By Ashira Boxman

This past Saturday, we celebrated Israel Day at Camp Harlam! For the past few years, camp has celebrated Israel Night. However, this year we decided to bring the spirit of Israel Day back to Kunkletown, PA.

The day was filled with immense ruach (spirit) which was felt by both the entire camp community. The Mishlachat which are our Israeli delegation put together different activities that focused on their personal connection to their home back in Israel. The day consisted of an Israeli-themed carnival, a pool party, falafel and hummus, a meaningful Havdalah ceremony & Israel Day celebration and concluded with informative evening programs for each unit in camp.

The carnival had a simulation of the Kotel for campers to experience writing notes as individual’s do in Jerusalem. There was also a blank map of Israel for the campers to decorate their unit’s part of Israel. Arava decorated the Arava region, Galil decorated the Galil region, Kineret decorated the Kineret region, etc. There was also a cultural aspect depicted at the carnival. This included Israeli music and dancing, a soccer game celebrating the different teams in Israel, and fruit sticks for campers to feel like they were at the shuk (outdoor market) in Israel. The evening programs included trivia games as well as personal stories from our Mishlachat.

All in all it was a great day and our camp had the opportunity to celebrate our Mishlachat and the land of Israel. It was an important reminder that despite the complexity of the state of Israel, there still lays a copious amount of things to celebrate and discover, especially when we have the best resource of all, the people of Israel, our incredible Mishlachat.