Nostalgic for color wars and friendship bracelets, some Jewish adults are putting aside the nine-to-five routine for a few days to return to their summer camp days of yore. They’re looking for Jewish connection, carefree experiences and ways to make new friends — even unintentionally meeting future spouses.
Camp is undeniably an integral part of the Jewish American experience. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 40% of Americans raised Jewish attended a summer camp, amounting to thousands each year.
Gabe C. and his girlfriend, Annie Klinger, were among that 40%.
“I went to Jewish summer camp my whole life,” said Gabe, who attended camp for 13 years before working as a camp counselor for two summers. “[It] always felt like home at Jewish summer camp.”
Similarly, Klinger attended camp for 13 years, then returned as a staff member for a decade.
“I kept working there and I kept going back,” she said. “I was too obsessed with it, so I could never stop.”
The typical camp age range is six to 17, with some programs for younger children, as well. But adults like Gabe aren’t done with summer camp just yet.
“I could just never leave,” Klinger said.
The two met in June 2024 at the Gaga pit at Mem Global’s Camp Nai Nai Nai, a Jewish summer camp for adults. Tucked into the hills of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, young adults ages 22 to 39 spend three days engaged in activities both traditional — with icebreaker games, crafts and boating on the lake — and religious, in which campers can choose to observe Shabbat with a Reform-style musical service or faith-related discussions. Evenings are time for live karaoke, letting loose at a dance party or playing drag bingo, to name a few.
Others joined Camp Nai to strengthen their ties to the Jewish community, such as Asella Medina-Smith, who’s been a camper since 2023. The Baltimore resident is a Jew by choice.
“I wanted to find and continue my experiences in community in ways that maybe I didn’t get growing up as I didn’t grow up Jewish,” said Medina-Smith, who loved attending Girl Scout camp as a child in the San Diego mountains.
‘Never Too Old’
Now a young professional, Gabe finds himself missing the “silliness” of summer camp. “I work in a corporate job that’s pretty serious most of the time and pretty demanding. And then, I get to go to a camp where nothing really is serious. You do a workshop on how to become a clown. You get to make arts and crafts and play Gaga and make silly jokes with other people who have [a] similar upbringing and values as you. You make a bunch of friends who are also involved in their Jewish communities,” he said.
Evan Richter, Mem Global’s retreats and camp senior program manager, emphasized that there’s no age cutoff when it comes to having a good time.
“You’re never too old for wonder, right?” he asked. “I think we have this belief that once you hit a certain age, you can’t tap into that childlike play and wonder that we were so excited to [tap into] from birth to 15. I think when we start going through puberty and teenage years, that’s when we start losing that sense of wonder. And I think the older you get, the more important it is to tap into that, because it reminds us why we’re here.”
Shawn Shafner is the program and innovation consultant for Trybal Gatherings, a national provider of Jewish summer camp getaways for young adults. Since beginning in this role in 2020, he has seen many happy campers leave the Berkshires after a camp experience, this year from Aug. 21 to 24 and Aug. 28 to 31.
“When people leave, they look radiant, they look younger, they look happier,” Shafner said of Trybal campers. “They touched into things that really made them feel like themselves.”
He asked one thing of people who believe that camp is solely for kids: “If you loved camp, why can’t you stay camping?”
Richter, a self-described “huge camp kid,” started attending camp at the age of nine and worked there until he was 22. “It was a really, really big inspiration and influence on who I am as a person. So, being able to provide spaces where adults can either tap back into that if they went to camp as a kid or find it for the first time for people who hadn’t had that experience, is such a privilege.”
It’s About Elevation
Though Klinger described Camp Nai as “literally like being a kid again,” many of these camps for adults aim to offer activities a step up from those of a traditional summer camp.
Campers at Trybal’s day camp choose from two to three electives, while overnight campers — Thursday to Sunday — choose from five. These electives include fermentation workshops, meditation, movement, acrobatic yoga, improv, paint and sips, krav maga and, of course, sports and do-it-yourself crafts.
“We are keeping in mind that these are not young, young kids,” Shafner said. “Kids don’t want to listen to gongs and singing bowls in a sound bath. Kids don’t want to learn to pickle necessarily; they’re not going to go home and do it in their kitchens. They’re not chefs. Some of it’s that sophistication; we’re offering acroyoga or a wine tasting, things that appeal more to those adult sensibilities.”
Medina-Smith’s favorite activity at Camp Nai was making flower arrangements for the Shabbat table.
“I love flowers,” Medina-Smith said. “I always try to make sure I get fresh flowers for Shabbat. So getting to be part of creating those arrangements for the Shabbat table was really nice.”
She also enjoyed decorating a wooden mezuzah using an etching tool.
“There’s definitely a fine eye for detail at Camp Nai, which I appreciate,” she said.
Camps don’t stop at young adults, though. Mandy, a resident of Fairfax, Virginia, attended camp in her 60s at Camp Gadol this summer through the Pozez JCC of Northern Virginia.
The first-time camper appreciated that Camp Gadol offered “a lot of really well-thought-out programs” with a daily agenda of activities such as Jewish trivia, personalized challah boards and making challah.
‘It’s Just the Vibe’
Mandy walked away with not only new experiences, but lifelong friends. She was glad to meet fellow women in the same age group. “I’ve made connections through [Camp Gadol that] I found meaningful. It’s just added an extra dimension to my life because I’m alone a lot because I work by myself, so it gives me this opportunity to get out of the house and socialize with others.”
Mandy’s not alone in wanting to find that connection. That was a large part of why Klinger decided to register for Camp Nai: “The sense of community always really stood out to me. … I [enjoyed] the sense of comfort and the sense of belonging in a fun capacity, being able to just be [my]self and connect with people around [me].”
“It’s just the vibe,” Klinger said of camp. “It’s hard to explain it, but the second you walk in, you can feel a difference, and everybody’s a little more relaxed. Everybody is there for the same reason, which is to genuinely have a good time.”
Richter said in today’s polarized and busy world, people less often prioritize large group gatherings, much to their detriment.
“Our participants are looking for spaces where they can be unapologetically Jewish and come together with other Jews to celebrate being Jewish,” Richter said. “Our experiences aren’t exclusive to Jews; like if you’re not Jewish, you can come and we welcome you with open arms. But it is a ‘Jewish experience.’ It’s this combination of searching for Jewish joy and searching for avenues of connection and this overarching idea of immersing yourself in both of those things. I think that’s why this has been successful; at this moment in particular, there’s a real big hunger for these types of programs.”
This sense of Jewish community is even more important given current events, according to Shafner.
“Whatever you think about what’s going on in Gaza and in Israel, the uptick in antisemitism [and] things like that, I think people feel a need to be with one another, to be in community, to be in safe space,” he said.
Deep, Personal Impact
For these adults, the camp experience is more than arts and crafts and s’mores by a bonfire. There’s a Jewish tie, as well. On Friday nights, campers gather for Shabbat under the stars or join in group song.
One participant approached Richter to thank him and the staff team for providing the Shabbat Shirah space after the traditional song session.
“He was saying how we sang a song that he used to sing with his mother, who had passed away a few years ago from cancer, and how he hadn’t been able to confront that song up until that point,” Richter recalled. “Being in a joyous communal Jewish space where everyone was singing this song together, he was able to not only sing it, but sing it loud and proudly and almost connect with his mother, who he had really struggled to think about up until that point.”
Richter was pleasantly surprised to hear this anecdote, as he hadn’t previously spoken with this camper.
“It was really grounding and really reminded me why this work and these spaces are so important,” he said. “You never know who’s showing up. You never know the impact you have.”
