Chabad Camp

While emissaries from around the world met in Brooklyn over the weekend, their sons had a gathering of their own

By Orlee Maimon | 7:00 am Nov 16, 2009 | Print | Email / Share

Four thousand Chabad emissaries from across the country and around the world, known as shluchim, gathered last week for the group’s annual conference in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. While the shluchim were meeting, their sons had a camp-like gathering of their own. Organizers estimated that 577 boys, separated into age groups, took part. As they arrived Friday morning, Tablet Magazine checked in with a few of the 288-odd seven-to-12-year-olds who spent the weekend in sleeping bags at the Beit Rivkah School for Girls.

Equipped with sleeping bags, winter coats, and ChiTaS—a Hebrew acronym for Chumash (Torah) Tehillim (Psalms), and the Tanya (a book of Hasidic philosophy written by the first Lubavitcher rebbe), fathers and sons fill the hallways of Beit Rivkah School.
At breakfast, the boys ate cereal and cake, met up with friends, or wrapped tefillin. Their green camp t-shirts say “Kinus Tzeirei Hashluchim,” or “Young Emissary Conference.” The silhouette on the front of the shirts is the Chabad movement’s headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.
Moshe Cunin, nine, from Reno, Nevada, arrived at the camp a day early. He regaled his friends with stories about bus troubles on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and a trip to a “humongous arcade.”
Cunin, left, reunites with his friend, Menachem Lazaroff, nine, of College Station, Texas. The boys attend an online school at which they learn Torah, Hebrew, and math, using webcams and microphones. “It’s really high-tech,” Lazaroff explained.
Two young campgoers pose with their counselor. The college-aged counselors work at Chabad camps in Monticello, New York, during the summer and attend school in New Jersey, Connecticut, and as far away as Florida.
Boys were encouraged to stick to one piece of luggage, but many came with two or three.
Ari Grunblatt, nine, attended the Kinus camp for the first time this year. He speaks Spanish and Hebrew but no English. Having arrived Wednesday from Buenos Aires, he was placed in the group for Hebrew speakers, and his bunkmates come from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Greece, Brazil, and elsewhere. Though he doesn’t know much of Crown Heights, “it’s nicer here than in Argentina,” he said in Spanish.
The boys listen as their head counselor announces plans for the weekend. Activities included a scavenger hunt, roller skating, and a farbrengen, a gathering featuring philosophy, Hasidic melodies called nigguns, storytelling, and snacks.
A young shaliach studies the scavenger hunt list. The items included getting a worker in the kosher Kingston Pizza shop to scream “Moshiach now!” and taking a picture with local celebrity Charlie Buttons, a Lubavitcher famous for singing Shabbat songs on the subway.
After the scavenger hunt, the boys board buses to Queens, where they’ll pray and reflect at the grave of Chabad leader Rabbi Menachem Schneerson.