Camp Gan Israel Celebrates a Decade of Summer Fun

Greenwich, CT — This summer marks the 10th year anniversary of Camp Gan Israel of Greenwich, most recently located on Lake Avenue. Founded by Yoseph and Maryashi Deren in 1997, the camp seeks to provide a quality camp experience within a Jewish environment for children 20 months to 13 years old. The camp shares a name with 1,500 national Camp Gans and is one of 3,500 Chabad organizations worldwide.

Ten years ago, the debut summer yielded 40 children, 10 of whom resided within the Greenwich border. “We believed we would be lucky to have 120 campers in 10 years,” said Maryashi Deren, camp director and co-founder. Since then, the number of campers has steadily increased, with a maximum capacity of 250 children in the past four years. This year, the camp enrollment consisted of 200 Greenwich children and 50 from the Westchester area. Future Camp Gan plans include building a large in-ground pool to accommodate more campers.

When asked about reason for the camp’s success, Ms. Deren responded with one word: Quality. She said she believes the essential ingredient to a prosperous theological camp experience has been obtaining the “best of the best” counselors and professional instructors. Camp Gan Israel of Greenwich has one counselor for every five campers.

“Our counselors connect to the soul of every child,” Ms. Deren said.

Surprisingly, the very aspect that makes Camp Gan Israel unique — its Jewishness — is often its largest setback, she said, adding that Jewish families often prefer to send their children to secular summer camps rather than expose them to a strictly Jewish camp experience.

“Our biggest challenge has been trying to convince people that the Jewish values are just an extra plus and are not taking away from the camp experience,” Ms. Deren said.

“It’s what makes us different,” she added of the Jewish values embedded in the camp.

Each day, one of the eight camp sessions is devoted to Jewish themes, whether it’s singing Hebrew songs, challah baking or learning a new Jewish “value” to use within the community. Zrizus, a Hebrew word meaning, in raw translation, to do it quickly, is one example of the many daily values learned. The children learn that zrizus means more than acting quickly; rather, the word signifies responding with a sense of urgency to a mother’s requests or reducing procrastination tendencies that plague much of today’s youth. Another concept is respecting elders, even when you don’t agree with them.

In addition to promulgating Jewish values, Camp Gan Israel has an aggressive sports agenda, including tennis, swimming and kayaking, as well as a busy event schedule, which just last week included a day with New York Mets pitcher Scott Schoeneweis. Also on this year’s agenda were trapeze and rope climbing instruction from 12 European circus members.

As a part of the American Camp Association, Camp Gan Israel can tap multiple programs through networking with international resources.

After running Camp Gan Israel of Greenwich for 10 years, Ms. Deren sticks to the same slogan that has become the benchmark of her existence: “Our goal is the children.”