NJ Jewish News | High spirits and spiritual highs: Just another day at JCC’s Camp Yachad

by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

Iced water intended for drinking was going in ears and over heads, but after all the rain of the past few weeks, the clear sunshine last Friday had the kids at Camp Yachad in Scotch Plains bursting with the pleasures of outside play.

“They’ve been inside a lot, so it’s great to be able to get them outside,” a counselor called out over the lunchtime din at the playing field. “We’ve been doing so many things inside; we all needed this!”

Camp director Robin Brous said that 766 campers between ages two and a half and 14 are enrolled this year. With that many kids streaming all over the campus of the JCC of Central New Jersey, which runs Camp Yachad, the energy level was predictably high. It also had the added fizz characteristic of this particular mix of kids and counselors, a playfulness that makes such things as a request to drink the water rather than pour it in one’s ears just go right out the other ear — at least for a while.

Staff member Stacie Lieberman, a supervisor of the “shadow” program for special needs children, gently halted yet another kid’s attempts to soak himself: “If you speak to them in a normal voice instead of starting to yell, it works better,” she said, modeling the kind of patience the teenage counselors all seemed to share.

“Fingers on the wall” was the most commonly heard instruction inside — a tactic to get the little ones to stay to one side of the hallway as they gamboled like spring lambs from a song-and-movement session in one room to a craft session in another.

There was an added element of excitement on Friday. “Our Friday Shabbats are very special,” JCC executive director Richard Corman had told NJJN prior to the visit. “You really should see what it’s like.” As soon as office matters permitted, he was out in the hallway, beaming benignly over the passing hordes.

This was the camp’s second Friday of the season and, as in previous years, the campers and their counselors and supervisors were all clad in matching white T-shirts with “It’s Friday” on the front, and “It’s Shabbat” on the back. Given that it is also the day when their midday ice pops are chocolate-flavored (certainly a decision not made by any mom), some of the T-shirts had liberal dabs of brown down the front.

Fridays are also concert day, a rah-rah chance to acknowledge achievements, sing, and — of course — celebrate the coming of Shabbat with a bracha over bread.

The musical component is provided each week by the band known as the Shabbatones, one of the camp’s favorite features. This year’s lineup includes Dan Avissar — known as Dan the Music Man in the summer and the teen outreach coordinator during the rest of the year — counselors Elazar Nudell, Sherrye Dobrin, and Michael Noss, and Patrick Cerriva, a teacher who also provides campers with sessions of his TumbleJam movement program.

The band is led by Mike Goldstein, who during the year is the director of teen and after-school services and in the summer is assistant director of on-site camp activities. He’s no make-do amateur: Goldstein toured with a rock band for five years, and then worked in the music industry before he and his wife settled in Fanwood and started a family. Wanting to stay close to his two daughters, one now a JCC preschool student and the other soon to follow, he welcomed the invitation to join the staff three years ago.

“At this point in my life, this is the perfect place for me,” he declared, grabbing a quick chance to chat before setting up for the Shabbat concert. Playing music for such a young audience brings its own challenges, but he had already had a taste of the experience and enjoyed it. “We used to have kids at some of our concerts, and we’d play stuff that was especially for them,” he recalled.

Last week’s concert was focused around songs the campers had been learning just in time for one of the summer highlights — the fund-raising concert by Jewish rocker Rick Recht scheduled for July 10 in Cranford.

Recht’s concert at the JCC last summer, with its combination of sing-along pop favorites, Israeli folk, and original Jewish-themed songs, was such a success, the organizers lured him back for an encore. Like last year, he promised to bring some lucky kids up on stage to perform with him, in addition to holding mass sing-alongs. The children were chosen on the basis of their high enthusiasm — a quality in no short supply as was evident at Friday’s “dress rehearsal.”

On the bleachers at the back of the gym, parents and friends assembled to enjoy the Friday concert. They included a few former staffers. Tina Jacobs, the former assistant camp director, was in the area for her son’s wedding and had come by for a visit. Marcia Flood — who worked at the JCC in various capacities as well as helping with summer camps before moving on to another job last year — said she wanted to share the familiar Friday fun yet again.

In a few weeks’ time, Brous pointed out, there will be another highlight, a weeklong visit by a troop of internationally performing teenage dancers from Israel known as Studio Dance Life. “Most years we have the Israeli Scouts come and perform one day. This year we wanted to do more to build the connection with Israel,” she explained.

In addition to holding dance workshops with campers from July 24 to 28, the troop will provide two concerts — a lunchtime one for seniors on July 26 and one for the general community on Thursday, July 27, at 7 p.m., featuring their unique take on ballet, jazz, and an array of other dance styles.