Letters to the Editor
Being Made in Whose Image?
As a male feminist convert, I found much in Dr. Goldhaber-Gordon’s article that resonated with me (“Why I Am a Conservative Jew,” Fall 2007). When I started davening, still a non-Jew, I too found the blessing shelo asani isha (who did not make me a woman) offensive. For me there was the additional issue of what to do about shelo asani goi (who did not make me a gentile) or its replacement, she’asani Yisrael (who made me a Jew) since neither applied to me.
My solution was to skip the blessing about gender entirely (later I encountered and adopted b’tsalmo – in God’s image), and substitute the historically female blessing she’asani kirtsono (who made me according to God’s will) for the blessing about being a Jew, which I understood to mean that God had given me my particular birth situation, with all my particular attributes, and God wanted me to cope with my situation and make the most of who I was and am.
Now even after converting, I still say this blessing, along with the one about being Jewish, which now applies. I agree that the offensive shelo asani isha should be dropped, but I suggest that perhaps everyone might find it good to meditate daily on kirtsono. When not placed in opposition to being created male, it is a fine blessing.
- Fred Zemke
Foster City, California
Remembering Ramah
Imagine my surprise when I turned to the article on “Ramah at 60” (Fall 2007) to find myself pictured on the top right corner of the page, at the age of 15, beaming, next to my camp sweetheart, Jimmy Winokur.
There we were, in costume as Hansel and Gretel, “having fun at Ramah” just as the article states. This fun, however, occurred at Ramah in the Poconos, not in Wisconsin or California as the article asserts. This was the Ramah that supposedly had “the most ruach” of all the camps.
Back then in the sixties, Ramah served up Judaism in the most appealing manner: Shabbat prayer outdoors in an idyllic setting, delicious kosher meals, havdalah on the lake, and glorious Hebrew singing that occurred spontaneously when groups assembled. In my five summers in the Poconos, my conversational and biblical Hebrew blossomed, and I experienced remarkable spiritual and intellectual growth. Not to forget a sexual awakening, because there was that too.
Unfortunately, back in real life, I was never able to recapture the joy of practicing Judaism as I had during those extraordinary summers. To this day, I am continually searching for the right congregation to nourish my soul and the same level of brilliant intellectual dialogue that I found in the Poconos.
Camp Ramah then was a stellar place, and it cemented my Jewish connection forever.
- Betsey Nodler Pinkert
Highland Park, Illinois
I greatly enjoyed reading your first issue of CJ, especially “Ramah at 60.” I was interested to read that the original founders of Camp Ramah envisioned it as “a place for serious students who had potential as Jewish leaders,” where they would learn Hebrew and experience, at least for a summer, what living a Jewish life 24/7 was like.
I attended the Nyack and Palmer Ramah camps from 1966-70 as a camper, and the Glen Spey and Palmer camps as counselor in 1971, 1972, and 1976. (It’s true that my employment at the Palmer camp in 1976 was terminated a bit prematurely, but thereby hangs another tale...) My experiences at Ramah influenced my subsequent life as a Jew, from the college I chose to attend, the friends I made there, the activities I pursued, and finally, my current level of Jewish activity: I have been, since 1982, the high holiday cantor at Congregation Kol Shofar, a large Conservative synogogue in Tiburon, and I remain active in tefillah and leadership committees at Temple Beth Sholom here in Salem, Oregon.
However, I am writing this letter because I wish to expand on Rabbi Stephen C. Lerner’s 1971 astute comment that “Ramah tries to nourish sensitive Jewish souls.” For me, Camp Ramah was not just a spiritual lifeline exposing me to the wonders of what Judaism looked like when lived all day every day, but an emotional lifeline as well. Like many teenagers, my home life was troubled, and my summer activities were limited. At Ramah, I met amazing young people, both campers and staff. They were smart, funny, accomplished, and many of them great human beings. They were tolerant, they didn’t choose their friends by clothing or looks, they enjoyed study and meaningful and challenging conversation, and they were there for me when I needed them. I survived the ten months of the academic year just waiting for my two months at Camp Ramah. I came into my own each June when I walked through those gates, reunited with the kids and counselors and teachers who meant so much to me. I learned to daven, I learned to leyn, I learned to speak Hebrew with a passable Israeli accent, but most of all, I learned to love and to be loved, to befriend and to be befriended.
Over the years since we left Machaneynu Ramah, my friends and I have shared marriages and births and bar/bat mitzvahs and deaths and weekends of sharing and study. Some of my friends’ children have returned to Ramah, like migrating birds traveling long distances according to a mysterious built-in genetic program. On good nights,I still dream about Ramah; those are the mornings I wake up smiling. My approach to music, dance, prayer, and study are allinfluenced by the summer life that I lived at Ramah. This very life that I lead today I owe in part to Camp Ramah.
So I take this opportunity to salute Camp Ramah on her 60th anniversary, and I wish that our children’s voices will still be heard echoing from the high place of Ramah another 60 years from now, v’halah.
- Todd P. Silverstein
Professor of Chemistry
Willamette University
Salem, Oregon
I read with interest the article on “Ramah at 60.” I was a staff member at Ramah in Glen Spey, New York, from 1970 to 1972. But it seems as if Glen Spey has been too easily forgotten by the Ramah movement. Your article had a box on special needs camping and credited Ramah in New England as the site of the first Tikvah program in 1970. I believe, however, that the Tikvah program actually was born at Camp Ramah in Glen Spey in 1970. Although Glen Spey closed as a Ramah camp in 1972 and it was part of the Ramah movement only from 1967 until 1972, it was still the summer home for many Ramahniks and should not be forgotten or dropped from the history of the Ramah movement.
- Eric Schlesinger
Silver Spring, Maryland
Correction
In the photograph on page 45 illustrating Ramah at 60 (Fall 2007), the camper at the bottom right was misidentified. He is Marty Melman, now ritual chair of the Croton Jewish Center in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
