Summer Camp Paper Memories: The Letters Sent and Received

YJ Camp Rishona dancers photo courtesy of the author.

Excerpt from author’s October 1973 letter courtesy of the author.

Photo of the author’s October 1973 Special Delivery letter courtesy of the author.

Shortly before I left for Young Judaea’s Year Course in Israel, a “gap year” program between high school and college, my father told me not to phone home. This was September 1973 (the year is important).

I can’t recall exactly when he told me that. We might have been standing in the Pittsburgh airport waiting for my flight to New York, the first leg on my journey to Israel. Or, perhaps, it was earlier, as I packed my duffle for the trip.

More specifically, what he said was, “Don’t call unless there’s something we can do immediately, like if you break your leg.” He paused, then added: “There’s nothing I can do right away if you break your leg, so just write.”

Of course, long-distance telephone calls were costly in 1973 and international calls were exorbitant. (The international price structure wouldn’t change much until 40 years later when Skype—discontinued this year—launched in 2003.)

And so, I wrote letters. In those days, the most cost-effective letters were written on an “aerogram,” which consisted of an oversized single piece of thin paper that folded up to make a neat packet. The aerogram was addressed on one panel, avoiding the extra weight of an envelope. This was significant because fractions of ounces mattered for items sent by air. Less costly shipping by boat took weeks or longer. US Postal Service aerograms were blue; the Israeli ones were pink or green. The colored paper peaked out enticingly from within bundles of other mail.

A dozen days after my group arrived in Jerusalem, on October 6, 1973, which was Yom Kippur, Israel was attacked. I watched tanks roll through the streets of Jerusalem and up Mount Scopus towards the Hadassah-owned dormitory where I lived. I saw my madrichim (counselors and program advisers) and teachers arrive on campus in military uniform.

I did not phone home; there was nothing that my parents could immediately do. The Year Course administrators, then under the auspices of the Hadassah Zionist Youth Commission, also wrote letters. On October 8, they sent a letter by airplane to the New York City office, which forwarded copies to all of our parents by “Special Delivery.” Special Delivery letters were delivered the same or next day — even on Sundays. A Special Delivery letter was auspicious, heralding something very good, very bad or extraordinarily important.

While never a great correspondent, I did write letters home. I cherished the letters I received in return. My parents saved my letters, but I have no memory of what happened to those sent to me.

My first post-Yom Kippur letter is dated October 10, sent to my parents from the kibbutz to which more than a dozen of us had been dispatched to help with fall planting. In part, I scrawled,

“…knowing people makes the war much more personal. … When we were given the chance to volunteer, the surge of feeling and spirit that went through the group was unbelievable. People… were begging for the chance to do anything. …I was really proud of everybody.”

Though I was supposed to spend several months studying in Jerusalem, the war altered those plans and, instead, I learned to plant tomatoes, peppers and eggplant on a kibbutz in Israel’s Negev desert, using drip irrigation. In the spring, during the scheduled kibbutz portion of the program, I returned to that kibbutz, overlooking the Dead Sea, to harvest what we’d helped plant.

Four years earlier, for the first time, I had attended Tel Yehuda, Young Judaea’s teen summer camp, located in downstate New York.  At age 14, I was in the youngest group. If I recall correctly, on the first day we were required to write to our parents—probably an “arrived safely” Message. Even then I knew that the most reliable way to ensure I’d get letters was to write them. For my bat mitzvah a year earlier, I’d received a box of paper embossed with my name. What made this paper notable, as it would turn out, was that it was plaid. Pale blue and white plaid. And the envelopes were plaid as well.

Sometime during that first one-month session, I received a letter from Darlene Evanuick of blessed memory. In that letter, Darlene described how thrilled she had been to see the plaid envelope. The plaid made my letter stand out and her describing that moment thrilled me. I don’t know when, before or since, I felt so noticed!

Perhaps the memory also stays with me because of what happened the following April, on the first day of Passover: Darlene was killed, shot by her fiancé’s deranged ex-girlfriend.

I still choke up, I still hesitate when trying to talk about Darlene.

Darlene had been important to me. She was the director of “Rishona,” Pittsburgh’s local Young Judaea dance troupe. Maybe six or ten of us, in junior high and high school, were passionate about Israeli folk dancing. We met every week to learn new steps and practice new choreographies. Darlene helped us learn how to use our bodies to express a song’s meaning. We sewed our own costumes and danced in Salute to Israel parades and at Hadassah meetings and other events.

In addition, Darlene served as an adult guide; we might now call her a “mentor.” She was only eight years older than me, but she seemed so adult! She was dance director, older sister and friend. Most of all, in my memory, Darlene was cheerful and always supportive. I remember that a couple of us spent days at her apartment designing and creating an appropriate outfit to match her fiancé’s southeast Asian ancestry.

I still recall that letter she wrote to me at camp. Maybe one day it will emerge from the stored papers I have yet to go through. But, even if not, I will continue to cherish the memory.

When my own child went off to sleep-away camp, I made sure to write. In fact, I mailed a letter a few days before drop off, so that a letter from home would arrive early in the session.

This might date me, but I find it hard to imagine that any email or text could be as welcome as those letters.