The coronavirus that slammed the Tristate region in March came just as camp prep was beginning in earnest. The Jewish Camp Expo, with workshops for counselors, had taken place just days before and administrators had started collecting camp fees from parents. The subsequent lockdown in New York and New Jersey, followed by a few horrific weeks when over 1,000 members of the Orthodox community passed away, quickly extinguished any and all plans.

The community emerged from lockdown around Shavuos time, and attention immediately turned to the summer. Schools were bolted shut, but what about sleepaway camps? The Association of Jewish Camp Operators compiled a report written by epidemiologists on the safety of overnight camps, and then launched a spirited lobbying operation to get Governor Andrew Cuomo and his health commissioner, Howard Zucker, on board.

The month of June was one of extreme uncertainty for camp directors, as Cuomo vacillated on allowing camps or not. Hopes were born and then dashed, based on meetings with Zucker and rumors coming out of Albany. Going out of New York to a state that allowed sleepaways was an immense undertaking for many camps. Yet staying in the Empire State meant relying on the governor’s goodwill.

“We kept on getting pushed off,” Rabbi Newmark says, “and gedolim felt that after three months of lockdown it was important for kids to have a structured summer. So at the end of May we felt it would be smart to look into the out-of-state route.”

It turned out to be a prudent move. After dithering on a decision until way past any possibility of camps opening even if it would have been a yes, Cuomo announced that he was refusing to allow sleepaways. The camps group then sued, and although the court has scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit for September 17, it rejected a separate motion by the camps for a temporary restraining order to revoke Cuomo’s refusal to allow sleepaway.

There was very little time to reorganize, but “once we came to the decision to go to New Hampshire,” says Rabbi Newmark, “we hit the ground running.” But would they be able to replicate the Agudah camp experience so enjoyed by two, or even three generations, recreate the ruach of the famous gazebos where campers would learn Torah in a more informal summer setting, capture the simple pleasures of a spirited baseball game, a surprise night swim, trays of cold watermelon on a hot Shabbos afternoon? Agudah’s Ruach Country took the first step, and other camps began to follow. Yeshivas Novominsk, for example, went to Pennsylvania, while other camps found places in Connecticut or Michigan. Usually this meant taking a camp styled for non-Jewish kids and turning it into one that catered to the frum camper. Pools needed a mechitzah, buildings had to be revamped to be used as shuls, and every room required a mezuzah.

“We knew that what kids needed most was to get back into a normal social framework after being isolated for so many months, and we were able to give that to them,” says Rabbi Newmark. “In the beginning we anticipated there might be challenges after being locked down for so long without normal social interaction, but once camp started it didn’t take long for the kids to stabilize socially — they’re a resilient bunch, and the counselors went above and beyond in helping them along, especially in light of the fact that our . And even though our community has suffered so many losses.”

Restructured

But not every camp was so lucky. Camps Romimu, Tubby, Munk, and many others weren’t able to relocate, so they retrofitted into day camps — with full-day programs until late into the evening, but with no bunkhouses or sleepovers.

Camp HASC, for example, which caters to high-functioning young people with autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities, opened as an adult center for those 18 and over.

“In the beginning,” says Abe Eisner, Camp HASC’s president, “we were rolling with everybody else, hoping that the governor would allow camps to open. But we were also different than other camps, as much of our population is medically frail, so even if the camp would have been allowed to open full force, we would have scaled back a lot of what we were doing.”

In the end, HASC opened for a small group of campers who are 18 and older — about 15 percent of the regular camp population — in addition to day campers who come in the morning and leave at night, and are tested for the virus daily.

During a visit to Camp HASC, a sprawling property in Parksville, New York, which calls itself “the happiest place on earth,” I had a front-row view to the happiness as I watched smiling campers walk by, accompanied by two or three staffers, many of whom travel from across the world to work here.

Rabbi Judah Mischel, the camp’s executive director who flies in from his home in Ramat Beit Shemesh every year, admits that this summer’s situation isn’t optimal, but says that as the world has changed over these past months, all we can do is readjust and make the best of a difficult situation. “Throughout history, we Jews have always had to readjust to option B or option C. That’s how we’ve always thrived,” he says. “And our staff is amazing — we’re at 15 percent capacity, but 100 percent heart. We can sit and look at what’s not happening, at the families who aren’t getting the services, and we can be sad. Or, we can look at what we’re doing under the circumstances and be happy, even with the physical distancing and so many other any contingencies. We’re dealing with human capital here, so the best is whatever we can accomplish.”

