Kerem's Anticipation Part 1

The moment I left camp after my Maalot summer I was ready to be in Kerem. During that drive home, I pulled a sharpie out of my bag and wrote “Yoni Silverman, Kerem 2004” on one of my plastic shelves.[1] I looked at it for a moment and realized how excited I was for June 27, 2004.[2] I, Yoni Silverman, was going to be a member of Kerem. This was the dream of my lifetime, all 15 years of it. And because of this, the evening after the annual Yavneh reunion on the Thanksgiving weekend following Maalot, I printed out 210 squares on 20 sheets of paper and taped them to my wall at home, each square representing one day leading up to my Kerem summer. For the previous seven years I had looked up to the Kerem boys and girls and was jealous that they had achieved Kerem status. I wanted it so bad, and when it happened, I knew it would be the best moment of my life.

This feeling may seem extreme from a broad perspective, but in a camp context, it is a fairly common sentiment. The way that Camp Yavneh is organized and managed makes it is almost impossible not to have these feelings coming into Kerem summer. Everything builds up to Kerem; Kerem kids become the stars: they are granted many more privileges than any other aydah, they are permitted to cover the younger bunks and plan peulot, and they have the opportunity to set themselves apart in events like Zimriyah, the Kerem play and of course the behemoth of the all, Maccabiah. Kerem is supposed to rule the roost in energy, spirit, creativity and originality. In fact, it is an unspoken rule at camp that Maalot should not rival Kerem in camp leadership, so as to allow the oldest aydah to appear, and ultimately be, as the decisive leaders. It is Kerem’s camp and everyone else follows, and as a camper from Gurim to Maalot, you know that, and you want in. Kerem is supposed to be the greatest summer of them all, and no matter what, everyone believes that this is the Truth, with a Captial T.

Here is the problem with this attitude. Even before camp begins the potential for the summer is set at infinity. It is impossible to live up to these expectations. Kerem is made out to be like the Garden of Eden. But we all know, when you are in Kerem, you are still in camp. You still have to wake up at 7 most mornings. You still have to attend mifkad and you still have to follow a strictly set programming schedule all day. You still have to sit through meetings and, worst of all, you still have an earlier curfew than you think you deserve.[3] And this is just talking about the daily grind of the day.

Going into this previous summer, I was terrified of this expectation. I knew, based on what my campers were saying to me, and comments they were writing on each other’s Facebook walls, that it was impossible for summer to be anything short of incredible. And I had good reason to be nervous.  My experience as a Kerem counselor in 2007 and my observations of Kerem ‘08 and Kerem ‘09 revealed to me that the first few weeks of camp can easily be a bust. I heard comments of frustration, regret, and an overall sense that Kerem summer is definitely not what is hyped up to be.

During the months leading up to summer, I got into the habit of emailing my kids once every other week.  In these emails I would update them on what was going on in my life, goings-on at camp, and things they should expect before and during the summer. In every email I would also ask a question to elicit responses and encourage my campers to think critically about a particular topic. Without saying anything of my ‘fear’ about overhype, I asked them this question on April 18^th, 2010: “Knowing that things might not go as planned or hoped, should we spend time and effort thinking about if things go wrong? What happens if you do feel that sense of disappointment? How do you react?” Here are two campers responses (with a little bit of editing for the sake of coherence).

“I really don't think we should think about it like that. Of course we all know that Kerem summer, while it will be amazing, probably will not turn out 100% perfect. But, I think that while we all know that in the back of our heads the summer might be perfect, when we think of camp during the year we have to think of camp as a "perfect place". I think for a lot of people its what they need during the year, something they can think of when school is stressful or parents are annoying or home is just not fun. They need to be able to think of camp as a perfect place where everything is going to be ok, and if we think of it as anything but that, it ruins camp a little for us…”

“I hope people got the intent of the message you were trying to convey for them. Because for a while it seemed like you were saying the summer was going to suck.  But what I think you are saying is kind of like, a reality check.  Kerem as a whole is putting this whole summer on a pedestal.  And everyone has very high expectations.  And in reality not every person’s dreams and hopes for this summer can be met.  We have to make the best with what we have.  We have to make the best with what is thrown at us and not spend too much time being disappointed with things that might go wrong. But be excited for the things that will go right. Kerem, there are a millions things that can go bad, but there is only one future, one set of events that will be great, which we should be looking forward to.” 

These were two optimist views expressed in very different ways. The first one highlighted the necessity of putting camp on a pedestal, and how important that is for getting through the year.The second diminished the possibility of problems that the summer might bring and instead emphasized that no matter what the course of events will be, the summer will be great. 

These responses certainly did not mitigate my anguish about my campers’ sky-high expectations; they simply made me realize that it was up to my staff and me to ensure that the summer would be great. I did not want to fall into the trap that previous Kerems had fallen into, and because of that, I needed to devise a strategy to guarantee success. Not many people have had the opportunity to be in Kerem or live next door to Kerem for 6 years in a row,[4] and I knew I needed to figure out where other Kerems had failed, learn from their mistakes, and work out a solution. What did I do? What was my plan?

---

[1] When I was a camper, I really disliked the stigma that boys were ‘girly’ if they brought plastic shelves to camp. The two shelves and a cubby that camp provides is really not a lot of space, especially if you follow the packing list, as I used to do.

[2] I probably didn’t know the date at the time, but I certainly remember that date now. Also, coincidently, it was the same day that my kids started camp this summer too.

[3] Yes, as much as most newcomers to Kerem don’t believe it, there is a curfew.

[4] Excluding my Naaleh summer of course.