Why I’m Coming to the 75th Reunion
My mother told me about the 50th Tevya reunion, having read about it in the Jewish Advocate. It was 1989. It was magical from the second I stepped on the school bus shuttle that took me and my newborn to camp. I saw so many people who I hadn’t seen in many years. It was one of the best days of my life.
This is sad but true, my children did not go to Tevya. I did not keep in touch with any of my camp friends.
Until Facebook was invented.
It opened a whole new world.
But it’s still not enough.
I am so excited to see, hear and smell (I hope it’s still piney!) the camp. I can’t wait to see my Facebook friends in person, and to reconnect with the ones who are not on social media. I am also looking forward to see how the camp has evolved. The Cohen Foundation has done a remarkable job keeping up with the times and I hear there are new improvements that will blow us away!
I was camper during the Aaron Gordon years. He created a culture unlike any other. I am not sure what has gone on in the many years since, but in the very short time that I have been on the reunion committee I keep hearing the same theme over and over: Mindee Meltzer, the current Director, has shed new light, energy and focus upon the camp. She is this generation’s Aaron Gordon. She wants to make each and every alumni feel a part of the current Tevya.
June 20 – 21 can’t come soon enough. I want to chat with my old friends and maybe even make some new ones. I hope this year’s reunion is the biggest and best. Sitting around the campfire on the shores of Lake Potanipo is music to my ears . . .
Sheryl (Simon) Fohlin ’74
1968-1972, 1978
The scramble to the bunk at the end of the day – pick your clothes . . . blue and white of course
First shower? Cold shower . . .
Blow dryer shofars calling you to worship.
Music, prayer in the “verdant woodlands’ of which we sing.
Giggles. Whispers. Laughters. Shush!! In trouble again.
The Dining Hall. Shabbat Chicken. Sliced Challah.
“Shir Hamalot . . .” Only one day a week – Shabbat – can we sing the gentle, melodic beginning of the Birkat Hamazon.
Then the rest rocks down, sneaking in a table bang or two . . . and the energy rises because it’s Shabbat. And it’s camp. And what does it mean to have Shabbat at camp on Friday night? It means singing in the dining hall with Juicy Brucey, Bruce Lewis, in my camper days, and Steve Siagel in my counselor days. The whole dining hall rocks. The air fills with song; the energy is high. The people are One. This is joy. This is camp. This is Shabbat.
Ava (Altman) Harder ’77
1971 – 1982
To say that camp is a utopia may be a slight exaggeration for some people. But those who know me know that I don’t exaggerate my feelings for Tevya.
When talking about my time at Tevya, I could go on to list the hard facts: when I started, how many times my team won color war, how many s’mores I made at a bonfire, every song I sang to crown my king. These individual items all make up my camp experience, and are all equally important in the grand scheme of any Tevya camper’s lifetime.
But they are not the reasons that I am coming back to camp this year for the 75th Reunion.
For me, camp boils down to a feeling. More than the sting of bug spray or the grit of Potanipo sand. I’m talking about the feeling of butterflies in my stomach when I drive over the speed bumps for the first time every summer. The feeling of elation when I hear the birkat hamazon sung by 300 happy voices. The complete and utter feeling of calm when walking laps around the road during free play while the sun is slowly setting and everything is just right.
I am carving out a weekend in June this year specifically for the 75th Reunion because it’s more than a dinner out with my best friends from my staff years, more than a bar night in the city for ‘camp people,’ and more than a chance run-in during high holiday services at temple.
It’s the feeling. The feeling that only camp can give you. This feeling does not boil down to just one moment, just one bunk, just one memory. These are feelings that only being at Tevya can bring. It may have been decades since you nervously started your ole summer or just a few years since you marched into your Birya or Tel Chai bunk, but the moment you drive over those speed bumps, hear the first notes of the birkat hamazon, or walk down the road to watch the sun set, the feeling of Camp Tevya will return.
I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Elyse Horowitz ’03
1999 – 2009
When I tell people why I am coming home to go to my camp reunion from when I was a kid, they look at me like I’m crazy! They don’t get it cuz they didn’t experience it! To this day 47 years later, I can pick up the phone or instant message anyone from my Tevya days and feel like it was yesterday that we last talked. This is a special bond that very few people get to experience, and I feel so blessed to have been a part of the Tevya experience. Those that haven’t signed up yet, I urge that you do so. There is a special bond that you can only feel going back to Tevya. Friends friends friends we will always be!
