The other day, Ashley Abramson suggested that her sons—Max, 10, and Jack, almost 12—spend their winter break relaxing at home. After all, their dad, Bryan, was going to be on vacation as well, and the boys had been working really hard these last few weeks at school.
But that meant they would miss out on Gan Israel Winter Camp at Chabad Lubavitch of Delaware—and the boys weren’t having any of that.
“I’m not kidding . . . They came to me and said, ‘We need to go to camp! We’ll walk there!’ They even called the rabbi”—Rabbi Motti Flikshtein, the program director there who also runs the camp—“to tell him that we suggested they stay home. They won.”
Far from being upset, the Abramsons, who live in Wilmington, Del., in the same city as the Chabad House, were happy with their boys’ decision.
“It’s amazing,” says Abramson. “They can be themselves at camp; that’s the key. It’s not just the trips and the water parks they go to, it’s the amazing journey they have going on a trip with the rabbi and seeing their friends from camp, both summer and winter.”
The Abramson boys aren’t the only ones who will feel the joy of Chabad and its celebrations during winter break. All across the country, hundreds of kids will participate in winter camp programs offered at their local Chabad centers for a week or two while public schools are closed.
The camps provide a vital service. Besides focusing on Jewish-oriented activities—evident even more this year as the camps coincide directly with Chanukah, which starts the night of Dec. 24 and lasts through Jan. 1—they offer parents a safe and supportive environment for their children while they are at work.
“We feel it’s a really good opportunity to get kids doing something with their Judaism during winter break,” says Baily Kahan, who runs the Camp Gan Israel at Chabad Lubavitch of Camden County in Cherry Hill, N.J., with her husband, Rabbi Yitzchok Kahan. “Some of the kids are in Jewish day schools, some are not; either way, it’s a good way for them to spend the day. It’s also a great convenience for parents.”
Kahan says their program—like most other Gan Israel or Chabad-affiliated winter camps—will include daily trips, crafts, baking projects, prayer time and more. They even provide extended-hour early- and after-camp care.
Having children at camp during the winter is not for everybody, she says, “but if parents are not going away and are looking for something for the kids to do, this may be an option.”
More than 60 kids have registered for at least some part of the Gan Israel Cherry Hill vacation week—they offer a daily or full-week option—that culminates on Friday, Dec. 30, with a challah bake and pre-Shabbat party.
A Bonus for Vacationers
In the western United States, some 50 kids are scheduled to attend winter camp at Chabad in Aspen, Colo. Yet many of those children aren’t from the neighborhood.
“Over half of the kids who come aren’t locals, they are just here for vacation and the holiday,” explains Rabbi Mendel Mintz, co-director of the Jewish Community Center-Chabad of Aspen. “In a way, that’s a big plus because it makes for a very eclectic group and lots of different kids. Some of them know each other from the previous year’s summer camp. It’s a very warm environment; within a half-hour, everyone knows each other.”
Both Mintz and Kahan say that this year’s camp will include many Chanukah related events—from arts-and-crafts projects to latke-baking, dreidel-decorating and menorah-lighting.
Unlike learning in a classroom, the activities that take place are more fluid, meant for entertainment and socialization that comes with the season (and without the fear of tests and grades). It’s a time, say organizers, when kids can embrace their Jewish identity—and just be kids.
“Seeing dozens of Jewish children celebrating their Yiddishkeit and living Judaism, with the smiles that brings to their faces is heartwarming,” says Mintz. “That is our biggest motivator.”
And it’s one that is reaping dividends for families like the Abramsons, who have started to increase their personal observance.
“For my kids to come home so excited,” says Ashley Abramson, “and understand the traditions and where they come from and then to teach me . . . I don’t think it gets any better.”
For more information on Chabad winter camp, click here.
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