BARSS CORNER, Nova Scotia — “I felt it would be the best summer of my life – and it was.”
From left, Amayla Rachamkin, Jonatan Daniel, Saar Ben Zeev and Lian Celeste were among a group of Israeli teenagers from Sderot who attended Camp Kadimah in Nova Scotia this summer.
Yonatan Daniel, 15, of Sderot, Israel, smiled warmly as he related stories of six weeks at Camp Kadimah, near Barss Corner, N.S., 100 kilometres southwest of Halifax.
“The people I met made it special. The staff made me feel at home. Everything. It was so great,” he said, beaming.
Daniel was one of 10 children from Sderot, ages 13 to 16, attending the 65-year-old summer camp. It gave them a chance to escape being in the midst of confrontation.
Amalya Rachamkin, 16, from Mishmar Hayarden, was in the counsellor-in-training program. “In six weeks, we became like relatives. We listened and talked to each other so that the Canadians realized we have a regular life like they do.”
She said she and her Israeli friends might do army service while the Canadians “have fun and chill out, but we watch the same TV shows and listen to the same music. Even though we do army duty, we still have a normal life.”
She smiled. “Israel is my favourite place, but Kadimah is certainly second.”
It was the first overseas trip for the Sderot-area children, plus six others from northern Israel. Saar Ben Zeev, 16, of Kibbutz Shamil remarked on the “cold” temperatures that sometimes dropped into the low teens [Celsius] at night. “Israel is usually in the high 30s and 40s in the summer.”
Rachamkin said she’d make a deal with Canada. “We’ll give you sun. You give us rain” – and there was plenty of the latter at Kadimah throughout the summer.
Daniel said he was shocked by the cool temperature of the water in Kadimah’s Lake William. “It took time to adjust, because swimming in lakes at home is like a bath in comparison.”
The CITs went white-water rafting, rock climbing and to Moncton, N.B., as part of their development program. “[The Jewish community of] Moncton made us feel important and special, even thought they didn’t know us,” Rachamkin said.
Though homesick for a day or so, Ben Zeev said she’d tell any youngster from Israel that Kadimah is a great experience. “I would tell them, ‘Don’t waste time missing home,’” she said. “I’ve made many friends and will keep in touch by e-mail and Facebook.”
Despite a summer-long threat of swine flu and some kids living in quarantine, as well as almost all campers taking Tamiflu for several days, Rachamkin said none of the Israeli kids were hit by the illness. “Our counsellor got it, and they thought all CITs should be quarantined, but after a few hours, they let us out.
“We’re kosher – no swine,” she laughed.
Opened in 1944 for Jewish youngsters from Atlantic Canada, Camp Kadimah now attracts more than 75 per cent of its campers from Ontario and another 15 per cent from other locations in North America as the Atlantic region’s Jewish population diminishes.
For the last 10 years, Kadimah has hosted four children from Israel’s north. Two summers ago, two children from Sderot came to camp. Funding for the 10 Sderot children in 2009 came mostly from the Atlantic Jewish community, with UIA Federations Canada’s Israeli branch and the Jewish Agency co-ordinating camper recruitment.
Michael Pink, Halifax, co-chair of the Camp Kadimah committee, said that “Kadimah is all about forging relationships between children from Atlantic Canada, Ontario, plus those from Israel.”