The Bunk Tales: Jewish Camp Counselor Stories Collection
During a summer season in pandemic times, many Jewish summer camps are closed for safety. While campers are stuck at home, would-be counselors are heartbroken to be away -- or at the very least, reminiscing on summers-past. New Voices Magazine presents "Bunk Tales", a series of short stories from college-age Jews who have been Jewish Summer Camp Counselors. New stories will continue to be released throughout the end of August. Read counselor stories from across the Jewish camping world below!
Saving the Day: Campers, Vomit, and Becoming
“I had finally learned how to be my own version of a madricha and not constantly try to copy or one-up others. I wasn’t looking for heroic moments anymore. I was simply loving my job and loving my chanichimot.”
Living Ten Months for Two
“Jewish kids wait ten months just for two, and those two never came.” A reflection on the absence of summer camp in the time of COVID-19.
Unifying a Unit
“As they age, campers are tasked with more leadership opportunities and chances to represent their peers in front of the entire camp. It is our job as counselors to put them in the best position to succeed. As they started getting older and the stakes got higher, it became paramount that inclusion and collective participation be at the forefront of their experience.”
Making the Camper Connection
“As a counselor, the few words saying that I was a reason as to why their summer was the best have meant the world to me….Hearing those words come out of her mouth has been one of the highlights of my entire counselor experience.”
How To Talk To Your Campers About Sexism
“As female counselors, my friends and I have often felt that we have had to work twice as hard to earn the respect that our male co-workers receive from campers and staff alike. While I wish that my campers won’t have to feel that way by the time they become counselors, I know it is very possible that they will. So I realized that the most important thing I could do in that moment was talk to my girls about the importance of unification.”
Reflections on the “Real World”
“You can’t work at camp for all those summers, watch all those campers burst into bloom under a summer sky that feels close enough to reach out and grab hold of with the tips of your outstretched fingers, without learning to believe in something. And those things I believe about camp live at the very center of my heart; to deny they were true for myself rendered them meaningless, entirely.”
Shabbat Shira: My Kind of Judaism
“Still, the images—Portland tweens and Seattle teens and Polish and British and American and Israeli and Hungarian and Canadian staff singing their hearts out in languages familiar and foreign, skipping around with friends and strangers turned best friends, busting moves in sync or at random without blinking an eye—remains starkly etched in the crevices of my mind. Finding my place in this global network of people and identities reminds me just how much room there is under the umbrella of Judaism.”
Disability & Care as a Cabin Counselor
“My kids and my faculty taught me that I am no less of a person because I am disabled. I am not alone in being disabled, and I am able to help others because of my disability not in spite of it.”
About "Bunk Tales: Jewish Camp Counselor Stories"
Though camp is not in session this strange summer, reflection is always in season. The Jewish community talks a lot about how formative camp is for campers; but this summer, New Voices Magazine has collected stories from camp counselors, representing Jewish camps from across America and telling stories about their summers spent on staff. Now, as the summer of 2020 comes to a close, you can read the "Bunk Tales" collection of first-hand accounts, telling tales from those formative summers by the counselors behind the scenes.
For counselors and campers alike, the intergenerational youth work that happens at Jewish summer camps is meaningful and even life-changing. The role of Jewish Summer Camp Counselors (or “Madrechim”) is massive; in the short months of camp, counselors take on the role of mentor, caretaker, educator, entertainer, Jewish hero, bedtime story-teller, coach, politics-converser, medic, playmate, spiritual advisor, advocate, and more. There are as many kinds of campers and counselors as there are types of Jews, and even more stories to tell about what happens in those summer months in cabins and tents.
Some Bunk Tales have happy endings and tell funny stories; others tell of struggle or difficulty. Some of our authors describe describe how disability, gender, or non-traditional education paths have shaped their time at camp. These stories paint a wide range of Jewish experience from overnight camps across the United States. For every camp story told, there are hundreds left unwritten. Our Bunk Tales collection offers readers a small slice of American Jewish life shared by those who have spent summers on staff. Read the stories above.