A typical year, Mr. Eisner says, brings about 300 campers and 550 staffers. There are so many counselors that they run separate programs each night for them, after the campers are put to bed. The medical staff numbers over two dozen, including two doctors. This summer though, only about 50 campers are allowed.

“During a regular year,” says Dr. Esti Horowicz, who runs the infirmary, “we usually have two or three thick folders of medical instructions. This year all we have is this. You see how thin it is?” she says, leafing through a small notebook.

Still, it’s better than nothing for these children, who get lavished with attention, and for their parents, who get a much-deserved break from the daily stresses and challenges of caring for them. Mr. Eisner, a veteran of behind-the-scenes askanus, pulled all the stops in order for HASC to get permission to open. He argued that the camp is anyhow used year-round for respite and shabbatons, so why can’t the camp operate its own programs during the summer? He was bounced around between agencies, from the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities to the Health Department.

“I told them,” he said, “‘if you really feel that we shouldn’t be doing this for medical reasons, then I’m finished, I have no complaints. But if it’s an issue of figuring out which agency has the authority, then let’s sit down and figure it out.” In the end, the camp opened in a very limited way, its annual participants yet another victim of the coronavirus fallout.

Nights Are for Sleep

Even camps that did open had to make major changes, from the schedule to the sleeping and eating arrangements. In a way though, it was a return to plain, old-time fun. “We let our campers know it wasn’t going to be exactly the same,” says Rabbi Newmark of Camp Agudah. “No major attractions, no major exciting activities, no major trips, no minor trips. Just old-fashioned camping, which is a throwback to 50 years ago. The program was a different program, and the campers were happy just playing sports. It was a simpler summer, but there was so much surprising beauty in that.”

Agudah opened on the Camp Winaukee grounds, a picturesque inlet protruding into Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in the state known as the “Mother of Rivers.” And while opening a camp any year is fraught with last-minute snags, this year they were faced with an 11th-hour rule that staff members must quarantine at the campsite for two weeks before they could welcome campers. The order came on June 20, forcing opening day to move five days to July 5, and adding to the mesirus nefesh of the staff, who were already stretched way beyond their comfort zone.

In the end, though, that turned into a blessing, as it gave the staff time to make the grounds fit for a heimishe camp. And once the campers arrived after a suggested home quarantine, individual bunks davened, ate, and slept apart from each other.

Rabbi Frischman says the closest he can compare the stress level of this year’s opening to is the Ruach Country opening in the summer of 2006, when the iconic main building, dining room, kitchen, office, and staff housing all went up in flames — five days before camp was supposed to start. That year, Rabbi Frischman heroically rallied staff and volunteers, and managed to get the camp in working order just a few days late.

Six hours driving distance away from New York, New Hampshire is a very sparsely populated state with wide-open spaces and little in the way of entertainment distractions. What would they do with no trips, no hikes, and no Walmart?

“Even though we were limited in what we could give them, the kids had a great time,” says Rabbi Newmark, looking back on the past two months. “What might have looked like second-best turned out to be l’chatchilah.”

For one thing, he says, the campers actually went to sleep on time every night. In addition, New Hampshire denizens prefer their nights to be pitch black, so the camp kept open as few night illuminants as possible. A side benefit was that the peaceful nights provided a dose of relief to the infirmary, which saw fewer cases of the common cold and other health issues.

“Nobody came, nobody went, there were no visitors, no campers running out to supermarkets, and fewer illnesses,” Rabbi Newmark noted. “The closest stores are 35 minutes away. There are more animal hospitals in these parts than people hospitals.”

When the staff initially saw the unique layout of the campgrounds, their hearts sank. Two-thirds of the camp is on the mainland, and a third of the grounds are on an island, with a little ferry shuttling back and forth. “We had the seventh graders on the island, and the eighth and ninth graders on the mainland, and the plan was that we’d shuttle the island group to the mainland for davening and meals,” says Rabbi Newmark. “But after a few days, we realized it wasn’t working. The staff and the boys had to get up an hour earlier for the little trip in order to daven together, and it was a huge stress to keep moving the groups back and forth — we’re talking about 150 seventh graders who had to be moved in shifts a few times a day.”

This obstacle, he says, actually turned out to be a huge blessing. “We decided to keep the groups separate in their own territory, and it was so much better for everyone — it turned out really beautiful. Many of the seventh-graders were bar mitzvah over the summer — they had their own minyan and dining room without feeling like the ‘younger brothers,’ and the older kids had their independence. It was so geshmak for everyone. They wouldn’t have had that back in Ferndale.”

