Your Hebrew is Never Alone with Mr. Milon! - Jewish Life at Beber

This month we thought we’d share how we help our campers and staff daily to strengthen their sense of Jewish identity. We start every morning at Degel (flagpole) where we raise the American flag, the Beber Camp flag, and the Israeli flag. We sing HaTikvah (The Hope), Israel’s national anthem, and head to breakfast after singing a morning cheer that is in Hebrew and English. We begin every meal with a Hebrew cheer that leads us into singing HaMotzi, the blessing over bread. After each meal, we enthusiastically sing Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after the meal. We teach our campers and staff the words, so everyone feels included and comfortable participating. Several times a week, Mr. or Mrs. Milon, all dressed up in blue and white and an Israeli flag, comes to teach us a new Hebrew word and AAAAAAH, we have so much fun learning those words! (In Hebrew, Milon means “dictionary”). Many different staff members have played the role of Mr. and Mrs. Milon and sometimes some of our campers have even taught us a new word. Every division has a Hebrew name (Makor, Kesher, and Ramot). And in each division, each gender has a letter and number that identifies its specific cabin. Here’s a little chart to guide you.GradesDivisionTranslationGirlsBoys2-5MakorSourceOfarim (Baby Deer)K'farim (Baby Lions)6-7KesherConnectionGevurot (Heroines)Bogrim (Gentlemen)8-10RamotHeightsTikvah (Hope)Achim (Brothers)We refer to campers’ bunks as K1, O1, G2, B3, etc. In each division, the bunks are in age order and start with the number 1 (O1, K1, G1, B1, etc.). How far the numbers go up depends on how many bunks we have in each division. In future newsletters, we will talk about Shabbat, Israel programming and other things we do at camp to strengthen our Jewish identity.