By Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport 

Summer has arrived and with it The Journey of Jewish Campinga grand migration: 72,000 Jewish children will take flight this summer on the journey of Jewish Camping. Together, they will learn and play, sing and pray, creating together a Jewish community of friends

and family from across this nation and beyond.

Jewish Summer Camping is the great success story of Jewish education and experiential learning that has fueled a generation of Jewish leaders and teachers, doers and givers — and this summer we begin again, building the future for Jewish life in America for the generations yet to come.

Seven out of ten Jewish leaders in their twenties and thirties attended a Jewish camp in their childhood. One out of every three rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators grew up at a Jewish summer camp during their youth. Our children return home deeply committed to their people and their faith, and this is a commitment that continues throughout their lives. As adults, Jewish campers continue to display both a love of Israel and active participation in congregational life at rates 50 percent higher than the rest of the Jewish community. Jewish campers are the lifeblood of the Jewish community. Simply put, camp works.

And yet, beyond the numbers and the superb quality of programs offered by our Jewish camps, there lies a deeper truth that can be neither quantified nor explained in any tangible terms. The soul of the Jewish people is kindled again and again, each summer in small cabins in the woods, on sports fields and in swimming pools, on stages beneath the stars and in open air synagogues where our children meet one another, make friends that will last a lifetime, and somehow each summer become one with a people that is as old as time.

The journey of Jewish camping has shaped my life, my father’s life, and the lives of my children in ways I can hardly explain. And this summer that journey begins anew. As I write these words, a new generation of Temple children are frantically packing, filled with excitement, preparing for the summer of their lives. As you read these words, I will have returned from teaching and tutoring, mentoring and perhaps even inspiring, our children and the children of Reform Jewish congregations across the Midwest, on faculty at Goldman Union Camp in Zionsville, Indiana.

Each summer, I return from my two weeks at camp inspired and rejuvenated, reassured that the future of our people rests in good hands and full hearts. May this summer be one of wonder and fulfillment for us and for all our children.