When he thinks of the quintessential scene of Summer 2020, it’s not the backstory drama, but the normalcy of it all under strained conditions. “When I’d see the kids happily coming out of a regular Shabbos learning program, oblivious to the backdrop of the tension, of what was going on behind the scenes to get the camp going and keep it running, that was the biggest nachas, the real beauty of it all.

“The way things moved into place, it was obvious that we had tremendous siyata d’Shmaya. We relocated at the last minute, but essentially everything was the same. I would say that was our biggest accomplishment — a normal summer.”

Last-Minute Scramble

When Yoreh Deah, a summer program that engages in hands-on learning of shechitah, shofar making, hide processing, and weaving, opened in Connecticut, one ironclad rule was put in place by director Rabbi Avrohom Reit, a Bensonhurst resident who just completed his fourth innovative camping season: There was to be no mentioning of COVID.

Still, some evidence of the year’s singularity seeped through, including in registration. While Rabbi Reit normally had a much greater percentage of campers from out of town, all but four of the 47 bochurim who joined his program this season were from New York and New Jersey. He chalked that up to a hesitation by many to mingle with residents of areas that were hit so badly with the virus.

One bochur who attended the program in the past was so enthusiastic that he contacted Rabbi Reit during the winter, telling him that his friends would also be joining in the summer. But when summer approached and he hadn’t gotten applications from that boy’s city, Rabbi Reit called the father for an explanation. He told him, “My son hasn’t left the house since Purim. He’s scared to walk out the front door.”

Rabbi Reit initially planned on accessing a property in West Virginia for his program. One major benefit of that was that West Virginia is a state with no COVID restrictions. But the deal fell through just days before he was scheduled to begin.

“The truth is that I didn’t even have time to worry, because literally up until the last minute I thought we would be in West Virginia,” Rabbi Reit says. “And by the time I realized that I would have to give up on West Virginia and go to Connecticut, I had no time to think.”

Most other camps generally located in upstate New York didn’t have that no-worries luxury. All of them were on tenterhooks this spring, waiting to hear if Governor Cuomo would allow them to open, which of course didn’t happen in the end. For Camp Aliyah, one of the few camps with grounds in New Jersey (in Sussex, about 45 minutes from the Catskills), directors Rabbi Yitzi Geller and Rabbi Ezzi Wallerstein knew in advance Governor Murphy was unlikely to allow camps to open either. “We understood we’d have no one to talk to,” Rabbi Geller says. “In New York, camps are a 100 million-dollar industry. You can create a whole lobby. In New Jersey, where there are only 15–20 Jewish camps, we don’t have the same pull.”

Hence, Rabbis Geller and Wallerstein lost no time searching for an alternative camp ground in Pennsylvania. Camp Aliyah runs a session for girls grades six through ten for a month, called Bnos Naalah, then a session for boys grades five through twelve. (The groups number around 500 campers, the majority from Lakewood and the others from all over North America — “a nice mix,” Rabbi Geller says.)

They finally found a non-Jewish camp in Monroe, PA, with beautiful grounds including a 700-person dining room and 400-person community room they could turn into a beis medrash. The camp would be running a session for non-Jewish families later in the summer, so the directors signed up for July.

But Pennsylvania still hadn’t given the go-ahead, and Rabbis Geller and Wallerstein signed on the dotted line not knowing if they’d lose their investment. Pennsylvania was still opening up in zones, little by little, and they didn’t know if the camp zone would turn to “green” in time.

“We asked Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky and Rav Elya Brudny for hadrachah,” Rabbi Geller says, “and we saw trememdous Hashgachah.” Camp Bnos Naalah was the first Jewish camp to open this summer, on June 25, after the staff rushed to kasher the kitchen, put up mezuzahs, and make an eiruv.

The girls’ session had worked out, but now it was the boys’ turn — except that the camp owners had already planned to rent it to non-Jewish families in August. After some wrangling, Camp Aliyah’s directors offered double the original price if the camp owners would agree to push off the non-Jewish session, allowing the boys an extra three weeks.

Safety guidelines, established by the Association of Jewish Camp Operators, were followed. Campers had to take COVID tests five days before, stay in quarantine, and be rechecked for fever upon entry. There was no busing to camp on the way in, and cars entered one at a time. Campers, staggered by grade, had to present their paperwork upon entry

The camp couldn’t do its usual trips, like the four-day boys’ trip at the end of the summer (although they did go to Kalahari the second-to-last night). Yet despite the absence of the usual bells and whistles, Rabbi Geller maintains it was the best summer ever. “I stood there watching the boys learning and shteiging, and having fun playing sports, and I got tears in my eyes,” he says. “This year, no one took camp for granted. They saw it as a privilege.”

