Final Shabbat!

Hey, everyone! I’m Elina, and today’s special guest on the blog. I’m a madatz (CIT) and will be writing the blog today – let’s get started.

 

Today we had an hour-and-a-half sleep-in because last night was Aliyah Bet. Aliyah Bet is an event planned by the bonimot (kids going into freshman year of high school), where all of the younger campers are woken up late at night and taken through the woods as an imitation of a historical Aliyah. This year’s theme was the 1970s Soviet Aliyah, resulting in the official title of “Aliyah Nyet” (lit. ‘Aliyah no’). Everyone walked through the Ring Road – a project that we madatz have been working on to re-establish an old trail that went around the entire camp. On the trail, we saw refuseniks (Soviet Jews) being denied the choice to leave the country, civilians being yelled at in Russian, and a couple of scary surprises. At the end of the trail, we rode the truck to the Mini-Mo, where we were served brownies and blini (Russian crepes). Of course, the bonimot made sure no one got too scared and that we all had a lot of fun! Then, we headed to bed.

Because of today’s sleep-in, there was no hitkansut boker (morning flag raising) or Ivrit Shimushit (Useful Hebrew), and we headed straight to breakfast. It was muffin day, as it is every Friday, and popular muffin choices included lemon poppy seed, cinnamon, sprinkle, and chocolate. Then, we headed for a shortened period of avodah (work) and nikayon tzrif (cabin cleaning). This week, the Nitzanimot (Taste of Galil campers) helped us madatz make the challah used for Shabbat dinner. After nikayon tzrif, we had madatz peulah shichva, which is an activity with your age group planned by us madatz! I was working with my kids, the BoBo, who traveled around camp to solve a fun Clue-style murder mystery. After madatz pish, we headed to Shabbat Shira to sing and get lice checks right before our pizza lunch. The specials today were sprinkle, Cheez-It, and barbeque pizzas. Afterwards, we had Hyde Park, where kids suggested possible ways of improving their experience here at camp. Then there was a block of chofesh (free time) where everyone could hang out, play soccer, and get ready for Shabbat.

Shabbat began with mispachot (family time), where everyone is assigned a ‘family’ where you can talk about how your week went. There was also a special surprise this Shabbat: MBI Shabbaton! MBI Shabbaton is when all of the campers who went on MBI (the summer program after bogrim year) come back and stay for Shabbat before going home. They joined us for blessings and Kabbalat Shabbat. This week, we madatz performed an English song, a Hebrew song, and a rikud (Israeli dance). We sang all together final time and headed to dinner, which was a classic meal of chicken, matzo ball soup, and sweet potato stew. After dinner, we sang some more and watched the Bogrimot oneg – a skit poking fun at everyone and everything at machaneh. We finished the night with some rikud, nitzanimot winning the golden broom, and madatz calls, after which we madatz put the kids to bed. An exciting Friday here at Camp Galil!