The Many Faces of SAC by Beth Jacoby

 

The term “putting a name to a face” has never rung so true for me until this summer here at SAC!  Out of our 113 campers this year, about one third are brand new to our camp!  Our first time campers are always surprised when, after telling me their first name, I instantly tell them their last name.  That’s no memory trick, but rather, the product of having spent the better part of the year planning SAC details with Camp Director Kenny Pollack and our wonderful team.  We have been looking at their names (and talking to their parents), for the past 8 months.  That’s why I’m thrilled now to be matching faces with names!  

This year, I feel so privileged to be here in Ocean Park to witness the amazing convergence of Sephardic youth and staff from across the globe right here in my home state of Washington!  Being here and watching our camp’s part in establishing a strong connection between our youth and our Sephardic heritage is an incredible experience, and just thinking about it takes my breath away. 

Besides the new camper statistic, let me share a few more SAC stats that I hope you’ll find interesting…

About 47% of our campers call Washington State their home.  The other 53% hail from seven other United States including Alaska, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Oregon.  And two international destinations, British Columbia, Canada and Modi’in, Israel. 

And what about staff members?  In addition to the states and countries listed above, we have drawn staff members from the state of Pennsylvania and the country of Spain.  For the third consecutive year, we are very lucky to have staff members (three this year), that have joined us from Madrid, Spain, thanks to a special partnership we’ve established with Macabi Yajad (the Spanish Jewish Youth Movement).

As far as the girl boy mix, 54% of our campers are boys and 46% are girls. 

The camper who has been to SAC the greatest number of years is CIT JoJo Gladstein. This is JoJo’s 8^th summer at SAC.  Additionally we have six campers who are tied for the most consecutive years at SAC; Anna Benoliel, Joe Gamel, Shimon Gamel, Anna Jacoby, Harry Jacoby and Victor Maimon.  This year marks each of their 6^th consecutive year at camp.

Other statistics:  Among our 160 staff and campers we have 4 sets of twins!  They are the Benezra’s, Conrad’s, Pollack’s and staff members, Oshri and Matan Yehezkel.  They join us from Seattle, Alaska, Ohio, and California.  We also have one set of Triplets! – The Cox’s of Modi’in, Israel.  Mash’allah!

One of the questions community members often ask me about is the percentage of Sephardic campers and staff, as well as the percentage of “Levantine” Sephardic Campers (those whose ancestors came from the Levant or Eastern Mediterranean region, namely Turkey and Greece).  While this would make for an interesting statistic, I will respectfully leave these numbers out of my report.  This analysis gets a little technical and I’ll leave that work to the folks at 23&me and Ancestry.com.

What I will share with you, however, is arguably the most significant statistic… the percentage of campers and staff that will leave SAC connected to, and with a greater appreciation for Sephardic Judaism.  With an overwhelming amount of pride for our organization and respect for the staff and volunteers that run it, I report this number to be 100%.