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Danish and Sderot kids unite in overnight camp

COPENHAGEN, Denmark [CHI] — The Gan Yisroel overnight camp of ChabaDenmark, a two week camp which takes place in both the summer and the winter, hosted 20 children from Sderot.

The Sderot kids coming to Denmark, was organized through chabad of Sderot, Rabbi Pizam and was sponsored by ChabaDenmark through local donors, of both private people and organizations.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

The children spent an exciting two weeks, with a fun filled program, from early morning to late at night.

They went on many trips including, canoeing, motor boating, tubing, overnights, an amusement park, mini golf and bowling. On the camp grounds was a full range of activities, including an indoor pool and fully stocked gym and game room.

The overnight camp was held for Danish kids, with a few Swedish and Norwegian children. The camp is organized by ChabaDennmark, Rabbi Yitzi and Rachel Loewenthal, and they were joined by Rabbi Shaul and Esther Wilhelm of Chabad Norway who came with a group of children.

The sderot kids were both religious and secular, some of them having suffered different traumas. One of the children was a cancer survivor, another’s father had his leg amputated due to a kassam rocket, and a 3rd’s brother had been hit by a kassam. Living as the do under the constant threat of missile fire, it took them a while until they realized that in Denmark there were no kassams, and they could relax and release some of the tension.

Despite the language and cultural barrier, after a couple of days, the different kids were able to communicate with each other to a degree, and learn and benefit from each other.

The children also met with Chief Rabbi of Denmark Bent Lexner, and Israeli ambassador, Dan moryan. The ambassador gave the children his email address, asking for their help in presenting Israel’s human side to the media, through them writing to him with a personal story or incident. the ambassador then mentioned privately to rabbi lowenthal, that the year before, the Jewish community of Denmark had wanted to bring children, but when the embassy presented it to the city of sderot, they were unable to get the kids.

The program of camp also included davening, learning classes and mishnayos baal peh. so besides for the emotional and physical benefit, they were also able tot grow spiritually, through learning new things about yidishkiet

The children also learnt a bit about Danish Jewish history, including the rescue of all Danish Jews by the underground during world war two. they also went to visit one of the fishing boats used in the rescue.

At the end of the camp, the children wrote letters of thanks for the great experience. One of the wrote (translated from the Hebrew) ‘Thanks a lot for all those that made this trip happen, we have no way of returning what up have done for us!, for the journey, the camp, the trips etc. we really enjoyed discovering an unknown world, it was two weeks of fun and laughter, in all my life i’ve never enjoyed myself so much! well, to make it short and get to the point, we had a great time! thanks for making it happen! from the Israelis from sderot and from nin peretz from sderot age 11 1/2

The camp was ably run by the counsllors, C. Hertz, L Fellig, M Baumgarten, M. Moskowics, R. Goldsobel and N. Greenberg

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