For decades, Camp Ramah in the Poconos has been a refuge for Jewish children from the Mid-Atlantic.
To put it simply, it’s a great place to spend the summer.
This year, the camp celebrates 75 years in existence. As its leaders look forward, the camp wants to leverage deep ties to the East Coast Jewish community and create a more solid model of financing, according to Director of Advancement Stephanie Amarnick.
“What we are trying to do is go from an organization that really successfully raises money annually and kind of fixes what we have to fix to being an organization that can begin to project out what we’re able to do in terms of capital projects, programming and endowment,” she said. “Move from that kind of ‘hand-to-mouth’ year-to-year model to really being able to set a foundation for sustainability for the future, which is an extremely lofty goal.”
The efforts to start that model began last month with a celebration to honor the thousands of Jews who have attended the camp: a gathering of 400 alumni, supporters and staff for an evening at Ramah. The donations began there, and the camp hopes they don’t end anytime soon.
Rachel Abrams is the camp director, but she’s also an alumna. Like many campers, it actually wasn’t her idea to attend Ramah — but quickly, it became her favorite thing to do each year.
“My parents sent me to camp pretty unwillingly at age 13,” she said with a laugh. “My mom had gone to camp and really believed in the experience. I didn’t know anybody when I went, and I ended up being a camper for four years.”
Abrams went back to Ramah to work as a counselor. She went to Israel with the camp. Abrams also met her husband at Ramah and sent both of her children there, too.
The magic of the camp, she said, is in the campers themselves.
“Most of the people grew up at camp and ended up coming back because they care so much about camp and want to get back and spend time with their friends, and also make sure the next generation of campers had similar experiences to what they had,” she said. “I think because there were people like that who were patient with me and really invested in making sure that I could see the value in this experience, that really helped me to cross over those uncomfortable feelings I was having and lean in and have a really good time.”
This event held last month meant so much because, as Amarnick said, it perfectly illustrated the mosaic of life that exists at the camp located about an hour southeast of Binghamton, New York.
“We tried to pick people to recognize that represented a broad swath of the community,” she said.
That meant campers of all backgrounds — Ashkenazi, Sephardic, northern, southern and all levels of the socioeconomic scale — gathered once again, just like they used to when they were growing up.
“It was an opportunity for us to bring the community together and really celebrate what we’ve accomplished as an organization,” Amarnick said, “and also to broadly share some plans for the future, and just talk about sustainability so that Camp Ramah can continue to exist for another 75 years.”
For those who attended Jewish summer camp, the magic is palpable and needs no explaining. For everyone else, Amarnick offered some thoughts. Though she has only been with the camp since 2024, she said that she has been around many past campers and knows what they have told her.
“The reason it was created is so that young campers who did not have the opportunity to live in an immersive Jewish environment could come and do that in the summer, and [then] that would kind of radiate throughout their families and set them on a path of living an intentional Jewish life,” she said.
That mission has worked, and the proof is evident. There are countless marriages that started during a summer at Ramah, not to mention friendships, business relationships and more.
Camp leaders are also keenly aware right now that their mission is of paramount importance. An ADL report on antisemitism in the year 2024 said that 9,354 incidents were reported last year in the United States, which is the highest number ever recorded by the organization. The ADL reported a 344% increase in antisemitic incidents over the past five years and an 893% increase over the last 10.
“The opportunity to come and live joyously Jewish in the summer back then [was important], and knowing how things are now for our young people and on college campuses, it’s kind of important now more than ever that there’s a safe space to be joyfully Jewish,” Amarnick said.
Abrams said that the transformative nature of the experience is found in the everyday occurrences.
“I really think camp is more about these little moments that we don’t even give a lot of credit to. Camp is the one time of year where kids don’t have the stress of school and you’re free to be yourself and be independent,” she said. “You have the freedom to make mistakes, and there are people here to support you to figure out how to make a better choice next time.”
While 75 years is a long time and worth reflecting on, Camp Ramah is looking to the future. Last year, the camp enacted a comprehensive plan that leaders say will guide future actions in an attempt to continue to help young Jewish people and secure future anniversary celebrations.
The camp plans to enhance its educational offerings, including more programming for campers. Camp Ramah will also create more ways for families without financial means to enjoy the camp, offering more scholarships and financial assistance programs. The campus will be modernized, and the facilities will grow, although to what extent isn’t yet known.
Amarnick said the fundraising campaign that will help the financial viability of the camp as it moves to make all these changes won’t be easy, but that Ramah is up for the challenge.
“I think as a small nonprofit that’s been around for so many years, there are many stakeholders. It can be a little bit challenging to communicate the long-term value of summer camp, but we’re trying to do that with past stories and the numbers around building future leaders,” she said.