage
their parents. In questions in answers, in thinking, in creativity, and with that was
built this amazing place, and now ten years later to go from 39 campers to nearly 400
for seven weeks on our own 120 acers in the Pocono mountains in Pennsilvanya none of us
could have ever imagined how quickly the dream would have become reality. How quickly this
place would become so special, and how quickly the magic would come here to Camp JRF.
When Camp is at its best the kids are a great time. They are trying new things, they're laughing
with their friends, they're spreading their wings and they're really becoming their best
selves. Group of Campers: 1, 2, 3, >
Rabbi Isaac: Camp is a place where we look at the holistic Camper and provide them with a holistic experience.
It's a place where kids do the things they love, and they grow in them and then they
try things they've never done before and they say "this is the place where I really try
something new, where I can do a good job of it and have fun doing it. And it's a place
where I can see myself growing." Camp's at it's best when kids find who they are and who they
want to be, and then they become those people. Camper: Every year it's like they add new
and more exciting things. So it's not just the same thing. You have more activities more sports, more swimming.
Camper: Well I really love Camp because you go in to every day knowing
you're going to have so much fun.
Rabbi Isaac: One of the most incredible things about our
Camp is our staff. Nearly all of our staff members have grown-up here they've been campers
and now they step up as staff and say, "I wanna give back the same experience I had when I
was your age." They bring passion, and excitement and a deep commitment to Judaism and the Reconstructionist
movement. And maybe most importantly, they see this as their Camp. As the place where
they grew up and now they hope other children will grow and flourish and become the next
leaders, not only here at Camp but in the Jewish community and in the world around us.
Staff Member: My brother was here the first year and I was on the way home with my parents
crying because we live in Chicago, and they turn like, "Do you miss your brother? Do you
wish he was staying home? and I was like No! Why does he get to stay at camp how come I
don't? and so the next year was my first year in Ilanot and it was, a life changing summer.
Male Staff: I was one of the original 39 campers at Camp JRF. It's like planting a seed and
just watching it blossom into a flower, and then into just a field of flowers is what
it is now I'd say. It's just like a great, great experience just to grow up with Camp
and to let it help me mature and raise me, almost like a third parent in a way.
Female Staff: It's hard for me to picture a time before Camp was this grand and this big and
run this smoothly, and it's so cool to know that their counselor was one that help to
create it, and I feel proud to be able to teach them about that. Rabbi Isaac: Our vision
here is for an integrated Judaism. Our goal is that our campers will come in and see that
being Jewish is something they can do at the same time that they're having fun, and at
the same time that they're with their friends. This isn't a place where we go to our beit
tefilah, our chapel to pray and then go someplace else to have fun, but it's a place where the
fun and the prayer, and the Jewish learning, and the friends and the experience all meld
into one. Female Camper: Every day we have Jewish learning and we talk about God and
we talk about what we believe and it just gets you to thinking, and before you know
it you're having a long discussion about your beliefs and how you can impact others and
how everyone beliefs are important. Rabbi Isaac: And we see this as a place from which
the vibrant Judaism that is so important, and so central to the Reconstructionist movement
truly flows. This is a place where kids can pull themselves up to the table of Judaism
and say "I'm here, I'm a player, my voice counts and what I have to say is just as important
as my parents and just as important as what my grandparents have to say, and it's equally
important as what the Rabbi's said 2,000 years ago." This is the place where Judaism continues
to reconstruct itself. It's the place where kids understand that being Jewish is just
part of who we are. It's not something else that we just do, like play soccer. It's what
we say here at Camp it's "how we be" and it's how we live our lives as part of the Jewish
community and as part of the wider world. Rabbi Fred: Adonia Elohain, Adonia Echad.
Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4. You saw it!" Female Camper: Its really taught me what true
friendships are and it helped meet a lot of new friends and learn about myself "jewishly",
and it's just been one of the best experiences I've ever had.
Israeli Staff: You have here the signs with the words in English and Hebrew, and we have the twister.
Male Camper in Hebrew: Regel Smole Tzahov. Israeli Staff in Hebrew: Regel Smole Tzahov.
Rabbi Isaac: Each summer we bring Israelis to Camp and we bring our campers to Israel on the No'ar Hadash Israel
Experience. Helping to build the connection from the Poconos half way around the world
as well as in their hearts, their minds and in all of our communities.
♪ ♪
Rabbi Isaac: Just having fun in the most incredible place you
can imagine with the best friends in your life. Campers: We totally love Camp JRF!
Camper: This place has become my second home, I never want to leave. Male Camper: This is really where I belong.
Female Camper: I come back because I can make so many new friends and
every time I come here I learn something new about being Jewish and about who I am.
Female Camper: When you're here, this is home. Male Camper: It's just a life changing experience.
The community you will build here will be the best friends you ever have.
Male Camper: It'll make anybody feel good, it'll make you feel at home. Female Camper: I consider it
as like a giant sleep over with all my friends. It's amazing. Female Camper: You get a sense
of community and you know that you'll always belong not matter what.
Male Camper: It has everything for everybody. Female Camper: It's just been one of the best experiences I've ever had.