good morning. i'm honored to be your host this morning. faith communities across the country think a lot about the future and how to educate their young people to live traditions and values to make the world and community a better place. one of the ways in which that question is answered is by the experience of camping. we would like to invite you into a conversation this morning with rabbi alley fischer and aaron mandell whose the associate director. >> thank you. >> let's jump in and ask you

what is jewish camping, what is camp tawanga? why don't you jump in. >> camp tawanga has been around since 1925 we're in the sleep away summer camp in the mountains and it's the best few weeks of the year. >> and they have the rest of the year. >> rabbi. >> we are about to enter the 72 72nd summer here in the bay area. right now, the east bay past the bridge. we have a camp site in santa

rosa which unfortunately was devastated by the fire last year. we're in an in between space right now on the beautiful campus. we have many kids and staff members that join us all summer. >> we've got kids starting as young as six or seven years old to come up through age 17 and the programs change a little bit. we have more development programs. we get kids all throughout second and third grade and 12 12th grade up to high school. we also run family programs and get campers of ayou will ages up to newborning and they come

with their families and programs we run. so yeah, we have all kinds of folks. >> we run the programs in the summer ranging three weeks and four weeks for kids to choose from entering third grade to 11 11th grade. our 11th graders and 12th graders have annuitant come for a different session where the kids can do fund raising and learning about the lgbt2 community and giving back to camp and the community or our training program which is weeks long of learning how to be an amazing coups already. in addition we serve a lot of staff in the summer. we have about 130 staff members with us who help us build and create this amazing experience for the summer.

>> you can talk a little bit about how you are a really like low barrier to entry. so one slight difference is we're not affiliated crated with a movement. we try and make sure there's a welcoming, accommodating, deep meaningful experience for someone not jewish or for whom coming to camp is the only thing he does all year, all the way through the campersers into all the different activities playing sports, arts and crafts and music trauma and specifically, jewish education and learning programs at camp

and we try and infuse that into the general community where it's not just you're jewish at this time, it's a whole three weeks of being in jewish community. feeling like jewish. >> we have faculty members to do all the things aaron was talking about also. we have it infused to the different parts of our day. we say blessings before and after our meals. it's one of the highlights of everything we do. it's the pennicle of what we do. that's the only time they have to be surrounded by people in the jewish community.

>> we're going take a quick break and come back and have that conversation in just a moment.

welcome back. we're having a conversation about jewish camping and the jewish world. let's talk a little bit about whyoung coming to the is it tha difference. >> i think one of the special

things is you get to leave behind things at home. the things worrying you or weighing on you during the school year. it's a fun community getting to know people and exploring new kinds of activities. different kinds of art you done before or sports or singing or slack lining or any of the different things we offer. you could just know about your different people.

it can be difficult sometimes. they can be their self. >> in the bay area we're jews of color, immigrant jews and juice who are american california to the bay area itself. especially in a place where you meet jews different from you.

can you talk about a person being in a place so different from their own neighborhood, home or school. >> that's such a good question and so vast. it touches on a lot of the beauty and challenge of what we're doing in camping. a lot is made harder by the removed tenology in our lives and it's a certain to camp. it's 12 kids living together and they're comping to different places and forced to

be face to face. the aspect, you think about. we join a sports team and you have different people on your team and you're there for an hour or two and you think the whole season goes a few weeks long. you multiply two or three or four weeks and get in deep with people. that's where a lot of amazing growth and discovery learning happens. >> that's fantastic.

boss: it's a big responsibility. employee: oh, it's huge. i know, it's huge. boss: and the salary... employee: oh my god, yes. i was literally about to move in with my parents and right before... yeah, so this saved me. boss: i really believe in you. you know?

employee: thank you. it's nice to hear that from someone. boss: these are cool. did you...um? where did... aaron, this is a picture. what are we looking at?

