A message from Shirlee Greenwald
It wasn’t love at first sight, this place I mean… It was a way to get on my feet. Unlike my husband who was born and raised here, I had no connection to the area, and it wasn’t what I had in mind when I heard ‘America.’ I found myself here, an ocean away from home and everything familiar, in the midst of a crisis, Covid. So, my welcome-hug was ‘6 feet apart,’ literally and figuratively. But on the ashes of what Covid burnt, we had the golden opportunity to rebuild and reimagine, and by nature of investing, in the end I got much more than I put in.
I look back at the last three years, and everything that I’ve considered to be hardships or failures became victories; I’ve learned so much. First and foremost, this community taught me a well-deserved Shiur B’Anva (בענוה שיעור - lesson in humility), like Yehuda Amichai says: “from the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring” - this new perspective allowed me to open up to different ideas and different people. It paved my way to the Orthodox community, for example, a warm, wonderful people that I would have missed had I been stuck with my prejudice coming from a secular Russian-Israeli context. I also had the privilege to revisit my taken-for-granted Jewish Identity and pour some content into it. I’ve learned from my wonderful colleagues that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar (even if I still struggle to implement this lesson). And finally, I’ve learned from my camp kids. I learned that we need each other to grow - what they know instinctively, I had allowed myself to forget. They put my leadership skills to the test, confronted me with my values and gave me a sense of purpose. Saying goodbye is hard in itself, but walking away from what we have created at Camp Ideal is heartbreaking.
With that said, I want to thank you for all that was done for us. This place has become a home, and as much as it is tempting to stay, sometimes you need to leave if you wish to come back. With Rosh Hashanah on our doorstep, I am reminded that even though goodbyes are hard, they hide the opportunity (G-d willing) for something new and improved. Whatever it will be, whatever is planned for us - this place, this road, is paved within our hearts.
Shirlee Greenwald
Israel Programming Director
574-233-1164 x1807
Israel@TheJewishFed.org