Jewish summer camp to house children, teens based on ‘gender identity’

Each year at Ramah's camps across the country and travel programs around the world, thousands of children, teens, and young adults participate in activities that aim to create lifelong friendships, a love for Israel, and a strong Jewish identity, according to their website.

However, Camp Ramah's newly implemented "Diversity and Inclusion" policies allow campers to choose what bunks they will be sleeping in based off of their "gender identity" instead of segregating the bunkers by biological sex.

Under the category "sexual orientation and gender identity," the organization stated, "The Ramah community includes campers and staff of all sexual orientations and gender identities. With the recognition that gender identity and sexual orientation are distinct, Ramah seeks to simultaneously create a safe and welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ identified kids, staff, and parents."

"We achieve this by aiming to avoid heteronormative assumptions in our language and programming, and by educating our staff. In our bunking process, our goal is to support an individual's wellbeing, which may include bunking campers and staff according to gender identity rather than birth sex. We recognize that this may represent a "learning zone" for some of our families and we are happy to provide additional information and resources."

The mission of the Ramah Camping Movement is to create and sustain excellent summer camps and Israel programs that inspire commitment to Jewish life, and develop the next generation of Jewish leaders, their website states.

The organization is hosting overnight camps this year in the Massachusetts Berkshires, California, Canada, Georgia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Additionally, Ramah operates high school semester and summer programs in Israel, and partners with summer camp programming in Ukraine, Argentina, and Israel.