Camp Avietan’s First Year

Every summer, there are all kinds of home-based organized activities, run by creative and industrious young Jewish teens, colloquially named “backyard” camps. Many of these camps are planned to accommodate the schedules, interests, and family backgrounds of specific groups of campers.

Let’s take a look at Camp Aveitan in Toco Hills, in which Avi Kosoff and Eitan Gottlieb crafted an indoor- and-outdoor day camp for a group of Orthodox day school-educated boys.

Avi Kosoff, the son of Ilene and Jacob Kosoff, and Eitan Gottlieb, the son of Dr. Rebecca Winter and Josh Gottlieb, are currently high school freshmen at Atlanta Jewish Academy (AJA). This summer, when they returned from four weeks at Camp Stone in western Pennsylvania, (a B’nei Aviva religious Zionist camp), the pair led a two-week neighborhood-based camp for elementary school-aged boys. Boys learned about the camp through word-of-mouth and social media advertising sent by the counselors. The special nature of the camp attracted boys with an Orthodox day school background, and the counselors used their own camping experiences, schooling, and initiative to set weekly activities.

The counselor duo started registering campers for Camp Aveitan (a mashup of their names) around Pesach time, months before their summer camp would start, in order to plan well ahead for a post-sleep-away camp in Toco Hills. This early registration coordinated in timing with camper registrations for other camps, which fill quickly. The counselors were aware that there would be boys who returned home from various sleepaway camps after one session, who would be eager to enjoy two more weeks of organized sports and other group activities. To that end, Avi and Eitan thoughtfully planned two weeks of age-appropriate sports and games for campers ages 8 to 11 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. every weekday. There was no camp on Shabbat or Sunday. The weekly fee was $200 for registrations by April, and $225 after that date.

It turned out that half of the campers were AJA students and half were Torah Day School students, who all live in the Toco Hills neighborhood, and whose families have similar religious practices and lifestyles. Because of the frequent interactions of the boys and their families who all live in the same general community, and the fact that most of the campers had played flag football together at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA), they were a naturally harmonious group.

Every day, Camp Aveitan started with morning prayers. Campers met together at the Kosoff home to doven, yet each boy read the prayers independently at his own pace. Campers brought their own lunch and a snack, a water bottle, hat, and baseball glove. Avi and Eitan pre-planned each week’s activities and informed the families about the next week’s schedule on the previous Sunday, so that the campers (and their parents) knew what to expect and could plan accordingly if they needed to bring or wear something different. Counselor Avi noted, “We had to plan and make a weekly schedule, but we also had to be flexible and make sure the kids had fun.”

A few years ago, Avi’s older sister, Rafa, had enjoyed running backyard activities for a group of young boys in first through third grades, in response to requests from neighborhood families. (This summer, she studied in Israel and then was a counselor at a Jewish camp in Birmingham, Ala.). Rafa’s positive experience of running a week-long kids’ program had given her brother, Avi, an idea to eventually ponder. Classmate Eitan and Avi decided to jointly run a camp.

This summer, their first year, Avi and Eitan focused on boys who were a bit older than Rafa’s group. Anticipating an emphasis on lively sports, both counselors were ready to handle non-emergency situations because they had undergone basic first aid and CPR training. Camp Aveitan took full advantage of Avi’s home that provided an ample backyard with a cut through to a park and was safe for soccer games and batting practice (the counselors were the pitchers). It also offered a large basement that was perfect for illuminated Nerf games played in the dark (pocket flashlights were attached to Nerf guns). First- and second-floor hide and seek games at the Kosoff home were also on the schedule.

As expected, physical activity was central to the camp, and a bunch of campers running around one’s property may not have been welcomed by every family. Yet, Ilene Kosoff, who maintained a hands-off approach regarding the running of the camp, was always available to step in if needed, and she shared adult responsibility with Eitan’s father, Josh, who worked nearby at home. Kosoff notes that she had no concerns about camp adversely impacting the family’s property; all the activities in and outside their home were safely planned and well-supervised by the counselors. “The boys were respectful and responsible, and nothing was damaged,” she summarizes. “The campers were a great group, and Avi and Eitan were reliable leaders!”

The campers started each day at Avi’s home, however, they took advantage of outdoor opportunities in the neighborhood. Baseball and whiffle ball games were played at nearby Kittredge Park, and visits to the Toco Hills Bruster’s for ice cream were planned. “Hiking” between the Kosoff home and Bruster’s in the heat and playing sports in the park provided plenty of exercise, sunshine and fresh air. In response to hydration and the very hot weather during the two weeks, Eitan and Avi needed to be alert, flexible, and resourceful in order to intelligently modify activities, often moving sports indoors and organizing alternate active experiences.

Creative snacking added to the programmatic mix. A favorite camper handmade recipe was candy sushi (Rice Krispies cereal and marshmallow fluff were combined for the base, then rolled inside a fruit roll-up, with gummies, licorice, or chocolate chips on top. (It is not known if the candy sushi, perfect for camp, was duplicated by campers back at home.)

When planning their camp, Eitan and Avi had learned that the Atlanta Falcons welcomed kids’ groups to watch them training at specific times during the summer, and the highlight of Camp Aveitan took place toward the end of the second week of camp. The group left Toco Hills early at 8:30 a.m. for a field trip to Flowering Branch to visit the Falcons training camp, where — after being able to closely watch team practice — campers were invited to meet and talk to the players, who genially autographed the campers’ T-shirts and footballs. (The counselors made sure to have their campers bring items to be autographed). Avi’s mother and the mother of one of the campers drove minivans to the training camp and got to share the morning adventure with their kids.

Whereas Jewish sleepaway camps have an opportunity to celebrate Shabbat every week, which campers look forward to and remember fondly, the only Jewish holy day that took place during Camp Aveitan was Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, a day of mourning, fasting, prayers, and serious learning. Although it is difficult to observe the day in a camp environment, Eitan and Avi decided to meet the challenge. Even though the campers were all younger than bar mitzvah age and therefore were not bound by Jewish law to maintain adult full Tisha B’Av observance, they acknowledged that the day should be observed in some way. The post-bar mitzvah-age counselors, Eitan and Avi, went to early services at Congregation Ohr HaTorah before the beginning of the camp day, then they organized camp Aveitan with modified activities, including some Torah learning, playing board games, and watching Disney age- and theme-appropriate movies. The campers did not fast.

The adherence to Jewish observance in an Orthodox camp (like food, prayers, and Tisha B’Av), and the easy camaraderie of boys who attend elementary Orthodox day schools, as well as visiting the Falcons at Flowery Branch, were defining aspects of Camp Aveitan. Counselor Eitan, when asked if he would run the camp again, responded, “We would definitely like to run camp again, and we are already planning for next summer!”