>> here we have a few of our camper cabins. you can see in front our lake, a field, in the background some of the beautiful trees and forest of the sierra mountains. >> wonderful. welcome back. i'm monitored to be your host. we've ended our previous segment talking about inclusion in the bay area. can you talk about that in the camp newman perspective? >> i think aaron was speaking about r are dog. camp wman, everything we do comes back to a philosophy of area. we're roll modeling for everyone and treating each person like he created in the image of god.

this philosophy of area being one of the things that really is something we highlight throughout the summer. i want to make sure our kids know and staff know this is suppose to be a community built for everyone. that means everybody in the bay area. anyone interested in having one of these experiences, we want to be open enough and have the right place we're welcoming. it made people feel comfortable. that means sometimes you might feel different from the other kids or staff around you. we're doing as much as we can. we talked about doing more so that people can come in and feel like each place is their home and a place they can make their home and feel comfortable there. >> we spent a lot of time talking about how the next

generation will feel confident and competent and making the world a better place and being better human beings and being better relationally and better citizens in the world. being inclusive and being welcoming are building blocks of people feeling that confidence and competence. i wonder if you can talk about the ways in which you think about those issues from the perspective of your programs and even through the vision like how do you see the effects of that confidence building and that competence building out in the world beyond a camp session. >> i think camp is suppose to be an add version of the world that we're suppose to be. it's a place you go for part of your summer. if we do our job as people in charge of and running these

camps, you know, kids are going to get a vision of the best possible version of society. they're going to get a chance to feel the best possible version of themselves and then when the camp session ends, i really take it as my responsibility to tell the kids that you know, they don't, this wasn't just for them to have for these three weeks. they need to go out and experience what it felt like to be loved and accepted for who they are, to work out differences face to face with dialogue and communication. those kinds of skills are confident to take a stand in who you are and who you believe in and think about what does it mean to live in community which we all live in and how do you take that back home to school and your own communities during the many, many weeks here not at camp. >> i think that something special happens at camp when you're working things out with

people face to face. you're forced to interact with screens in front of you. you can accept them for who they are also. i think the foal is that these kids will take all the learning about being confident and the staff and go home and next time they encounter one of these issues whether it's them or someone else our hope and things we see from stories kids send in, it's all the things we hear about from them, the things that they learn, they end up being directly inside the things they've done. that's a beautiful thing they can that into their world the other night. >> if it's not too personal, i know for any of us to work in a

faith community, we're both roll models and give and teach but we're also sales receive and grow. i'm wondering before we take our break if we can just reflect a little bit about how actually these values have influenced you as you do the work and you yourselves have grown as people, as jews and citizens of the world. can i jump to you quickly? >> yeah, i think curiousty and wonder and awe are the things that i get to experience and see someone connect to feel a prayer for the first time for seeing them really understand a concept and being able to experience that through their eyes sustains me and is one of

the most beautiful things we see. >> i was a kid, it was my summer job in college. now i'm one of the direct there. i don't know what my life would be like without camp. i for sure know i wouldn't be as confident as i was for the love and validation i received from role models growing up and still to do this day they identified me. i also think about the experiences of going out into nature and the wilderness and opens foreflection and spiritual moments. i think also just being able to kind of know

my roll and know when the speak up and empower other people. >> thanker you so much. we're going to take a quick break and come back in a moment.

let's let folks know logistic things like when you register and do you start. >> like we said earlier, we have many different lengths of sessions kids can come to.

so we have scitech and sports camp down there as well. this is november and registration has begun now in november. >> yeah, we'll go through until we fill up. if there's a late cover, we always try to make space somewhere in the summer for them. >> when does camp session start? >> we begin june 16th. august 7th. il? >> wonderful. >> all right. we'll be starting registration for camp mid-december. people who are interested can visit our web site and get information about the different sessions starting with rising second graders all the way up through high schoolers. we have sessions between one

and three weeks and just like alley said, same as camp newman, making sure people aren't turned away because of anything. they give out a camp version of a scholarship. with those funds we start june 16th. those are the dates of our summer. >> i think it's important with the jewish community. so our local jewish committee confederation and the peninsula has a fund as i know to each of the camps so nobody is shy.

both of our camps as well as the other camps in the bay area and really all over the country dedicated to making that true. we'll make it work nobody what it is. >> you're oldest is going through in some cases to high school and college. >> you're entering third grade, so that's 8-years-old. >> can you talk a little bit about the moment like the weekend. >> we run a number of family camps but before and after the summer and the spring and late summer and early fall one.

that's a program we offer after the summer. >> thank you so much for being with us. we encouraging you to go to summer camp and check them out in the bay area. thank you for being with us here on mosaic. thursday narrator: this february fall in love

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