This year at SAC, we’re bringing Sephardic Education, Language, and Culture to the forefront of our camper and staffer experience! The Sephardic Adventure Camp (SAC) is the affiliate Jewish summer camp for the Sephardic Brotherhood and national Sephardic community based outside of Seattle Washington. This amazing three week overnight summer camp welcomes 120 young Sepharadim between ages 8 to 16 from all over the world, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Israel, Spain, and even Turkey!
Campers have the chance to spend their time in the beautiful pacific northwest with outdoor activities like swimming, canoeing, playing sports, and more. Classic camp activities like bonfires, arts and crafts, and hiking are always a great part of the summer experience. What’s more, SAC integrates special Sephardic educational elements into all parts of the camper experience. Campers and counselors actively participate in Sephardic prayer and tefillah daily, with services led by campers and counselors. Every Shabbat features delicious Sephardic foods, prayers, and a blast of singing Sephardic Hebrew, Ladino, and camp songs together over Shabbat dinner and lunch.
This year, camp has continued to build on programs that have been successful for many years, including our famous Coca en La Boca, where our Haham tells riddles, Ladino Refranes (sayings or proverbs), and of course, Djoha stories, all while enjoying some hot coco. Our Ladino 101 sessions and Avrahahm & Sarah’s tent each help expose our campers to the beauty of the Ladino language in an interactive way, peaking their own curiosity and encouraging them to learn more.
This year’s camp theme, Coming to America, will also tell the story of the Sephardic immigration grandparents and great-grandparents experienced when they first came to America at the turn of the century. Each bunk is named after a city in the US or in the former Ottoman Empire where Sepharadim lived and thrived, such as New York, Seattle, Istanbul, Salonika, Rhodes, or Atlanta. New signage has appeared across our campsite for each bunk and major location, using the Ladino words for specific sites written in both Hebrew Merubah characters and Latin characters. Campers now call the synagogue La Kehila or El Kahal – לה קהילה/איל קהל and the kitchen La Kozina – לה קוזינה, both classic ways to refer to these locations in our Sephardic communities. Every day at camp flag raising, we announce a Ladino Word of the Day and both campers and counselors have been consistently using them on a regular basis. We also have a special Sephardic scholars program this summer which will include featured visits from Ladino singer and educator Sarah Aroeste and Ladino linguist Dr. Bryan Kirschen.
SAC is building the next generation of Sephardic leaders across the United States and around the world. Keep an eye out on the Sephardic Adventure Camp blog for updates at sephardicadventurecamp.org and in the Fall edition of the community magazine!
Kommentare