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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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The Yiddish word "shmontses" means stuff, silly stuff, junk, and trifles.
For example: "Do you really need to pack all of those shmontses for 4 weeks of camp? What do you need them for?"
It's camp season. Gilbert Gottfried wrote:
"Another summer my parents sent me off to a Jewish camp in upstate N. Y. I don't
remember the name, but it rhymed with
Auschwitz. (Also, mostly true.)
I think we were served three meals a day, which was plenty, believe me. I still have my old camp T-shirt somewhere. It's faded with the years, but you can still make out the camp colors--smoke and ash. And you can still read the message beneath the camp's spirited hammer-and-sickle-and- swastika logo. It says, "I survived the camp." Only in my case I barely made it through a single session. My father made it through World War II; I couldn't handle one week of sing-alongs...I hated camp with a passion... Then we made lanyards...Then we hiked into the woods...It was like Deliverance, only with bug spray...It wasn't exactly a formative experience, my brief time at camp, but it was an experience. I never had to swim out to a raft in the middle of the lake, or go canoeing, or hike up some godforsaken peak only to turn around and come right back down, although I did participate in the camp's arts 'n' crafts program. Source: "Rubber Balls and Liquor" by Gilbert Gottfried, St. Martin's Press
And now to a more serious topic about camp life. Camps do background checks on counselors, but sometimes someone with a history of sexual abuse of children gets hired. "Nit gedacht!" (It shouldn't happen.)As parents, we must prevent sexual abuse at camp. Here are some ways:
1. A counselor should NOT be alone with a camper when she/he is changing, in the bathroom, bunk, infirmary, or elsewhere. One Y camp reported that the policy of their summer camps is that if a counselor is ever caught alone with a camper, she/he is fired on the spot, no questions asked.
2. Many camps have a written policy, which takes the form of an outline for orientation of staff. It covers sexual abuse as well as other forms of child abuse. Staff are trained by an expert in the field and followed by small group discussions.
3. Some camps also do a session for ALL CAMPERS within 24 hours of arrival on health and safety at camp. It includes, among other things, a definiton of safe touch and unsafe touch as well as clear instructions about what to do if someone tries to touch a camper in an unsafe manner.
Our children must be protected.
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