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Camp Galil isn’t the only Jewish summer camp
following this philosophy. Many camps in the Greater
Philadelphia area have banned cellphones and any
technology with screens from camp premises. For the
most part, the restrictions have been beneficial, camp
management said.

“When we tell families this before the summer,
parents always get very excited, and kids kind of
roll their eyes,” said Rabbi Isaac Saposnik, executive
director of Camp Havaya, a Reconstructionist sleep-
away camp in Wyncote. “And when we talk about it
with families and kids after the summer, we often hear
kids talk about this being one of the highlights, that
it really is the only time where they don’t have to be
connected 24/7 like that.”
Saposnik has noticed that about a week in, campers
stop the compulsive reach for their phone to snap a
picture and start living in the moment. They look forward
to writing letters to parents and friends back home.

Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
A bout 10 years ago, David Weiss, executive
director of Habonim Dror Camp Galil in
Ottsville, noticed a change in the camp’s
bunks. Instead of the snickering and chatting he
usually heard after lights out, there was silence. Kids
were not cracking jokes or sharing secrets. They were
scrolling on their phones.

Since then, Camp Galil has implemented a no-cell-
phone policy at camp.

“Summer camp, especially overnight summer camp,
is a really intentional space that is apart from the rest
of the world,” Weiss said. “It’s a space where you
come together and for two weeks, four weeks, seven
weeks, do things that really aren’t comfortable in any
other setting. And part of that is being disconnected
and away from the distractions of the outside world.”
Eliyah Eisenman, a 14-year-old from Plymouth
Meeting, has spent summers at Camp Galil since
2018. There have been cellphone restrictions in place
as long as she’s been a camper.

“I’ve never missed my phone,” Eliyah said.

“I mostly use my phone to communicate with friends
and, because I’m constantly around my friends, there’s
no need for it,” she added.

Though she finds it hard to fall asleep on the first
night of camp without her phone, by the second night,
she’s glad she’s phoneless.

When Eliyah comes home from camp, she finds it
hard to text friends for about a month. She said she’d
rather just call people. But by the end of the summer,
she’s tethered to her phone once more.

Though cellphones are a relatively recent invention,
there have always been distractions at summer camp.

When Jordan Bravato, camp director at Camp Kef at
the Kaiserman JCC, was a camper at the same camp
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Jewish Summer Camps Find Ways to
Limit, Adapt to Technology



he leads now, he brought his portable CD player to
Camp Kef’s grounds.

“I remember being told by many, many counselors
like, ‘Hey, you gotta put that away,’” Bravato said.

Distractions at camp aren’t just a 2023 issue.

Whether it’s a CD player, Tamagotchi or iPhone,
it’s always been the job of camps to regulate the
presence of technology.

As smartphones and screens become more integral
parts of daily life, camps are once again figuring out
how to adapt.

“We know that this is getting harder and harder
given how much kids are on their screens,” Saposnik
said. “We know kids use devices for music, and they
use it to read and they use it to take pictures.”
Camp Havaya recommended kids pack devices that
don’t connect to the internet. For families who can’t
afford these gadgets, the camp provides some.

Day camps, such as JCC Camps at Medford, offer
STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math,
programming, where kids can use robotics, computer
coding or 3-D printing.

“They’re going to the lake, and then they’re going
to archery or they’re going to the ropes course,” JCC
Camps at Medford Director Sara Sideman said. “So it’s
not in the entirety of their day. It’s just infusing it into
their experience.”
The JCC Camps at Medford and Camp Kef have
both created apps to send parents camp updates
and photos regularly, including protected folders for
Habonim Dror Camp Galil in Ottsville has restricted cellphones during summer camp for about a
decade. photos of their children.

Implementing regulations on phone and technology
use at camps isn’t camp leadership being ignorant of
adolescent life. It’s an attempt to preserve a decades-
long Jewish tradition of camp joy and camaraderie in
a rapidly changing world.

“It’s not about trying to create some vision of what
Utopia looked like five years ago, 10 years, 20 years
ago,” Saposnik said. “But figuring out what is Utopia
for our kids right now.” ■
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