By Aaron Selkow
When I was a child, I visited Camp Harlam at least once each summer to play sports. Before the basketball or softball games that I was coming to play in would start, I would always look up to this spot and ask myself, “ Why is there a spaceship in the middle of this camp?” Eventually, I learned that this was not an alien craft…but until last year, much of this special sanctuary’s history was still a mystery to me. Now that I have done my homework, I want to share some of what I’ve learned.
Rabbi Martin Rozenberg, who we named the newly- renovated Welcome Center after last year, was the same young scholar that helped to connect Joseph and Betty Harlam to the effort to open this camp in 1958. camp. After he successfully helped to encourage Jo and Betty to make the gift that allowed us to open the camp in their name, he remained very involved with Camp Harlam for its first few years.
After Camp Harlam opened, the leaders felt that our community needed a Beit Midrash – a house of learning – where the few hundred children attending camp at that time could come together and practice their Judaism. It was to be like a synagogue, but…different.
And it certainly is different. Donald Marder, an architect in Philadelphia, design this unique space. From above, you can see that the structure I’m standing under and the walls that you can see throughout the sanctuary form an outline of of the Magen David, the six-pointed Star of David. As far as we know, there is no other like it in the world. Once this vision for Harlam’s new Chapel was clear, all it took was a gift from Joe and Betty to make its construction a reality.
As they continued to build the sanctuary, the Chapel did not have an official name. And despite what you may think, the name that it was given before it was completed in 1965 was not “Chapel on the Hill.”
As the plans were underway to complete the Chapel, Rabbi Rozenberg was teaching a class at Hebrew Union College. That’s the graduate school – or seminary – where many of the Rabbis you know from home or from our faculty received their training and ordination. At the time, the head of the entire Reform Movement at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, contacted the teachers at the college to ask for their help. Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath wife, Rosa, was hoping that the teachers might encourage their students to donate blood because her mother was quite ill. Rabbi Rozenberg passed that along to his students, but he also went to give blood himself. When Rabbi Eisendrath and Rosa heard about what Rabbi Rozenberg had done, they were so thankful. As it turned out, no students or other teachers had actually given blood that day: only Rabbi Rozenberg did so.
To show their appreciation, the Eisendrath’s contributed to the project that they knew Rabbi Rozenberg cared the most: Camp Harlam and the Chapel that was being built up on the hill. Just before the Chapel was ready to open, Rosa Eisendrath passed away unexpectedly. As a way to pay tribute to her support of Harlam and her life, this iconic space was named after her. While we can continue to refer to it as Chapel on the Hill, the name that it will also carry forever is the Rosa Brown Eisendrath Memorial Chapel.
As some of you know, we were recently able to raise funds to renovate and preserve this amazing space. Most of the work has been completed, and we also look forward to some important finishing touches still to come. Tonight, as I stand before my camp family and recall these important historical figures that created this Chapel and had so much to do with our beginnings, I know that the people that will lead us into Harlam’s bright future will include those seated here in this Chapel tonight. It’s critical for us to remember the names, to share the stories, and to find our own ways to be remembered as those that will help us to maintain this space as one full of goodness, joyfulness, fulfillment, learning, spirituality, and of peace.
Aaron Selkow, URJ Camp Harlam’s Executive Director, arrived at Harlam in 2011. As part of Harlam’s celebration of 60 years in 2018, Aaron took on the responsibility of researching and piecing together our rich history. It’s his honor to inspire others to learn from and lift up the leaders and stories of our past as we continue into the future.