camp experience combines best of all worlds

Orange County Jewish Life

Writing this Kids Konnection was on my list of things to do today. I had a topic picked out and a plan about what to say. It changed early this morning, however, when my seven-year-old twins bounded into our bedroom at the crack of dawn.

Jacob said, “Mommy, please, please wake up early, so that you can help me practice my davening before camp this morning.” This was followed by Michela saying, “I need you to help me with the part that goes right after the Shema.”

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Editorial: Three Million Dollars, a failed cause / The battle for the Jewish soul

The stranger on the other end of the line, asking a bizarre question ‘do you believe that the Rebbe is Moshiach’ succeeded in arousing my curiosity level to an extent that phased a full scale conversation. As it turned out it was a Jews for “J” sales person who identified himself with an ultra-orthodox-sounding name. After confirming that he himself was a Jew, I allowed this vulnerable sounding man to apply his professional techniques of luring people into discussion serve as a ground for my interests, namingly, to initiate a discussion in which I can explain to him the falsity of his approach. As I had come to expect, he rattled off plenty of verses. Ironically, I didn’t even have to know the verses to convince him that he was spewing ridiculous, self imposed interpretations.

Jewish Identity Grows Among Lithuania’s Gan Israel Campers

Rivka Chaya Berman – Lubavitch.com

Statistics compiled by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry project that of the 60 singing, cheering Jewish girls, who piled onto the bus to attend Camp Gan Israel of Vilnius, only six will marry Jewish men. Acutely aware of the assimilation pandemic, Chabad of Vilnius’s representatives, Rabbi Sholom Ber and Dina Krinsky used every moment of their two-and-a-half week camp to tempt the campers with the delights of Jewish living.