First Session Program Summaries

FIRST SESSION

Alumim (rising 9th graders): Alumim focuses on learning about Jewish history and heritage and connecting it to our identity today collectively as a Jewish people and individually as Jewish Americans.  Highlights of the program include our extended hiking and rafting trips as well as a one-day visit to New York City or Philadelphia to explore the history of the Jewish American experience.

Yachad (rising 10th graders): Yachad engages campers’ social consciousness through the lens of community and pluralism.  Through a variety of activities, participants reflect on the importance of looking beyond their own lives and discovering the power of being part of a responsible community.  The highlight of Yachad is Special Interest Week, where all participants choose one of our challenging four day trips such as backpacking, biking, kayaking or volunteering.

Hadracha (rising 11th graders): Hadracha is the culmination of the TY experience, educating and training our campers to become tomorrow’s leaders and activists, today.  Hadracha aims to develop campers’ leadership skills, such as public speaking, marketing, and programming, and provides a more sophisticated understanding of social responsibility and principled leadership.  Campers are pushed to prioritize today’s most pressing issues, organize around one issue of importance, and design an effective plan of action to achieve social change.  The highlight of Hadracha is Day on the Hill, a three-day trip to Washington, DC, that provides campers with the unique opportunity to advance their issue through participation in the American political process by engaging members of the US Congress and meeting with prominent non-governmental organizations relevant to their group’s respective issue.