Jew Camp

I was a summer camp girl, my mother was a summer camp girl, my grandmother was a summer camp girl, and as it turns out, my mother-in-law went to the same summer camp that I went to. There's something special and sacred about sleepaway camp that is indescribable to those who have never experienced it (cough cough my husband... though I must give him props, he went to the first half of Jew Camp). I always wanted to be a summer camp counselor - but then college arrived, and there were always other, more enticing opportunities for my summers. I had accepted the fact that never having been a camp counselor would be one of my biggest regrets in life.

And then, I find myself in Bogotá, Colombia, somehow involved in the Jewish community. They desperately needed a coordinator for their 6-day camp, and I was a great fit - young, enthusiastic, with Jewish leadership experience. Despite its bumps, it was a great experience and I was able to shed my regret of never having been a camp counselor.

In many ways, Majané Hatikva (the name of the camp) was just like my camp experiences: teaching the kids how to play with their cups during meals, banging on the tables during Birkat Hamazon (prayer for after meals), sunburns, mosquito bites, shaving cream, walking around barefoot, bunkbeds, gossip, staying up late talking about life. In other ways it was completely different - after all, it's only 6 days, so the groups don't have the same amount of time to form their own identities. There was no singing in the dining hall, no lightning bugs, no huge open fields. But it was still camp.

Here are some highlights:

Singing the younger girls to sleep: When I was a kid, my mom used to sing me a song:

Robin's boat's a silvery moon

Sailing cross the sky

Sailing towards a sea of dreams

As the clouds roll by

Sail Robin, sail

Out across the sea

Only don't forget to sail

Back again to me

All of the girls were homesick (a case of mamitis), so I went into their room to sing to each of them. They loved it and would refuse to go to sleep every night afterwards until I'd sing to them. I started singing other songs, including my feminist version of Hinei Mah Tov:

Hinei mah tov u'manaim

Shevet achot gam yachad

Behold how good and how pleasing

Seven sisters all together. [usually it says brothers]

I had the girls sing it to Claudio, the rabbi. He laughed at my brainwashing.

My conversation with the teenage girls: One night I stayed up talking with the teenage girls about all sorts of things - boys, Judaism, life. I told them about my Bat Mitzvah, and about how there was a woman rabbi at my synagogue growing up, and how an Argentine woman rabbi was at our wedding. They all expressed that they would love to read Torah, but it's just not the norm here. When I asked if it was important to change the norm, none of them said that it was.

Our paseo to the river: We decided to take the kids on a caminata (hike/walk) down to a nearby river. Most of these kids come from wealthy Bogotá families and have probably never been hiking before. They complained a bit on the way down, but in the end everyone loved it.

Me singing Lion King songs on the walkie-talkie and schlepping water in my backpack

Karaoke Night: The rabbi was inspired by "Like A Virgin." I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

Converting lots of kids to Ultimate players: Yes, this sport is so awesome it's actually written with a capital letter. Of course my real goal for the week was to introduce all of these innocent children to the wonderful world of Ultimate. Several of the kids got really into it, and during any free time they would ask me if we could play.

Being around Jews: Even though I have my differences with the Jewish community here, it still felt great to be part of it.

I came home exhausted and mostly glad it was over. The following morning when I woke up, I felt like I should be surrounded by lots of small children. I missed that separate world, that escape from reality, just like camp was meant to be.

Subcampeones

Bamboo team huddle

It turns out that Colombia has one of the most well-developed ultimate frisbee communities in Latin America. Shortly after Jerry and I moved to Bogotá, the Colombian Women's Juniors team won Worlds. Eight women's teams participated in Bogotá's Regional tournament several weeks ago. The majority of these teams have paid coaches, train regularly, and participate in tournaments throughout Colombia.

My team, Bamboo, won Regionals a few weeks ago. It was not easy, and it felt pretty damn good.

That put us in second place going into Nationals this past weekend. We rocked out in our four games on Saturday and Sunday, placing us in the Semis against Wayra (the team we beat in the Finals of Regionals) on Monday morning. We won in universal game point - talk about nerve-wracking.

Which put us in the Finals against Revolution, the several-year-defending-champion. This team is young (as in, two of their star players are 11 year-old twins), fast, and doesn't make mistakes. They went up at the beginning and we never caught up. By no means was it a blowout, but it was never really close. I think, more than anything, we had an insurmountable mental block.

Playing on a women's sports team in Colombia has been one of my most enlightening experiences here. Even on the best team in Bogotá, many people don't come to practice regularly. Leadership roles and team structures aren't well-defined. The concept of there is no "I" in team doesn't exist here. People don't recognize that in order to function as a unit, it doesn't matter so much what you do, so long as you do it together. That being said, I love my team, I love being part of a team, and I love playing ultimate.

One weird thing about playing ultimate in Colombia (and Colombia in general, for that matter): there are no seasons. I think we'll take off a few weeks from practice, but then everything's back to normal. Since the weather is more or less than same all-year-round, why stop playing ultimate? As a result, there's no such thing as "summer league" where you get to play and interact with people from other teams. There's no chance to grow and learn in that way - or just have some fun.

Post on Jew Camp coming soon...

Women are Jews, too.

