The best gift we give our kids

Saying farewell to your children as they fly out to machaneh at the end of the year is bittersweet. As a mother, it’s never easy for me – no matter how old my children are – to hand over the responsibility of their well-being to anyone else. 

Quite simply, if it made any sense to roll my children up in cottonwool to ensure they were always protected, I would. Only, that is unreasonable and frankly unfair because children, like adults, learn from their mistakes. And those bumps and bruises, however painful, are important for their growth. 

We would be doing a disservice to our children by not giving them any autonomy or independence. We all learn how to look after ourselves only by having that. Unfortunately, you can’t learn how from a book. 

Parenthood is a bit like that too. No matter how many Dr Spock and the What to Expect books you have read and possibly studied, we learn daily about what it takes to parent. We also learn that each child is different, and so are their needs. So often, being a parent is learnt through trial and error. In truth, my sense is that every child needs love, attention, and freedom to grow. The rest is negotiable, but then I am no Dr Spock and I have certainly made plenty of my own mistakes. 

Back to sending my children off to machaneh 2025. The one thing I’m certain of when I wave them goodbye with a tear in my eye, and as I watch them rush off with their friends with no backwards glance at me, is that I have done the right thing. 

I am a product of many machanot. Some of the best times in my youth were at one or other camp. I went to both Bnei Akiva and Habonim, and I got so much from both. 

The point is, Jewish youth movement camps are literally the best gift our community gives to our children. I say this with absolute conviction. It doesn’t matter which Jewish youth movement you or they choose. Most youngsters, I hope, gravitate to the one youth movement that best suits them. The point is, spending three glorious weeks being led by young adults who grew up in the movement is a phenomenal experience. 

Let’s make a comparison. Those who don’t go to camp will generally head out with their parents, family, or friends to some seaside town or city, be it Cape Town, Plett, or Ballito to name a few. They will wake up in the morning, perhaps head to the beach, perhaps eat out, perhaps hang out with friends, but they will relax. There will be times they go out, find a club (depending on their age) and perhaps drink alcohol, or not. They might go shopping. They might run out of things to do. They might get bored. They might spend time moaning and getting on their siblings’ or parents’ nerves. Anything is possible. 

However, with children at machaneh, getting bored is never on the agenda. Neither is alcohol or clubbing. They are also safe from outside influences and engage in good, healthy, clean fun. 

They also learn a whole lot of useful, educational tools. They learn about how to deal with antisemitism. They learn about what it is to be Jewish. They do this surrounded by other Jewish kids. 

When you send your children to a Jewish school, they learn these vital things in the confines of a classroom, invariably with exams and tests involved. This is important, but it’s not quite the same as how they learn at machaneh, where learning itself is fun. 

Our Jewish youth movements have truly learnt the best ways of getting through to young people about who we are. There is discussion. There is debate. There is eating kosher food. Our children get used to washing their own clothes and (hopefully) keeping their tents neat. 

They learn how to interact and work with other young people because they literally can’t escape them. They learn songs, traditions, and for the most part, they have the best time. 

My son told me recently, after three machanot and many mini machanot, that he had learnt to be confident and hold his own through his youth movement experiences. He learnt that he was okay, and that there were many kids who held similar views to him who wanted to hear what he had to say. When he told me this, I knew I had done right by him. 

Now, I know that some parents opt not to send their children to machaneh because of negative stories they hear or out of fear that their children might not be having fun every minute of the three weeks. It’s true, they might not. Machaneh may not be for everyone. And some children may try it out and not want to go back. Fair enough. But they are such a minority. 

Also, there may be an hour or even a day that your child doesn’t have a good time. But one out of 21 is not a bad innings, especially when they have the best time the rest of the time. 

I look around me at the Jewish leaders in the community and most of them are products of Jewish youth movements. For so many of us, we cut our teeth in leadership and strategy at machaneh. 

As I drop my children off, I recognise the excitement I see on those channichim’s faces. It’s indescribable. I guess three weeks without parents telling them what to do is pretty awesome. Seriously though, those faces remind me of that same feeling of elation I had heading out to camp all those moons ago. 

I recognise that there’s competition between youth movements as to which is better, and all that nonsense. The reality is, to use the well-worn cliche, there are different strokes for different folks, and variety is the spice of life. We need different Jewish youth movements to fit different kids and their needs. The competition is healthy to a point. 

What isn’t healthy is trying to destroy the reputation of the other Jewish youth movement to make yours the strongest. They all need to survive and thrive so that children have choices and different offerings to suit who they are and what they need. 

For those kids who are on their way to machaneh, I have no doubt you will have the best time. For those missing out this year, consider that there are only so many years where you can get this incredible experience that only children get to have. 

Shabbat shalom! 

Peta Krost 

Editor