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SUMMER on the beautiful OREGON Coast!
BB CAMP
CAMP & SCHOOL GUIDE
A love story
that started
at camp
DENISE KAYE | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
Eric and Denise when they met in 1998.

COURTESY OF DENISE KAYE
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B4 JANUARY 6, 2023
t is said that to create Jewish children,
one must make sure to give their chil-
dren the opportunity to attend a Jewish
summer camp and experience going to
Israel. Our story begins in Israel, where my
sister, now Rabbi Erica Burech, was
studying abroad during her junior year of
college at Brandeis University. She always
knew she wanted to be a rabbi, so it made
sense for her to spend some time in Israel.

One day while in Israel, instead of sitting
with students from Brandeis, she decided
to sit with a different group from another
university. That is where she met Craig
Weiss, a junior studying abroad from the
University of Pennsylvania. He was from
Phoenix, which started the domino effect
of how Eric Kaye and I met.

My sister and Weiss started dating, con-
tinuing through the rest of their college
careers. He ultimately took a gap year
when Erica had her first year in rabbinical
school in Israel. Weiss was accepted into
Arizona State University for law school
and Erica wanted to be a student rabbi
at a Jewish summer camp.

In 1997, my sister met Eric Kaye, one
of the song leaders at Camp Charles
Pearlstein (now Camp Daisy and Harry
Stein). The following summer in 1998,
she had planned to return to work at the
camp and convinced me that I should
consider working there too, as a unit
head. I had recently graduated with an
education degree from the University
of Tampa, so it made sense to work in a
camp setting to utilize my degree while
potentially meeting other teachers who
could assist me with finding the right
teaching job in Phoenix.

My sister might have also convinced
me to come to camp because she wanted
me to meet the song leader, with whom
she and Craig had formed a friendship.

I’ll always remember meeting Eric for the
first time during staff orientation week.

I was walking inside to what is known as
JEWISH NEWS
The Kaye family today.

COURTESY OF DENISE KAYE
“the barn” and he was coming outside
the building, and we practically bumped
right into each other. From that moment
on, we built a friendship that turned into
an amazing partnership of marriage,
ultimately becoming parents and even
transitioning into business partners.

We have committed to sending both
of our children to Jewish summer camp.

Our son, Asher, who is in college at
Oberlin University, will be a second-year
counselor at Gindling Hilltop Camp in
California, where Andrea Cohen is the
resident director during the summer.

(Cohen is also the director of youth
philanthropy and community programs
at the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of
Greater Phoenix.) Cohen was the direc-
tor when Eric and I met at camp in 1998
and was front and center at our wedding
ceremony in 2001. Our daughter, Lirit,
a sophomore at Horizon High School in
Scottsdale, will travel to Israel this sum-
mer with other campers from the Wilshire
Boulevard Temple Camps in California.

We utilize a concept we learned at
camp daily, tikkun olam (acts of loving
kindness), as one of our core values in
our business, where we assist older adults
in aging gracefully in their homes with a
caregiver and helping them to find the
right assisted living community.

We are both also involved with the
Jewish community, and it is largely due to
our experiences attending Jewish summer
camps as children and working at a Jewish
summer camp as adults that instilled that
importance in us. JN
Denise and Eric Kaye own Connections In Homecare
& Communities (connectionsinhomecare.com).

Jewish News is published by the Jewish Community
Foundation of Greater Phoenix, a component of the
Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix.

JEWISHAZ.COM



SPECIAL SECTION
CAMP & SCHOOL GUIDE
Pains of war, seeds of peace
PAUL ROCKOWER | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
A mid the sylvan splendor of the Maine
woods, I spent a summer back in
2006 working as a counselor at Seeds of
Peace International camp. Seeds of Peace
is a camp that brings teenagers together
from areas of conflict. Teens from Israel,
the Palestinian Territories, Egypt and
Jordan, as well as India and Pakistan are
brought together to learn about each
other, and to meet their enemy face-to-
face. For two, three-week sessions dur-
ing the summer, this veritable “camp o’
conflict” is abuzz in its mission of creating
dialogue and friendship for groups that
have never so much as sat down together.

Seeds of Peace is absolutely amazing in
its ability to break down the barriers that
exist between communities, and fashion
friendships and understanding between
divergent groups. I will readily admit
that I became a drinker of the proverbial
Kool-Aid, as I witnessed my own bunk
of Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and
Egyptian teenagers coalesce together over
endless games of soccer and basketball.

The campers spend their summer in
dialogue sessions, learning about the
conflict from the eyes of the other side.

Moreover, they also spend much time on
the sports field, competing together and
learning to play with their teammates.

The competitive nature of sports does
much to help break down the barriers
that exist between all sides.

Beyond traditional sports activities,
these kids learn to value and trust their fel-
low campers through ropes course group
challenges. The ropes course activities
force the campers to learn how to work
with, and rely on each other, despite
their previous differences. Furthermore, a
thriving music and arts program helps the
kids express their creativity and identity
in alternative fashions. Through a wide
variety of activities, the campers learn to
do what their parents have never been
able to achieve — to co-exist together.

Over the summer, the campers learn
to trust the process that brings them
together and the environment surround-
ing them as a safe place to discuss their
differences. Making peace among enemies
is never easy, even in an idyllic Maine
setting. Yet even amid the currents of
political instability and the torrents of war
that flooded throughout the Middle East
this summer, the kids were able to tread
above the conflict and reach understand-
ing. As the violence in the region reached
its apex during the first session, the kids
were caught up in the coup de grace of
the session: color games. [Note: I was
there in 2006 during the Israel-Lebanon
War, this was the first summer where war
broke out during a session]
During color games, the entire camp
was divided up into two teams, completely
irrespective of religion or nationality. The
two teams, blue and green, fought pitched
battles of competition on the sports
fields. Green Israelis cheered on green
Palestinians and rooted against their rival
blue Israelis. For nearly three days, the
most intense sports competition of their
lives raged and enthralled these precocious
teens. Finally, when the winning team was
announced, the green team ran pell-mell
first into Pleasant Lake, only to be joined
moments later by their blue opponents.

As both teams splashed in the lake, and
washed away both victory and defeat, the
lesson of the summer was apparent to all
sides: identities that have been forged over
a lifetime are as arbitrary as that of the divi-
Paul Rockower, right, during his time as a counselor
for Seeds of Peace International camp.

COURTESY OF PAUL ROCKOWER
sions of blue and green shirts.

The motto of Seeds of Peace is that
they do what no government can — make
peace between people. I saw with my own
eyes that summer that this statement is
more than any buzzword-filled catch-
phrase; rather the Seeds of Peace mission
is alive in all of the wonderful teens who
gain such tremendous growth, under-
standing and empathy for each other and
all humanity. JN
Paul Rockower is executive director of Jewish
Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix.

This essay was submitted in his personal capacity.

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