Feb 23, 2026
There’s a moment every summer that gets me. It’s not the big one — not the Maccabiah Break Out or Banquet.. It’s quieter than that.
It’s when a parent drops off their kid and says, “You were my Camp Director.”
I didn’t set out to become a permanent fixture at Camp Young Judaea Texas. Nobody grows up dreaming of a career in lost-and-found management and sunscreen enforcement. But somewhere between my first summer and whatever summer this is — I’ve honestly lost count— this place became the thing I’m most proud of and least able to explain at dinner parties.
“So what do you do?”
“I run a Jewish summer camp.”
“Oh, fun! What do you do the rest of the year?”
Here’s what I can’t explain at that dinner party: I’ve watched a shy kid from Houston who wouldn’t make eye contact at check-in become a Unit Head (Merakezet) who now runs her own classroom. I’ve seen the homesick camper who cried for a week straight come back as a counselor and sit with a first-year camper who — you guessed it — cried for just as many days. I’ve watched kids who thought being Jewish was just something their parents made them do on the High Holidays fall in love with Shabbat and looked forward to Havadallah under the Texas stars.
And now? Now some of those kids are dropping off their kids.
That’s the part that breaks my brain a little.
Because I remember them. I remember the braces. I remember the terrible haircuts. I remember the drama over who got top bunk. And now they’re signing medical forms and asking about the WiFi policy and doing the same nervous-but-trying-to-look-cool goodbye that their parents did twenty years ago.
The cycle is the whole point, even if it makes me feel approximately one thousand years old.
People ask me what’s changed about camp over the years. Plenty has. Kids have different challenges now. The world is louder and more complicated. We’ve adapted, evolved, added new programs, rethought old ones.
But here’s what hasn’t changed: the lack of technology has not changed. Still no phones. A kid shows up not quite sure who they are. They spend a summer being brave in small ways — trying the ropes course, leading a prayer, making a friend who’s nothing like their friends back home. And they leave a little more themselves than when they arrived.
I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. I’ve lost track, just like I’ve lost track of how many summers it’s been. (Twenty-eight. Fine. I said it. Moving on.)
The real magic isn’t any single summer. It’s the long game. It’s the kid who comes back as staff. It’s the counselor who marries another counselor. It’s the family that sends all three kids. It’s the grandparent who pulls me aside and shares, “This place made my grandchild who they are.”
I don’t take credit for that. Camp does that. Shabbat under those ridiculous stars does that. The community does that. I just try not to mess it up, which is harder than it sounds and which I am not always successful at.
If you’re reading this as a camp parent, here’s what I want you to know: the investment you’re making isn’t just for one summer. It’s in a story your kid will tell for the rest of their life. It’s in the person they’re becoming. And one day — sooner than either of us are ready for — they might show up at check-in with a kid of their own, and some camp director with questionable fashion sense will squint and say, “Wait… were you in Tsofim in 2019?”
And the whole thing starts again.
That’s not a job. That’s a gift. A sweaty, exhausting, sunburned, bug-bitten, wouldn’t-trade-it-for-anything gift.
See you this summer.
Frank the Tank
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