I’m running through the woods of Stanislaus National Forest with Judy Shalev and her children to make it to Shabbat services. We’re members of the same congregation back home, but tonight we’ve come from Camp Oski across the creek, trampling tall grasses and daisies to reach our destination.
“Wait for us!” Shalev yells as we approach the contingent of Jewish campers at Camp Blue, all here for the week at U.C. Berkeley’s alumni camp, Lair of the Golden Bear. They do wait, not only for us, but also for the others traipsing through the forest, crushing pine cones beneath their feet. I’m surprised at how many show up.
At the creekside service area, I notice I’m among many families. Sadly, I’m solo tonight. My 8-year-old daughter is preoccupied making lanyards at the art shack with her friend Rachele, and my husband’s absorbed in conversation with fellow alumni. Since this is my first foray into exploring a Lair Shabbat, I agree they don’t have to join me.
I’ve come out of curiosity — do I know any of the other Jewish campers? — and also to lend support. Someone’s gone to the trouble of making a service happen here and, since I’m trying to lead a Jewish life, just because I’m away camping doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that Friday night is Shabbat.
Lair of the Bear is a nondenominational camp, of course, but I discover that Shabbat celebrations have been an ongoing tradition for years. “We do have weeks when 30 to 40 percent of campers are Jewish,” Lair Camp Gold director Gary Silverman tells me. Judging by his last name, he might know.
The week my family attends must be one of those. We also have several Jewish staffers, including a former U.C. Berkeley student body president.
Hiking director Misha Leybovich, who channels both Elvis and Louis Armstrong in the campfire show, tells me about his Russian Jewish grandparents he’ll visit in the fall. He’s sweet and offers to provide guitar accompaniment at the service, but ultimately is waylaid by his first (fortunately successful) skydiving attempt. I’ve felt a kinship with Leybovich over the week and miss his presence.
But the 20 of us who do make it — those able to drag themselves away from all the relaxing around tent-cabin circles, the pool and dining hall — usher in Shabbat under a canopy of pines. I’m happy to see a friend from Berkeley with his two daughters, one whose bat mitzvah ceremony we recently attended.
Leading the service is Jerry Rosenblatt from Peninsula Sinai Congregation, in a tie-dyed T-shirt and dust-covered blue jeans. Dirty jeans and tie-dyed shirts are the unspoken dress code here at camp, along with sweatshirts of Cal blue and gold. Rosenblatt’s 13-year-old son, Nathaniel, is yarmulke monitor, doling out kippahs from a bag.
As the sun sets and the sky above the tall trees takes on purple hues, I think about how we’re connected, not just as Cal alumni — or, in my case, as family of Cal alumni — but by the fact that we know the same prayers and songs, which sound even sweeter to me in the crisp mountain air.
If I’d been aware of it earlier in the day, I might have smelled the freshly baked challah from across the creek. I learn later that Terry Sarver of Piedmont takes over the Camp Gold kitchen after breakfast with a team of friends and creates her coveted sweet challah with golden raisins and candy sprinkles on top.
She makes enough of the giant double-braided loaves to feed the several hundred diners, educating non-Jewish campers in Shabbat cuisine. I wonder if I can intern with her next year and bring the tradition (and the coveted recipe) to the kitchen at our camp.
I also find out that a congregation sprang forth during a different week — they call themselves Congregation Beth Lair. Claire Ungar, a cantorial singer at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El, is the self-appointed “spiritual leader for the Jewish community for Week 2 Camp Gold.” Cantor Brian Reich helped create a special siddur for the summer creekside service, and Ungar and her camper-congregants have been using it for over a decade. They’ve become a close-knit group and attend many of each other’s bar and bat mitzvah celebrations around the bay.
I think about how lucky Ungar is to have those connections from camp continue throughout the year, how people we return to can, and do, build community — and how Jewish community can be found in unlikely places.
Joanne Catz Hartman lives and writes in Oakland. She can be reached at [email protected].