Sports and Judaism are coming together next summer in SoCal — and it has nothing to do with Joc Pederson playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
An overnight camp focused on athletics called 6 Points Sports Academy California is set to open June 21 at Occidental College under the auspices of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ). Alan Friedman, the camp’s founding director, expects 225 young Reform athletes to attend the inaugural year, enjoying baseball, basketball, soccer and tennis.
“It is a high-level training camp. The camp is for kids who are looking to really hone their skills and become better athletes in a specific sport,” he said. “Our camp is not for campers who have never picked up a tennis racket.”
But, he added in a phone interview, “We are a Jewish camp first. While we are sports specialty camp, we are a Jewish camp,”
The California camp — which has a pre-existing sister program in North Carolina — will take place at Occidental’s 120-acre campus in Eagle Rock. Three 12-day sessions are being offered, with the inaugural one kicking off June 21. Tuition for a single session is $3,100. The camp has hired approximately 40 staff members and will serve children ages 9 to 16 (grades 4 to 11), Friedman said.
So, what makes 6 Points Sports Academy California Jewish?
Shabbat is celebrated twice during each of the three sessions, the kids play in a Maccabiah color wars competition, and Jewish values are integrated into the curriculum. Additionally, counselors from Israel will come to the camp, thanks to the Jewish Agency for Israel, and will “help bring Israel to camp,” Friedman said.
“We teach a different value every day at camp, a Jewish value, like kehillah [community],” he said. “We present it at breakfast and weave it into everything we do during the day — not only on the ballfield, but in the dorms. … The faculty on staff, clergy and educators help bring those values to life both on and off the sports field.”
Campers choose one of the four sports to focus on throughout a session, and they spend several hours each day on it. Two other sports can be pursued in a more recreational way. (Friedman said that, in an effort to attract more girls, there are plans to add volleyball and cheerleading in the future.)
The original camp in Greensboro, N.C., was launched in 2010 with the support of the New York-based Foundation for Jewish Camp to develop specialty overnight camps that integrated Jewish culture.
“One of the goals for the new specialty camps was to attract Jewish teens who were not attending Jewish camp,” according to the foundation’s website.
This URJ approach of creating niche camps to draw in Jewish kids with specific interests goes beyond sports; it also operates the 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy near Boston. The 6 Points name, a reference to the six points on a Star of David, has become a brand synonymous with URJ specialty camps, said Friedman, who spoke of plans to launch a 6 Points performing arts camp on the West Coast eventually.
The sports camp on the East Coast drew 225 campers its inaugural summer and more than 700 campers last summer, Friedman said. But very few West Coast kids have been going to it — thus the need for a new camp.
“It’s one camp, two locations,” he said. “That’s what we are calling it.”
The expansion of the camp to Southern California is part of the URJ’s goal of operating 20 summer camps by 2020 in order to take advantage of research showing a correlation between attending Jewish camp and future engagement with Jewish life. The California sports camp will be the 16th summer camp run by the URJ.
Among those who have helped to make the camp a reality are Marcie and Howard Zelikow, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills members, who donated $6 million to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion School of Jewish Nonprofit Management in 2014 (and for whom the school has been renamed).
“Our lead donor has been Marcie and Howard Zelikow, the ones who pushed for this to happen out here,” Friedman said.
“I just think it is really important and definitely about time that we have a URJ camp here in Southern California. I am very excited about it, and I hope this is a camp that will attract people not only from the L.A. area but from San Diego and Orange County and the Inland Empire. … I am hoping we are going to fill a real need here,” Marcie Zelikow said in a phone interview.
Additionally, University Synagogue Rabbi Joel Simonds, who is also the associate program director for the West Coast branch of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, is helping to recruit youngsters for the camp, which satisfies a niche not filled by traditional camps.
“When I call up a rabbi, I say, ‘Can you give me names of 15 kids walking through the halls of Hebrew school dressed in a jersey or who are not coming this week because they went to a game for their team?’ ” Friedman said. “So, we are creating a place where there is not either/or — it’s and. Sports and Judaism.”
To enroll in Six Points Sports Academy California, visit 6pointssports.org/register
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.