Lori Holzman ’72
1967 – 1973
Quite a few years ago I was enrolled in a creative writing class and the instructor assigned us a task: Write down at least five memorable events/moments in your life.
I was not at all stumped by this assignment. I quickly began to write what came into my mind. After I completed the task I paused to review what I had written.
I quickly realized that four out of the five entries I had composed were all related to my years at Camp Tevya. What a powerful impact camp had on me!
In my 20-year association with Tevya I have accumulated a bevy of powerful memories—swimming the lake, executing pranks, counselor show appearances, captain of the Negev team, King of Birya, beating Camp Millbrook in softball, pushing Sid Poritz onto the dining hall roof to sing for the Crooner’s Contest, dunking Aaron Gordon at the visiting day carnival, etc. Yet, for me, it was not so much the singular events that captured me — it was the aggregate of all of them. Tevya was all about people.
To this day, my oldest and dearest friends are people I met at Tevya. The longevity of those relationships speaks powerfully about the value they play in my life.
Singing “Friends, friends, friends” tells it all. It explains why, when June rolls around every year, I still get this urge to pack my trunk.
Eliot Spack ’55
1947 – 1966
Camp Tevya has meant many things to me over the past 33 years. Coming from a different perspective each decade allows me to see so many different parts of camp. My mom was once the camp nurse; I have been a camper, a CIT, and a counselor. Tevya is where I met my wife many years ago. Nowadays, I am a parent of a current camper; and I get to help organize events at Tevya including alumni Shabbats, the Tevya Trot, and now the 75th reunion.
To me being involved with Camp Tevya is about Tzedakah, it is about giving back. My rabbi once mentioned during a service something that has resonated with me. “We pray that we may live not by our fears but by our hopes, not by our words but by our deeds.” I am hoping by giving back to the camp we love so much, I can help make sure it is a better place for everyone including not only the potential and current campers but also the staff and administration — some of which now spend 12 months a year working for Tevya as opposed to only the summer months years ago.
While so many things are different now, such as services being in the Pavilion and not the Dell to competition being called color war, many items are still the same: “TNPC” & “Tel Chai Queen” to name a few. It is a place that teaches life’s lessons to kids and adults without even trying to. It gives kids their Jewish identity. It molds us and helps us to overcome fears and brings us to adulthood.
I attend the reunions to see my friends near and far, to relive good times, to show my kids how giving back is the right thing to do, and most of all to be in the place where time stands still.
As we look forward to this night, this day, and this event, keep one thing in mind and ask yourself: where else would you rather be in the summer than on Lake Potanipo in zip code 03033.
Barnet Cohen ’84
1981 – 1988
“Just click your heels together and repeat: There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
Never have these words been more true than how I feel about Camp Tevya. Why I am going to the reunion? It’s what I do. It’s who I am. It’s what you made me. It’s family. It’s LOVE!
At a time when my life was uncertain I always knew that in the summer I would be home again. I would be surrounded by people I adored, and I was fortunate to feel the love in return. Camp allowed me to be myself. I was accepted for the person I was. Never had I felt that freedom, that camaraderie, that kind of love. I returned year after year to give back all that I had received. The summers were not about me; they were about everyone else. My goal was to make sure that everyone felt special, that everyone had the courage to pursue their dream, that everyone felt loved.
I cannot imagine my life without Tevya. Since 1966 there have been only 3 years without a member of my family being at Tevya. My dearest friends are from camp. My Jewish identity was cemented at camp. My talents were nurtured and even exposed at camp. I have been to many Bar-Mitzvahs and many weddings of Tevya-ites. It doesn’t get better than being part of life-changing events of a person you remember as a child and watch them become the adult you always knew they would be. But it is especially rewarding to know that in some small way you had something, however small, to do with it.
When my time here is done, I can go knowing that my time here had a purpose. That I made a difference. That my presence touched the lives of so many people. But what really is so much more important is that so many people made a difference in me. That so many people allowed me to be part of their lives. That I loved and was loved in return. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. For all that you have given me I have carried with me throughout my life.
That’s why I go back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOVE!
Phil Drasner ’69
1966 – 1967, 1971 – 1979, 1989 – 1995