On Sunday, 18 Israeli children began their first American summer camp adventure at Camp Ben Frankel, a Jewish sleepaway camp located in Makanda, Ill., about two hours south of St. Louis. All of these youngsters were either displaced from their homes due to the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 or live on the Lebanon border.
The youngsters, ranging in age from 10 to 17, departed from Tel Aviv on two separate flights that arrived on Friday and Saturday in the United States. They stayed with “four amazing camp host families in Chicago where they are settling in, resting and recovering from jetlag,” said Aaron Hadley, director of Camp Ben Frankel, on Saturday. On Sunday, they boarded a camp bus from Chicago to camp.
In late May, Camp Ben Frankel launched an emergency fundraising campaign to try to bring up to 17 Israeli children affected by the war to camp. Hadley had been contacted by an Israeli mom desperate to find a way for her daughters to escape the daily terrors of living on the Lebanon border. She could only afford the cost of airfare to get her girls to an American Jewish camp.
Hadley soon learned that there was no program or agency to help this mother and others like her. As a result, he and camp alumni decided to try to raise the more than $110,000 it would take to help these children attend camp for four weeks. The Jewish Light wrote a story about the fundraising effort, which Hadley said garnered a tremendous response.
“We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support,” said Hadley. “Thanks to your generosity, we were able to admit an additional Israeli child to camp, bringing the total to 18 children.
“Consequently, we increased the campaign goal to $117,360. To date, 123 donors have contributed nearly $107,000. Given the timeline, we decided it was more important to help as many children as possible now and worry about the remaining fundraising later.”
Hadley said Camp Ben Frankel has six Israeli, Hebrew-speaking staff members this summer, who had been meeting virtually to help them get to know each other – and the camp – better before it began.
“We have Hebrew speakers on our leadership team to help speak with the parents,” Hadley said. “We screened the Israeli campers to ensure that they had sufficient English-speaking skills, experience being away from home without their parents and a willingness to potentially be the only Israeli in a camp cabin full of American kids.”
The Israeli campers are expected to stay until their camp session is over on July 19.
