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Camp Ramah returns to Ukraine after a war-induced exile — now with a bomb shelter
(JTA) — Ramah Yachad, a Ukrainian Jewish summer camp, celebrated its 30th anniversary last year in exile, having relocated to Romania following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that February.
This year, the camp is back in its longtime home in the Chernivtsi region of western Ukraine — a move that camp leaders said was both pragmatic and symbolic.
“In the beginning of the war, we were so scared to do it even in the safe areas of Ukraine,” Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya, the camp’s director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But this year, we decided to come back because many kids couldn’t get out of Ukraine. Not all the kids have passports.”
Returning to Ukrainian soil has also strengthened the camp’s sense of purpose, according to counselor Lena Grebelnaya.
“This year, it is more special because we are still here in Ukraine with the kids,” Grebelnaya told the JTA. “We have some challenges here because there are [air raid] alarms, but apart from that, we try to make this period joyful for the kids. It’s important for them to know that there’s still joy in life.”
Campers and a counselor at Ramah Yachad pose in their 2023 T-shirts, showing an outline of Ukraine for the first session in the country since Russia invaded in 2022. (Courtesy Midreshet Schechter)
Among those who made the trek to Ramah Yachad is 16-year-old Daniel Prichodko. Before the war, he saw friends every day at his Jewish school in Kharkiv. Then his city, about 25 miles from the Russian border, came under brutal and unceasing bombardment. Now his friends have left Kharkiv, his family is battling an economic crisis and Prichodko’s school meets only on Zoom.
On July 28, he joined 122 other children between the ages of 8 and 17 at Ramah Yachad, operated as part of the Masorti movement’s activities in Ukraine. There, the campers whose childhood has been robbed by war are spending 12 days playing, studying and celebrating Jewish traditions together.
Their days start with a “boker tov” (or “good morning” in Hebrew) along with singing and dancing, followed by morning prayers, then “peulah” (learning activities) and “chugim” (recreational activities such as arts, sports, cooking and dance classes).
Prichodko said being surrounded by Jewish peers and teachers again feels like “being at home.”
“Since I study in the Jewish day school, before the war we had morning prayers, holidays, Hebrew classes,” he said. “Since the war started, we are learning online. Celebrations are more difficult and sometimes impossible. The level of education is not the same.”
Inevitably, there are some changes at Ramah Yachad this year too. Although it is held near Chernivtsi, a city spared from the missiles razing Ukraine’s eastern, central and southern regions, the camp is ready for air-raid sirens.
“We prepared a shelter where we can take all the kids,” Gritsevskaya said. “We even prepared surprises there. We bought candies to wait for them, so each kid gets a candy at the entrance.”
Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya affixes a mezuzah to a building at Ramah Yachad in Ukraine at the start of the 2023 session. (Courtesy Midreshet Schechter)
A staff psychologist also works constantly with the campers, who struggle with fear and stress.
The past 18 months have ruptured every aspect of Ukrainian children’s lives. Along with the loss, violence and terror of war, many have lived through economic devastation. The proportion of children living in poverty has nearly doubled from 43% to 82%, many of them among the 5.9 million people displaced within Ukraine, according to UNICEF. Shelling and airstrikes have disrupted their access to electricity, water and basic health services. Their education has also suffered, compounding two years of schooling interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and over eight years of turmoil for children in eastern Ukraine.
These broad threats to their wellbeing have culminated in a mental health crisis, with UNICEF estimating that 1.5 million children in Ukraine are at risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological issues.
“The war changed me drastically,” said Hannah Prizcher, a 15-year-old Ramah Yachad camper from Kyiv. “I started to fear loud sounds and sometimes I am scared to be outside. In the midst of the war I decided to pray every morning, and to light Shabbat candles.”
This is Prizcher’s first year at camp, and she has already made new friends.
“I love the dancing in Ramah Yachad, the activities and ‘laila tov’ [‘good night’], ending the day together with my group,” she said.
Over 100 campers traveled to Ramah Yachad’s Ukraine campus for the 2023 session, after a year’s war-induced interruption. (Courtesy Midreshet Schechter)
Getting to camp was not simple for everyone. Some children, like Prichodko, traveled from dangerous areas such as Kharkiv. Without the possibility of airplane travel, the train journey from Kharkiv can take two days.
But their country’s instability did not deter the campers. Instead, after serving just 80 campers in Romania last year, Ramah Yachad saw heightened demand this summer, reaching its usual capacity just a week after opening registration. The campers have always received varying degrees of financial aid — in a normal year, most families could cover about 25% of attendance costs, Gritsevskaya said — but since the war broke out, they rely almost entirely on stipends provided through donations.
“We had a long waitlist,” said Gritsevskaya.
As the director of Midreshet Schechter, an initiative of the Schechter Institutes in Jerusalem, she has traveled from her home in Israel into Ukraine several times since the war’s start to facilitate Jewish observance and experiences.
“In times of trouble, people care about being together and they realize how important it is,” she added. “For many of those kids, it’s really two weeks to breathe freely.”
Victoria Maksymovich is a first-year counselor joined by her son, a second-year camper. “We came to not think about the war,” she said. “My son is really happy here.”
