last word
Debbie Albert
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
D ebbie Albert was often gawked
at by her public school class-
mates in the cafeteria during
Passover, her kosher meals drawing
unwanted attention.

That is how it was for most of the
year: Albert was one of the few kids in
her town who kept kosher and built a
sukkah on Sukkot — one of the few
religious Jews.

But over the summers, things were
different. For eight weeks out of the
year for eight years, Albert, along with
a gaggle of Jewish teens, would spend
each morning singing “Hatikvah,” each
Friday night celebrating Shabbat at
Camp Ramah in the Poconos. The feel-
ings of isolation and otherness Albert
had for the other 44 weeks of the year
melted away.

“When you’re at camp, you don’t
have to explain your Judaism,” Albert
said. “It’s just part of your being.”
It’s that feeling that kept her coming
back to Ramah, not only as a camper
but as a member of Camp Ramah in
the Poconos’ board of directors. As
president of the board since October
2019 — and a board member for
another seven years — Albert, 61, has
steered the camp and its three prongs
(the sleepaway camp, day camp and
Tikvah program for disabled campers)
during two pandemic summers.

After a camp-less summer in 2020,
2021 brought a unique challenge. Kids
were thrilled to return to camp, but a
year of pandemic living left its mark on
campers’ mental health.

“The kids had one of the best sum-
mers of their lives; the staff had maybe
one of the hardest of their lives,”
Albert said.

Ramah staff paid extra emotional
care to campers, helping them adjust to
being back around a large group of kids
or being away from parents after a year
cooped up in their homes.

As 2022 and a new normal approaches,
it provides another opportunity to take
40 stock of the almost 50 years Albert has
been involved in Ramah. It will also be
her first time returning to camp since
becoming board president.

“Everything and nothing” has
changed since Albert was a camper,
she said.

A new generation of campers raised
on technology are arriving at camp,
but they are happy to relinquish their
JUNE 16, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
phones for the summer. Many even say
that’s the best part of the eight-week
experience, Albert said.

Without kids tethered to their
phones, Ramah has maintained the
founding spirit of the camp.

“The thing that hasn’t changed is the
way we celebrate Shabbat and the way
we talk about Israel,” Albert said. “The
values of Judaism have remained intact,
of course, and that’s been the same
since the ’50s, when camp started, to
today.” Albert sent her kids to Camp Ramah
in the Poconos and continued to
donate money to the organization but
didn’t take on a leadership role there
for decades after her time as a camper.

After getting a bachelor’s degree in
journalism from George Washington
University, Albert, a Dresher resident,
returned to Philadelphia to work as an
assignment editor for channels 3 and
6 news.

Her time in journalism was short-
lived, however, due to burnout from
the job. She coincidentally got in touch
with her 12th-grade teacher around
the same time, who helped Albert
pivot toward public relations. Albert
worked for the Spectrum area and var-
ious trade organizations before joining
Aramark for 15 years.

In 2010, Albert left Aramark to
build her own PR company but later
rejoined Aramark under the new title
of senior vice president of Corporate
Communications. Camp Ramah was never far from
Albert’s thoughts. A member of both
Adath Israel in Merion Station and
Temple Sinai in Dresher, Albert has
always been involved in the Jewish
community. She’s still in touch with
her edah, her cohort of campers, many
of whom she met in 1973.

“I talk to them all the time,” Albert
said. “When you live with people ... it
creates a bond that lasts a long time.

Forever, I would have to say.”
The longevity of their friendship
exists outside of the campgrounds, but
it is also unique to the experience of
Camp Ramah.

“You’re surrounded by teachers and
rabbis and the culture and Zionism in
a way that you can’t be in our secular
world,” Albert said. “When you go
there, you’re having the time of your
life, and you’re being Jewish, and it’s
seamless.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Debbie Albert
READIES FOR A RETURN TO SUMMER CAMP