What’s New in 2021?

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What’s New This Year?

We are so excited to be in person in Oconomowoc this summer! Here are a few highlights of what is new for 2021.

New for 2021: Gesher Updates  We are so excited to expand the Gesher program to create an unforgettable summer experience including all the awesome camp programming you already love and new opportunities to dive deep in pursuing activities and areas that are exciting to you! Middle and early high school aged campers will have even more chugim (elective choices) and will choose an intensive that lasts the full length of their session! Between intensives and chugim, Gesher is the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure through the best that camp has to offer. When you register you will choose one of these intensives:

  • Making a Musical (Aleph & Bet): Options for on & offstage artistic exploration and performance. Campers in this program will produce and star in a show for their fellow campers.  With content from some favorite Broadway musicals, there will be opportunities for singing, acting, set design, tech management, and more.
  • Sports & Conditioning (Aleph & Bet): For all current and future athletes – we know that demand is high to maintain fitness and conditioning programs for sports teams.  In this intensive, there will be opportunities for general active play, working on individual training plans provided by coaches back home, and general skill development while playing sports with our coaches each day.
  • Aquatics (Aleph only): This option is great for those who enjoy lots of time in the water doing all the aquatic activities camp has to offer – including swimming, boating, waterskiing and an option to complete a junior lifeguarding training.
  • How Do They Do That? (Bet only): Rocketry, robotics, experimental science, technology, engineering, and more.  Participants in this intensive will get to follow their curiosity and explore how things work, what Judaism can teach us about science, and will get to create in this hands-on intensive.

As part of the changes to Gesher, we will not be offering our Tiferet program this summer. We look forward to seeing our middle school aged campers in Gesher or Moshavah!

New for 2021: Kallah & Tzofim dates We know our families value having session options of different lengths. This year, in response to COVID-19, we are minimizing the number of opening days where new campers arrive to camp. Therefore, if you are registering your camper for Kallah or Tzofim in first half of the summer you will see there are now two options: Aleph: 2 weeks and AlephBet: 4 weeks. Campers who join us for the 2-week Aleph option can decide to extend and stay for the remainder of the session, but we will not have an additional opening day part way through the first month of camp. Kallah Gimmel (3 weeks) and Tzofim Gimmel (4 weeks) remain unchanged this summer in length.

New for 2021: Kallah Bathroom Upgrade The Kallah cabins are under construction! Thanks to grants from Foundation for Jewish CampThe Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc. the Community Development Foundation for Reform Judaism, and a number of generous OSRUI donors, and the generosity of the OSRUI community, our Kallah cabins and bathrooms are being expanded and renovated to become more inclusive and accessible! This exciting change will enable more of our community to fully participate in the life-changing, immersive experience that is camp. The bathrooms will be brand new the next time your camper sees them and the cabins will be refreshed! You can check out the construction progress on our Facebook.

New for 2021: Waterskiing Included This summer you will notice that all activities, laundry, and supplies are included in the cost of camp. This means no additional fee for waterskiing this summer! Campers will sign up for waterskiing at camp, along with our other chugim (electives).

Temporary for 2021: Transportation Requirement As we monitor the evolving health advisories related to COVID-19, we believe the camp community will be safest by limiting the number of people on site during the summer.  As a result, all campers will be required to arrive and depart camp by bus this summer and you will see a mandatory transportation fee on your account when you register. We will be offering bus stops in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Milwaukee Airport. We have kept this transportation fee separate so that if we are able to determine that bussing is no longer required, we can refund this fee and welcome families to camp on opening and closing days, as has been an option in the past. Note: If you are purchasing a plane ticket for your camper to fly to the Milwaukee airport, the transportation fee will be waived.

If you have any questions about camp for summer 2021 give our team a call at 847-509-0990.