Op-Ed: Color War Breakout, The More Frightening the Better

Color war is an integral part of the summer camp experience. Day camp or overnight camp, it seems that this friendly competition between two teams is one of the highlights of the summer.

Teams earn points through sports events, original musical compositions, skits, banners, and other art projects. Everyone’s a winner because the process is fun. However, there is a more disturbing side to this annual summer event. Color war needs a breakout and the more frightening the better it seems.

Sometimes it feels like camps compete between each other for the most original and terrifying color war breakout.

Contrived medical emergencies, alleged poisoning of water fountains requiring campers to receive injections of the antidote, wild animals loose in camp requiring campers to shelter in place for fear of being attacked, staged robberies, the list goes on. Certainly everyone laughs when they realize that it’s just color war, but it’s a nervous relieved laugh that campers feel is expected of them. However
the counselors who devise these unusual and supposedly exciting breakout scenarios are unfortunately unaware how traumatic these can be for younger campers.

Perhaps we can come up with a new model for color war breakout that is still something exciting and fun but doesn’t leave younger campers with nightmares for the rest of the summer.

6 Comments

  • C

    At the out-of-town Jewish camp I attended a yovel ago, they outlawed Color War because of this… An announcement over the loudspeaker, a note served with someone’s dessert and read aloud at lunch, a clown running through camp calling out– c’mon camp staff, let’s get creative and make it fun instead of scary.

    • not a snowflake

      It was decades ago that a counselor wearing a real-looking bear costume charged, roaring, into the room were the boys were gathered, scaring the daylights out of all the kids.
      Everyone laughed after they stopped crying. It was so “good”, they really thought it was a bear!
      Everyone … except … the 1 boy who literally had a nervous breakdown R’L.
      Was it worth it? A child’s life forever ruined?

  • Anonymous

    I always HATED color war cause of the break outs. Worst thing ever. Scaring kids like that is the worst. A lot of campers don’t remember much about camp except for the scary color war breakout

  • Chossid

    As a very young camper I was traumatized when my best friend was “kidnapped” and some goyim in a helicopter landed on camp grounds to get ransom. When the camp director refused to give in, they yelled: we want war. And he said what kind of war? OK you get the idea. I was mamesh petrified. Years later a camp opened with no color war, and user friendly competitions – nothing sadistic