West Coast to get two new Jewish camps
October 13th, 2016
Two successful Jewish summer camps have announced plans to open new branches on the West Coast.
The Reconstructionist movement will open a film- and arts-based camp in Southern California, a branch of its Camp JRF in Pennsylvania. And Eden Village, an organic Jewish farm camp in upstate New York, will open a West Coast branch in a location yet to be decided.
“We are looking at Northern California and we are also looking at Southern California,” Eden Village’s founding director, Yoni Stadlin, told J.
Both camps are planning to hold their first sessions in the summer of 2018.
Campers at Eden Village Camp inupstate New York. photo/jta-courtesy of eden village camp
The two new camps come in addition to Camp Ramah Northern California, which just concluded its first summer session at an oceanside location in Watsonville, on Monterey Bay.
The Reconstructionist camp, geared to third- through 10th-graders, is being started with a $1.4 million grant over four years from the Foundation for Jewish Camp, an incubator for specialty camps.
Camp JRF opened 15 years ago in a rented space and now houses more than 400 campers every summer on its campus in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.
The new camp will be within a few hours drive of three of the largest congregations affiliated with the Reconstructionist movement.
Meanwhile, Eden Village, which promotes Jewish environmentalism, received a grant from the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation to expand its operations from New York to the West Coast.
The new camp program will focus on vegetable farming, animal husbandry, food justice, whole food cooking and healthy food systems.
“We feel blessed and immensely grateful,” Stadlin said. “There is so much demand for the kind of Earth-based Judaism and loving kindness that Eden Village Camp creates.” — jta & j. staff
Source: “West Coast to get two new Jewish camps,” J Weekly, October 6, 2016