I recently found out that the Conservative synagogue in Bogotá doesn't allow women to read from Torah or wear tallit. Oh, did I mention that I'm the coordinator for a 5-day Jewish summer camp for the synagogue starting next week?

Brief explanation: For you non-Jews out there, I should give a brief background on what this means. First, some vocabulary. Torah = the five books of Moses, that scroll thingy that you saw your friends read from for their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Tallit = Prayer shawl that is worn during morning prayer services, at weddings, and a few other times. In the vast history of the Jewish people, women were not allowed to read from the Torah or wear tallitot (actually, according to Wikipedia, originally women were allowed to wear tallitot until the Medieval period? I should probably do some more research on this), but that changed for the Reform and Conservative movements at some point in recent history. OK now back to your regularly-scheduled blog post...

Me being my naive self, seeing that men and women sit together at services, seeing that women serve on the synagogue board, etc etc - well, I just assumed that women could read from Torah and wear tallitot. Turns out I was wrong. So, me (again) being me, kind of freaked out. I've been struggling with the question of whether or not you can belong to a community that doesn't accept you for who you are - and more specifically, whether you can be part of a Jewish community that doesn't recognize the way that you practice Judaism. You probably know that I'm into egalitarianism in general, and in my Jewish life, grew up in a congregation that had a female rabbi and that didn't differentiate between men and women in any way (other than the brit milah). Not to mention, Conservative synagogues in the US allow women to perform these mitzvot, so why not here?

Turns out I'm living in Latin America. See previous post about sexism.

There are a few people at the synagogue who are working on this, but it takes time. And so many people, including women, are stuck on "tradition" - the same people who openly express wanting to allow pork in the synagogue, the same people who didn't raise their children as Jews. **Addendum: I don't care if you eat pork or don't raise your kids as Jews. But then don't go telling me which traditions I should think are important and which traditions should change.** Why is it that the sexist traditions are always the last to change?

I don't want to impose my beliefs on others - if a woman doesn't want to wear a tallit, my goodness, she should not have to wear a tallit. But if a woman wants to wear one, well, she should have that right. Especially in a synagogue where women count as part of a minyan, where women serve on the board, where women are an integral part of the religious aspects of the community.

I just remembered from my childhood the pictures of all of Temple Emanu-El's past presidents on the wall. I remember a sea of male faces, with one female face, how that always stuck with me. I was always proud of her.

**Addendum, June 10** Just saw this cartoon and think it applies.

Los ismos

The way racism and sexism are dealt with here is completely different from the way it's addressed in the US. There's a black girl on my ultimate frisbee team who is almost exclusively referred to as la negra - of course, me being me (read: I hate offensive/racist jokes, stereotypes, etc. Just ask my husband.), I am always taken aback by this. Why is it that someone should be branded as different because of the color of her skin? Today I asked Evelin what she thought about racismo - she responded by saying that when she was younger it bothered her that people would call her negra, but now she's used to it. "I mean, I'm black. So people are going to call me negra. That's just how it is."

Today I talked for a while with Doris, the woman who comes about twice monthly to clean our apartment. She's told me in the past about her marido (in this case, long-term, live-in manfriend, though this term can also refer to a husband), how he was caught kissing another woman in a bakery, how he doesn't help out at all around the house. When I've asked her about why she doesn't leave him, she pretty much says that she can't afford rent without him (which, of course, with my guilt complex makes me want to pay for her rent, but know that's not possible). Today I was asking her if she thought machismo was a problem in Colombia. She responded with a resounding yes, that there are so many men who beat their wives, that there are women who choose everyday to stay in these relationships. She said that one time her marido hit her, and she went straight to the district attorney's office and reported him. He then had to pay her $200.000 pesos (~$100) in front of a judge and hasn't touched her since.

If you ask anyone in Colombia about racismo or machismo here, they will talk with you openly about it. They're both widely accepted as being a central aspect of this society - and people talk about them as if it's nothing. A black woman is called negra, an Asian-looking person is called chino, a woman is expected to do the cooking in her house. At least with what I have seen, few people challenge these accepted notions - including those who are on the receiving end of the stereotype or expectation (in other words, more than half the population). On the one hand, I can't stand it, even though I know that people have never seen anything else, and thus probably have no idea that another possibility exists. On the other hand, I appreciate that at least it's out in the open - perhaps in the US the same amount of prejudice exists, but it's not called by its name.

Though I must admit, living abroad has certainly made me begin to look at the US with rose-colored glasses. As people shove their way onto and off of the Transmilenio I think, "People in the US are so polite when it comes to public transportation!" Or when people don't help me clean up after a dinner party I think, "In this US, my friends would've helped me wash dishes!" The same way of thinking applies to my views on sexism and racism in the US. I like to think that these issues aren't as bad over there, but then I watch things like this or listen to things like this and am reminded that the US still has a long way to go, too.

The question is, how do we fight for these things every day?

It's people like Doris, people who in their small corner of the world say "No. The way things have always been does not have to be the way that things always will be." Maybe she can only take it so far, but she can do something.

What are your thoughts - do racism and sexism exist where you live? How do people talk about it? Are these things that are worth fighting against, and if so, how do you do that? If not, why?