CAMP SHWAYDER — Hello, Muddah. Hello, Faddah.
I’m at Shwayder. Catch you later.
The proverbial happy campers here starchily deny ever being homesick since arriving at this idyllic mountain spot near Idaho Springs for Jewish summer camp.
“You can’t get homesick for home if you’re home,” said Julia Duffy, 12, of Fort Collins. “Everybody here is your family.”
Even if one is very far from Mom and Dad, the old “Shwayder Magic,” as campers call it, carries the day.
“It’s the best two weeks of my whole life. I start counting the weeks down until next time as soon as I leave here,” said Ally Gottlieb, 13, of London.
It’s clearly a good time — hiking, horseback riding, archery, ropes courses, basketball, music, dancing, arts, crafts and the occasional shaving-cream fight. But the oldest Reform Jewish camp in the country — along with the almost 200 other Jewish camps in North America — serves a larger purpose.
One of the top three indicators of whether a Jewish child reaches adulthood with a strong Jewish identity is whether he or she went to summer camp, Shwayder director Zim Zimmerman said.
The other two indicators are a trip to Israel and participation in other Jewish youth programs.
And seven Shwayder camp counselors are Israelis who help teach Hebrew.
“We’re really good at getting spirituality through the back door,” Zimmerman said of camp staff. “The kids don’t really notice it’s happening while it’s happening. It’s part of every part of the day.”
Some of it comes in the front door. Prayers are said throughout the day, a young rabbi is running around, and Shabbat (Sabbath) services are planned by the campers themselves.
Samsonite founder
The Maurice B. Shwayder Camp is named for a founder of Samsonite luggage, whose widow, in 1948, donated 242 acres to Denver’s Temple Emanuel so children could live in nature and learn about Judaism. Shwayder promises campers “A Summer to Build Your Life On.”
When Temple Emanuel’s new senior rabbi, Joe Black, made the decision to leave his Albuquerque congregation to come here, he said the Camp Shwayder connection was a big draw.
“One of the reasons I’m a rabbi today is because of my experiences at summer camp,” Black said.
Shwayder, one of the smaller Jewish camps, is one of only four Reform Jewish camps privately owned by a congregation, Zimmerman said. Many more are run by large Jewish organizations.
Shwayder can house 125 campers at a time, so it holds four summer sessions. There’s a waiting list.
Different age groups, 7 to 15, boys and girls, reside in segregated cabins, but they are otherwise closely integrated in camp life. There are some activities specific for age and gender, but all campers interact in one large k’hilah k’doshah, or “holy community.”
Where director grew up
Zimmerman, in his ninth year as director, said he grew up at Shwayder. It not only preserved his Jewish identity, he said, but also saved his life on a few occasions.
“I grew up in a broken home in Salt Lake City, a Jew in Utah,” the 39-year-old Zimmerman said.
Being in a Jewish community, rather than feeling isolated and in the minority, is the thing the campers say they appreciate most about Shwayder.
“I go to a school with 160 students, and there are only two Jewish kids,” said Taylor Gleeson, 13, of Boulder.
Campers say they make lifelong friends here. Anything that would isolate an individual from fellow campers — cellphones, iPods, laptops and so on — is stripped away.
University of Northern Colorado professor of educational psychology and child development Teresa McDevitt said it is a healthy thing to solidify traditions and to take on new challenges and responsibilities in a relaxed, fun environment marked by bonding.
“Kids that have a strong ethnic-cultural identity tend to do well in life,” McDevitt said. “Beyond just fitting in with mainstream society, having strong ties to a particular group provides a lot of protective benefits.”
Camp builds confidence
Research shows, she said, those benefits include lower drug and alcohol use and less of other risky behaviors, such as criminal activity and unprotected sex.
Camp, attended year after year, is one way to forge identity, she said, provided the teachings are supported back at home. McDevitt’s own son is now at a YMCA camp.
Dr. Judy Bloomberg Schenkein is the Shwayder Camp pediatrician. She said she was skeptical when she first came to Shwayder because there is no pool or lake, just a creek. Camp lasts only two weeks. It just wasn’t like her childhood camp in Wisconsin. However, she soon found herself under the Shwayder spell.
“There is so much about this place that is inexpressible,” Bloomberg Schenkein said. “It is Shwayder magic.”
Take, for example, her own daughter. After the girl was here two weeks, her teachers back at school were asking the doctor what she had done to make her daughter so confident, so grown up.
“The kids are so empowered by this place,” she said.
While she has treated the occasional case of homesickness, masquerading as an upset stomach, she said, it is quickly forgotten.
“This place is absurdly welcoming,” she said. “(Zimmerman) is a big kid, and you cannot not have fun around him. He takes it very personally if a camper is not having fun.”
Take experiences home
Yet Zimmerman is a perfectionist, said 23-year-old staffer Laura Weinstein of Denver.
“Everything is a teachable moment for him,” Weinstein said, but he’s so respectful, he’s more coach than critic. Zimmerman also gives counselors a great deal of discretion, she said.
“Respect is the word I use more than anything,” Zimmerman said.
The word “community” runs a close second.
When kids tearfully pack up to leave camp this weekend, Zimmerman will tell them that Shwayder can exist outside camp boundaries.
“Pack up your clothes and pack up your experiences,” Zimmerman tells them. “When you go back into the world, remember to unpack those experiences.”
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