Like other camps in the Ramah network, Ramah Yachad strives to show children that they are part of a global Jewish community, according to Gritsevskaya. Many of its activities are designed to foster a connection and identification with Israel, including classes on Hebrew language, Israeli society and the Israeli army, some taught by Israeli staff. (Israel saw an influx of 15,213 Ukrainian refugees last year, along with 43,685 Russians, according to the Jewish Agency.) Midreshet Schechter sponsors the Zionist programming in partnership with Masorti Olami, which represents Conservative Jewish communities worldwide.
“It’s very important for me that the kids remember we are one Jewish family and we will never leave them alone,” said Gritsevskaya. “It’s important that they have this joyful Jewish experience of Shabbat, of Shacharit [morning prayers], that they can carry with them throughout the year to hold them safe — psychologically, not only physically — even if it’s hard for them right now to be Jewish in their places.”
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The post Camp Ramah returns to Ukraine after a war-induced exile — now with a bomb shelter appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence
McGill University has canceled an on-campus event planned by Jewish students—and temporarily halted bookings for all extracurricular activities—following threats of violence along with a death threat, as outlined in a […]
The post McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to cut off federal funding from universities that engage in boycotts of Israel.
The legislation, titled “The Protect Economic Freedom Act,” would render universities that participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel ineligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, prohibiting them from receiving federal student aid. The bill would also mandate that colleges and universities submit evidence that they are not participating in commercial boycotts against the Jewish state.
“Enough is enough. Appeasing the antisemitic mobs on college campuses threatens the safety of Jewish students and faculty and it undermines the relationship between the US and one of our strongest allies. If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences — starting with the Protect Economic Freedom Act,” Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement.
Gottheimer added that the legislation is necessary to thwart the surging tide of antisemitism on college campuses. Although the lawmaker noted that students are allowed to engage in free expression regarding the ongoing war in Gaza, he argued that blanket boycotts against Israel endanger the lives of Jewish students and community members.
“The goal of the antisemitic BDS movement is to annihilate the democratic State of Israel, America’s critical ally in the global fight against terror. While students and faculty are free to speak their minds and disagree on policy issues, we cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and risk the safety and security of Jewish students, staff, faculty, and guests on college campuses,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “The new bipartisan Protect Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses. Now more than ever, we must take the necessary steps to protect our Jewish community.”
The legislation instructs the US Department of Education to keep a record of universities that refuse to confirm their non-participation in anti-Israel boycotts. The list of universities in non-compliance with the legislation would be made publicly available.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre acrosssouthern Israel, universities across the country have found themselves embroiled in controversies regarding campus antisemitism. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Israel, hordes of students and faculty orchestrated protests and demonstrations condemning the Jewish state. Student groups at elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia issued statements blaming Israel for the attacks and expressing support for Hamas.
Several high-profile universities have also shown a significant level of tolerance for anti-Jewish sentiment festering on their campuses. Northwestern University, for example, capitulated to demands of anti-Israel activists to remove Sabra Hummus from campus dining halls because of its connections to Israel. At Stanford University, Jewish students have reported being forced to condemn Israel before being allowed to enter campus parties. Students at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University launched unsuccessful attempts to convince the university to divest endowment funds from companies tied to Israel.
The post US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life is being criticized by a rising Jewish civil rights activist for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement addressing antisemitic behavior.
The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to banned from campus. Such a demand is not new, as it began earlier this semester at the direction of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) organization, which coordinates the lion’s share of anti-Zionist activity on college campuses.
As seen in footage of the demonstration, the students chanted “Zionists aren’t welcome here!” and held signs which accused the organization — the largest campus organization for Jewish students in the world — of embracing “war criminals” and genocide.
Addressing the behavior, Harvard Chaplains issued a statement, which is now being pointed to as a symbol of higher education’s indifference to the unique hatred of antisemitism, as well as its permutation as anti-Zionism.
“We have noticed a trend of expression in which entire groups of students are told they ‘are not welcome here’ because of their religious, cultural, ethnic, or political commitments and identities, or are targeted through acts of vandalism,” the office said, seemingly circumventing the matter at hand. “We find this trend disturbing and anathema to the dialogue and connection across lines of difference that must be a central value and practice of a pluralistic institution of higher learning.”
It continued, “Student groups who are singled out in this way experience such language and acts of vandalism as a painful attack that undermines the acceptance and flourishing of religious diversity here at Harvard. Let us all endeavor to care for one another in these divisive times.”
Recent Harvard graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum, who addressed the Republican National Convention in August to discuss the ways which progressive bias in higher education fosters anti-Zionism and anti-Western ideologies, described the statement as a moral failure in a post on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
“Disappointing,” he said. “After Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcome here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”
Kestenbaum noted in a later statement that Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has so far declined to speak on the issue at all. He charged that when Charleston “isn’t plagiarizing, she and DEI normalize antisemitism,” referring to evidence, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, that Charleston is a serial plagiarist who climbed the hierarchy of the higher education establishment by pilfering other people’s scholarship.
Harvard University president Alan Garber — installed after former president Claudine Gay resigned following revelations that she is also a serial plagiarist — has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest.
During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again.
Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the Jewish state is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.”
The university’s perceived failure to address antisemitism has had legal consequences.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit accusing it of ignoring antisemitism was cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”
During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident first appeared on Algemeiner.com.