Camp Hazak

by Bonnie Riva Ras

It's the perfect setting for a Jewish camp.

The 540-acre Block and Hexter Vacation Center in Poyntelle, Pennsylvania, deep in that state’s Pocono Mountains, includes woods, clearings, and a natural spring-fed lake. Its amenities include hiking trails, waterfront activities, arts and crafts facilities, Shabbat services, kosher food, and a chance to make new friends.

Like good camps everywhere, it even has happy campers – and that’s where Block and Hexter diverges from the norm.

Block and Hexter was designed not for children or teenagers but for older people. All the buildings have ramps and are accessible to people using walkers or canes. The rooms are air-conditioned, and the staff, which is drawn from many countries around the world, is well-trained, helpful, and friendly.

From June 13 to June 20, 140 campers, all 55 years old and older, filled Block and Hexter with Camp Hazak. The campers are members of Hazak, United Synagogue’s program for older congregants.

Hazak has taken its organizational model from USY, United Synagogue Youth, with synagogue-based chapters and regional groupings. Camp Hazak also has been influenced by USY. Paula Horowitz, a Seaboard vice president who is Hazak’s Seaboard regional chair, has served as the region’s youth chair and has gone to United Synagogue Youth encampments and international conventions. It occurred to her that Hazak could host similar events for adults.

She wasn’t the only person who thought USY would be a useful model for Hazak. About four years ago, Jo-Anne Tucker-Zemlak, United Synagogue’s Seaboard regional assistant director, and Arlene Corsover, who holds the same position in United Synagogue’s Southeast region, began planning joint Hazak programs. Their goal was to form a North American movement, like USY’s. (“The only difference between us and USY is that we don’t need chaperones,” Ms. Horowitz joked.) About three years, ago, they presented Hazak’s first spring retreat, which attracted 80 participants from their two regions. This year’s retreat drew participants from eight regions – Southeast and Seaboard were joined by Mid-Atlantic, New Jersey, Metropolitan New York, Empire, Connecticut Valley and New England. Rabbi Moshe Edelman, the director of United Synagogue’s departments of congregational standards and leadership development, was scholar in residence, and Rabbi Lisa Vernon of the New Jersey region helped plan the retreat.

All Hazak events should have the three Es, Ms. Tucker-Zemlak said, and this one certainly was no exception – education, entertainment, and eating all were in great supply.

During the retreat, participants lived Jewishly. Rabbi Edelman led daily shacharit, mincha, and ma’ariv minyanim, and Shabbat was celebrated with great outpourings of music and feeling. Four lecturers discussed topics ranging from American Jewish history to Islam in Israel to Yiddish.

“The speakers were the most outstanding educators in our movement. You can’t get to hear anyone better,” said Jack Lubin, 75, president of Hazak’s Southeast region.

Ed and Deedy Eisenson of Fairfax, Virginia, both in their 70s, thought that the lectures were dynamic and inspiring. They didn’t miss a single one. Ed Eisenson said, “The people who went on the retreat were well read and well educated. They were articulate and asked really good questions during the lectures.” At least 80 percent of the Hazak members on the retreat went to the lectures, estimated national Hazak chair Lou Meltzer.

Each morning, between 25 and 30 people took long walks; later in the day they went to the waterfront to row, canoe, or fish. Marion Kaback, 71, and her husband, from Cranford, New Jersey, tried a pedal boat but found that when you have to wear a life vest it’s hard to reach the pedals.

The physically active could choose among daily early morning exercise classes, a workout room, weights, yoga, chair aerobics, stretching exercises, fitness walks, tennis, swimming in the heated pool, water aerobics and much more. Many campers participated in the Block and Hexter Fit for Life program, designed to keep them active and healthy. Campers were paid Fitness Dollars for every physical activity they completed; the dollars could be redeemed for prizes.

The camp also offered arts and crafts activities. Stanley Gumnit of Baltimore took a painting class and painted his first picture – until that summer he never knew he could paint. Irene Nachinoff of Brooklyn, at 58 the youngest Hazak camper, made a memory book, using pictures she’d brought from home. The action “was nonstop,” said Ruth Lubin, 71. “There was never a time when there wasn’t an activity going on.”

Each evening brought entertainment, including a singalong with Marsha Edelman and a concert by folk singer Marc Levy.

On the last evening of the retreat, duringan elaborate graduation ceremony and celebration, every camper received a certificate for Jewish Living, Learning and Laughter. Jo-Anne Tucker-Zemlak wore a cap and gown to make it official.

As comfortable and lovely as the setting was, it was the opportunity to relax with their peers that made the retreat work. “We met people from different regions and made many new friends,” said Irene Siegel of Silver Springs, Maryland. “We feel that we are part of a larger group,” she said.

“We became a close community, a havurah,” Ms. Horowitz said. “We have a lot in common even though we are from different backgrounds and different areas. And we were able to share programming ideas to bring back to our own synagogues.”

The Lubins agreed that everyone became very close. “We felt that we were mishpacha,” family, Ms. Lubin said.

Many of the campers already have made reservations for next year. “We’ve loved it; we brought friends and they’ve loved it,” said Deedy Eisenson. “We are getting the word out and have picked up some people from our congregation.” Ms. Tucker-Zemlak expects 200 campers next year.