—Rachel Ginsberg contributed to this report

LIVE AND LEARN

When COVID struck, yeshivah bochurim and seminary girls found their year in Eretz Yisrael suddenly, shockingly truncated, with most getting on planes to return home before Pesach. As summer approached, many yeshivos remained shuttered, but some groups of bochurim wouldn’t be deterred and found their own innovative ways to make summer learning happen  e—ven joining forces with some unlikely chavrusas.

Camp Mesorah has long been a favorite of the Modern Orthodox community, drawing both middle school and high school kids from all over the country for a summer of sports and activities. And this summer, it became a center of Torah as well for bochurim whose yeshivah year in Eretz Yisrael was suddenly cut short.

“When Cuomo shut down sleepaway camps in New York, we had a very tight window to find a place for the kids,” says Ari Katz, the camp’s owner and director. But they managed to find a spot at Camp Nah-Jee-Wah in Milford, Pennsylvania. And there was an unprecedented, surprising new addition: An entire beis medrash filled with 40 young men recruited from yeshivos such as Toras Shraga, Netiv Aryeh, Reishis Yerushalayim, and Lev HaTorah. A few others were alumni of those yeshivos currently enrolled in YU and Shaar Yoshuv. But they all had one thing in common: The wanted to continue learning Torah throughout the summer.

It started when Max Herskowitz, who was once a counselor at Mesorah and learned in the Mesorah kollel last year, was disappointed to learn the kollel wouldn’t be happening this summer. It turned out that Rav Meir Goldwicht, Mesorah’s rosh kollel and a visiting rosh yeshivah at REITS, was forced to remain in Eretz Yisrael this summer due to his age and health.

Still, Max — who learned at Netiv Aryeh, spent three years at YU and plans to learn in Yeshivah Gedolah of the Five Towns this zeman — joined with a few friends in hopes that they could somehow get the kollel up and running. Perhaps they could partner with Ari Katz and the camp to open their own beis medrash on premises? They would need to fund it privately, so Max and his friends began making calls, soliciting donations to properly equip the facilities. Within two weeks, they raised the funds they needed — close to 40,000 dollars.

“People weren’t giving to other yeshivahs just then, since almost everything was closed,” Max relates, “so they gave to us.”

At first, Max secured bunk space for 15 guys. But word spread fast, and before he knew it, he was making space for 40.

Now, a beis medrash needs a space of its own, especially for that many people. At Camp Mesorah, now in unfamiliar Nah-Jee-Wah, they discovered an old pool storage room, and with funds in hand, Max and his friends outfitted the rec room with an aron kodesh and air conditioning, and ran to Staples to buy ten tables and 50 folding chairs.

The beis medrash now had a physical space, but to truly come alive it needed a rosh yeshivah to give shiurim and inspire the bochurim — and the rest of the campers as well. In this case, their choice was truly fortuitous. Rabbi Ben Leybovich, who lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh, had been Max’s rebbi when he was in yeshivah at Netiv Aryeh, and the two stayed connected. Max and his chevreh wanted him there for the summer.

This, of course, would mean asking Rabbi Ben to abandon his family and spend seven weeks in Pennsylvania, plus two in quarantine upon his return to Israel. “He was actually pretty shocked when I called and proposed that he come,” Max says. But Rabbi Ben is nothing if not dedicated. While in Israel, he’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. to give the night seder shiur to the Netiv Aryeh talmidim who’d gone back to the States. And once he arrived at camp, he’d wake up around the same time to learn with his son and speak to his family.

“Although he’s yeshivish style and we were a Modern Orthodox crowd, he brought out the ruach in everybody,” says Ari Katz. “He was like a rebbe — all he had to do was raise his hands and the kids would quiet down to listen.”

The combination of Rav Leybovich and the presence of a kollel on the camp grounds created a whole new spirit at Camp Mesorah. “They created this amazing cool atmosphere,” Ari Katz relates. “The kollel guys took it upon themselves to transform the entire camp. The campers would play sports with the kollel guys and enjoy activities with them, but they became drawn to the learning as well. We had sixth, seventh, eighth graders skipping out on sports to go hear Rav Ben’s shiurim.”

On the last Shabbos of camp, after the morning kiddush, Rav Ben told the campers, “It’s our last Shabbos together. We’re going to cram in a whole year of Yiddishkeit now!” He got the kids up singing and dancing to songs from every major holiday, in a celebration that lasted two hours. “The kids were crying after that Shabbos,” Max says. Rav Ben called it Gan Eden.

—Barbara Bensoussan

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 825)