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Rigler Continued from Page 12
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interest in our Yashar Initiative and
counselor internship to support campers
with disabilities, recruitment efforts around
our Russian-speaking Jewish community
and recently a partnership with Keshet
to help camps create LGBTQ+ affirming
spaces. In the past year camping movements
— like URJ, Ramah and the Association
of Independent Jewish Camps — have all
provided racial equity trainings for their
camp leadership teams, and FJC has
funded two camp innovation projects on
racial equity, expanded the New York-area
DEI Coaching Project for Day Camps and
committed to more research about the
experience of Jews of color in our field.

Amid the COVID-19 protocols, the arrival
procedures and the cleaning supplies, camp
leadership has continued to prioritize the
people that we serve first, treating their
physical and emotional safety with equal
importance and listening more to the inter-
sectionality in our community.

As camps open, there is much to celebrate
— both as a broader Jewish community and
with the unique identities that our campers
bring. We are not only celebrating campers
arriving at camp, we are celebrating who
they are and how they are showing up. This
month, as camps open their gates, some may
feature Pride celebrations. Raising the Pride
flag is now a ritualized part of opening camp
in June. Our camps are amplifying LGBTQ+
voices and sharing in Pride Shabbat. Pride
month reminds us that being allies and
leaders means more than community educa-
tion and policy change; it means standing
together in celebration. As Noam wrote in
his song, “Ain’t no one like you or me, but for
us the world was created and we, we belong.”
The past 18 months also gave us time to
reflect on who our communities are, and to
recreate rituals, to ensure our camp commu-
nity celebrations are inclusive of multiple
ethnic and cultural identities. The oppor-
tunity to celebrate the fact that our Jewish
community is not a monolith, to see and
honor our diversity and resilience, to share
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JULY 1, 2021
Rabbi Stacy Rigler is the senior program
manager of Jewish Education at Foundation
for Jewish Camp and Jewish life adviser and
camp council member of URJ Camp Harlam. She
previously served as a rabbi educator at Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.

Be heard.

DEADLINE -
22 stories and build relationships was a focus
of planning for summer 2021. As Juneteenth
was declared a national holiday, we heard
stories of Juneteenth Shabbat, personal
stories shared in camp communities and
new traditions formed. We honor those
individuals who are creating culture change.

Last year at this time, we lifted up the
heroes of Jewish day camps that opened and
kept the heartbeat of our Jewish commu-
nity flowing. We mourned the inability to
gather and create community in the ways
we had known for summers before. Though
we were not together, our Cornerstone song
reminded us that “near or far, camp was
the place where we all could be strong
and belong.”
Now, I write this reflection from the
grounds of URJ Camp Harlam in Kunkletown,
where hundreds of campers were welcomed
home this week. As a member of the FJC team,
I know the challenges that the larger camp
community faced this past year were immense.

I also know that despite those challenges, camp
leadership continued to be laser-focused on
the campers they served, and the staff they
employ. They asked hard questions about
how they could strive to make changes to
open their gates as wide as possible.

Looking around the chader ochel (dining
hall), it’s almost unbelievable to think about
the preparations made to ensure that every
child is celebrated for being their most
authentic and best self. These are the stories
never told, the work that makes the magic
possible. I can’t help but sing the closing
words to the Cornerstone 2021 song: “This
time, this place, hard things, we face. This
home, we’ve known, these seeds we’ve sown.

... “Mah Norah HaMakom Hazeh — How
Awesome is this place. I’ll meet you there.” l
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