Summer fun returns to southern Israel

Yeshiva University aims to empower underprivileged Israeli youth by teaching them life skills at summer camp

Stacey Maltin|Published: 07.29.09 , 10:15

The Yeshiva University Center for the Jewish Future in New York is sending 21 exceptional students from top universities including YU, NYU, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania to serve as counselors in the Counterpoint Israel Program.

Counterpoint Israel is a month-long service initiative in the southern Israel development towns Yeruham and Dimona, where approximately 110 kids will be able to attend summer camps that teach Jewish educational values and good life skills in order to inspire the next generation of Israeli youth.

Before Counterpoint Israel began there were no summer programs in Yeruham and Dimona, where two out of every three youngsters live below the poverty line. Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of the CJF at YU says that, “This program is to speak to kids who would otherwise be on the street. We are transforming the culture of these communities and there is a very high demand for it. We are exposing these kids to dance, music, computers, and art which they didn’t have previous access to.”

Photo courtesy of Yeshiva University

While this is the fourth year that Counterpoint Israel has held summer camps, this is the first year in which previous campers are old enough to return to the program as Counselors in Training. A select group of teens that excelled in previous years are now returning to be trained as counselors and take classes that include skill building workshops, leadership training, and assisting the college students as assistant counselors throughout the month.

Though it is mainly secular teenagers that take place in the program, Brander explains that, “Counterpoint Israel’s creative programming – developed specially by top US informal educators – promotes positive self-image and self-esteem through stimulating educational activities based on Jewish values and identity. We are not here to make anybody religious. The only religious component is that the students learn to model a certain type of behavior.”

Tikkun Olam

Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that means, “Repairing or Perfecting the world.” The YU service learning programs use the idea of Tikkun Olam as a model and have become quite well known as a way for Jewish American students to help people around the world. The goal for the students is to understand the responsibility we each have in changing the world around us and know that by changing the world we are changing ourselves.

Brander explains that, “This is really a transformational experience for the university students. When they travel to Israel and witness the effect these programs have on the kids' lives they see that they can really be an agent of change.”

In the weeks prior to and following the summer camps, the college students will also participate in supplementary workshops and lectures on Zionism, geopolitics, social justice and social responsibility. It is the belief of YU that it is the program’s holistic service-learning formula from Jewish and academic perspectives that mold future Jewish leaders.

Counterpoint Israel and other YU service programs are made possible by the generous donations of the Zusman Family (Yeruham Program), the Blumenthal Family (Dimona Program) and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.