Israel education without Israelis?

My goal was to educate staff and to facilitate conversations about leading in a time of profound moral and political uncertainty. Then, midway through my trip, the war with Iran began. 

Operation Rising Lion led to the closure of Israel’s airspace, and overnight, more than 1,000 shlichim (emissaries) who had planned to spend their summer in Jewish camps across North America, were stranded in Israel. While the staffing shortage is significant, the greater concern is the absence of a lived connection to Israel that these young adults bring to the camps they serve.

I began to ask myself how the conversations I had planned needed to evolve as I continued my travels. With growing concern about Israel’s safety and deepening worry for families and friends confronting a new wave of more urgent and intense threats, it became clear that our conversations could not remain the same; they needed to reflect a heightened reality, embrace the complexity and fear that define this moment and offer some measure of hope — to remind camp staff that this work matters, especially now.

Summer camps are among the few remaining spaces in Jewish life where Israelis and Diaspora Jews live in true community. They share daily rituals, disagreements, aspirations and late-night conversations. These are not superficial encounters; they are immersive, embodied experiences that shape identities and worldviews. 

And the impact goes both ways. The camp experience doesn’t end when Israeli shlichim board their return flights to Israel. For many, it reshapes their understanding of Jewish peoplehood and the Jewish Diaspora. Living in communities where Judaism is practiced differently — where diversity of identity and belief aren’t just tolerated but embraced — broadens horizons and challenges assumptions. In an increasingly polarized Israeli society, where tensions over religion, democracy and national identity are only intensifying, these young Israelis often become bridge-builders. They return home with a deeper understanding of what arevut (mutual responsibility) can mean: a global Jewish people, bound together by care and connection across difference.

Over two decades ago, I boarded a plane from Israel to the north woods of Wisconsin to work as a shlicha at Ramah Wisconsin. I had grown up in a religious Zionist community in Israel and hadn’t had an opportunity to explore liberal Judaism up close. It might sound cliché, but that summer changed me. 

For the first time, I witnessed women reading Torah, leading services and engaging actively in Jewish communal ritual. I left camp disoriented but inspired. That experience awakened in me a knowledge that there were aspects of Jewish life I had not previously had access to, and a conviction that I wanted to learn and take part. I began learning to read Torah, studied my first daf of Talmud and ultimately pursued rabbinic ordination.

This journey began not in a classroom or in a beit midrash, but around a campfire, in the woods, in a special summer community with North Americans and Israelis, religious and secular. 

That formative experience is what drives my work today as director of experiential education and camp initiatives at the Shalom Hartman Institute. This past spring, we launched Hartman’s inaugural cohort of Jewish camp professionals — senior leaders committed to cultivating spaces where young Jews can wrestle with the big questions facing our Jewish communities today: What does it mean to belong? How do we hold complexity and nuance around Israel? What responsibilities come with Jewish power? 

As part of our broader commitment to supporting young leaders in the North American Jewish community, in May Hartman also ran a seminar in Jerusalem for returning Ramah camp counselors. We explored topics like peoplehood, Jewish power and Zionism. We asked difficult questions about our relationship with Israel, the limits of legitimate critique and what it means to stay in community even with those with whom we might disagree.

To meet this moment, my own teaching has shifted to focus on nuance, the limits of critique and how to hold moral tension alongside pride and connection. I’ve developed sessions that encourage staff to explore what it means to maintain relationships with those we disagree with, to see Jewish peoplehood not as a given, but as a practice — one that demands empathy, curiosity and courage. I’m incorporating Israeli poetry and personal narrative, building emotional engagement alongside intellectual debate and preparing staff to facilitate these same conversations with their campers.

At a time when many North American Jews are reexamining their relationship with Israel and many Israelis feel isolated or misunderstood by the Jewish world, we cannot afford to retreat into ideological silos or national bubbles. At Hartman, we often speak about the boundaries of community, who is in, who is out and what it means to create inclusive and meaningful communities. Camps offer exactly that: an environment where young people encounter those with differing points of view, experience belonging and begin to articulate their own commitments. Simply stated, camps are one of the few remaining laboratories of peoplehood.

This year, in the absence of shlichim, North American camp staff have a unique opportunity — and responsibility — to step into the role of bridge-builders. That might mean taking ownership over how Israel shows up at camp, through thoughtful integration into culture, ritual and everyday conversations; bringing Israeli poetry, prayers and songs into daily and Shabbat moments, or curating a rotating “Voices from Israel” bulletin board that shares reflections, dilemmas and human stories from Israel. Staff and alumni who’ve spent time in Israel can lead informal storytelling, grounding the abstract in the personal. And most importantly, camps can teach about the moral and emotional complexities Israelis are living with right now. These choices won’t replicate the presence of shlichim; but they honor them and help ensure that Israel remains a lived, felt part of camp life.

This is not the first time we’ve faced separation. During the pandemic we learned that while physical presence matters, connection can still be nurtured without it. The barriers preventing shlichim from arriving are complex and real, and I don’t have a simple solution. But the absence we’re feeling this summer deserves more than passing acknowledgment. It deserves attention, recognition and a commitment to keep showing up.

And so, even though our constant attention and worry is turned toward our home in Israel, we continue to teach, listen and widen our tents even from across oceans. The work of building and nurturing peoplehood doesn’t stop when things get hard. If anything, the work is amplified and integrated into the everyday, often messy work of building relationships, one summer at a time. 

Rabbi Na’ama Levitz Applbaum