ABOUT OUR STAFF

The Camp Akiba staff makes it ALL happen. They are the greatest group of counselors ever to roam the planet. They come back year after year contributing hundreds of hours of their time just because they loved camp when they were campers, and they love camp as staff members. None of them gets paid enough to cover their gas for a month, but they compete fiercely for the opportunity to give back to Camp Akiba what they took away when they were younger. They are selfless about it, and the creativity and energy they bring to camp (and pre-camp) each year is what makes Camp Akiba what it is...just any old staff won't do, Camp Akiba staff is the BEST!

All Camp Akiba counselors are trained through the camp's intensive CIT (counselor-in-training) program, and at present, 100 percent of our counselors were Camp Akiba campers at one time. The staff is really the key to the extra-ordinary camp experience we provide. Unlike other Jewish camps, our program is created by the counselors from scratch each year. We do not rely on the usual "crutches" that other camps use to attract kids to camp...we use creative programming such that the counselors spend an inordinate amount of time pouring love and creativity into planning activities with meaning, lessons, interaction, ethics, and FUN as the focal points.

The staff works tirelessly to teach Judaism not only by engaging the campers in tefillah, but by asking them to express, define and explore what Judaism means to them, by having them share with each other the importance of Judaism in their lives, and by allowing them to experience what it means to live Jewishly with other Jews from various backgrounds. Where most camps send their campers to the "climbing wall" because it's there, our campers are climbing to tear down the walls of Jericho, or to stuff private sayings into the Western Wall in Jerusalem, or to find out what it's like to look down from Masada! And maybe even to find a hidden clue on an Exodus leading them to the promised land. And the promised land they do indeed find...they find it in their units, their cabins, at meals, and when they lie down and when they rise up -- where they bond with their peers and camp family under the guidance and direction of their awe-inspiring counselors.