What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Posted by Deb Shrier
The summer is the one time we all seem to feel that time flies. During childhood, it was fun to write up the summer’s adventures in a school report. It’s been quite some time since I’ve written that type of report, but as I thought about the summer of 2012, I realized there was a theme to my summer experience: my work in post adoption.
In June I participated in a Forever Families Weekend, sponsored by JFS Greenwich at the New Jersey Y Camps. It was a weekend camp experience for Jewish families brought together by adoption. Along with sleeping in a bunk, singing Jewish songs during the day, Havdalah services by the lake, and having s’mores at the camp fire, I facilitated a group discussion on Jewish identity and adoption. Most of the teens in my group had been attending the camp for several years and were eager to share their thoughts about being Jewish. We watched a powerful YouTube video entitled “I Am Jewish,” featuring and written by a young man who talked about his own Jewish identity. It reflected on contemporary issues concerning young Jewish teens today – a blending of Jewish history and modern day thought. The group developed their own “spoken word” presentation highlighting their feelings regarding their own connection to Judaism.
