My first contact with Camp Ramah was in a January 1954 phone call from Rabbi Herman Kieval, z”l, to my mother indicating that he had some scholarship money ($50) in our Pittsburgh synagogue to help send me to Camp Ramah, a relatively new summer camp in northern Wisconsin, where I could keep kashrut, daven every day, and speak Hebrew all day. Since I did none of those things as a one-year, post-bar mitzvah, I was less enthused than my mother. Serendipitously, I had learned trope and could easily chant anything well but understood little of what I was chanting — a “splinter skill.” My delivery was smooth and confident, causing most of my teachers to believe that I was fluent in Hebrew. With three other Pittsburgh youngsters, I took a train to Chicago and was met by a horde of American kids who were fluent in Hebrew and incessantly singing songs that I didn’t know. We ended up at the Morrison Hotel where we davened (at last a chance to chant). We were taken to still another train headed north to Conover, Wisconsin where the eight-year-old camp was directed by Seymour (Shlomo) Fox, z”l, a bright young educator who had just received his rabbinic ordination. The summer was dreadful because the other campers in my cabin were fluent in Hebrew. My counselors, Paul Ritterband and Paul Herman, tried to help me. Chanting was my only chance to be heard.

Through peer influence, I returned to camp in 1955. Joel Kramer was my counselor. By then I could speak a few short sentences in Hebrew and even developed a crush on a girl from Detroit. She went on to make aliyah and eventually win recognition from the president of Israel as the country’s leading educator.

I eagerly looked forward to my third year at camp, 1956, the greatest summer of my life. In Jack Bloom’s cabin were an impressive group of campers that included a husky catcher from Von Steuben High School in Chicago, who went on to become a renowned litigator (Alan Silberman), and a studious though outspoken kid from Detroit who went on to become an international authority on Talmud (Joel Roth). Our single greatest achievement, however, was to translate the doo-wop song “Blue Moon” into Hebrew. I played the “bridge” on a muted trumpet. At the evening activities, the assembled group would chant, “Anu rotzim ‘Blue Moon,’” which roughly translates to “We want to stay up another five minutes.”

The next year, 1957, I became a junior counselor for a group that included a twelve-year-old boy from Chicago (Mort Steinberg), who went on to a distinguished legal career and who is a past president of the National Ramah Commission (NRC). By this time, I’d met Muffs and Mogilner (on staff) and Kripke, Dorff, Goldsmith, Zell, and many others (campers). My skills in chanting enabled me to become a melammed (bar mitzvah tutor) throughout college and medical school. I would also become a part-time shammash, learning how shuls run.

In the summer of 1960, I had a totally free month between college and medical school. I called the young new director in Wisconsin, Rabbi Burton Cohen, and asked for any job at all. When I got to camp, I found myself toiling in the kitchen under the direction of now retired Rabbi Art Olesky, a friend to this day. When Burt gave me my $25 pay check for the four weeks of work, I sincerely expressed my profound gratitude. He responded fatefully, “Don’t worry, Schultzie, you’ll pay us back some day.”

In 1962, my counselor from six years before, Jack Bloom, officiated at our wedding when I married Joan. In 1972, we moved to California. One summer day in 1973, while cruising with family on Route 101 near Ventura, I noticed a sign that read “Ojai—13 1/2 miles.” I abruptly turned to ascend the hill, telling my wife that there might be a Camp Ramah in Ojai. As I entered the camp, I was greeted by the new director, who invited me to be a camp doctor the following summer. When I returned to camp for my first week of work in June 1974, I learned that the medical director had just quit and that I was the new medical director. I held that position from 1974 to 1986. I worked four weeks each summer and met numerous young influential Jewish professionals, including Alvin Mars, Shelly Dorph, Joel Rembaum, Stuart Kelman, Elliot Dorff (the same guy I knew from Wisconsin), and a young adult still in training, Mitch Cohen.

In 1986, I was chosen to be president of Camp Ramah in California, the first (and the last) non-Angelino to hold that office. I worked closely with, and learned a great deal from, our director, Glen Karonsky. My presidency gave me a seat on the NRC, where I found the dynamic attorney from Chicago and the studious, outspoken fellow from Detroit. So three of us from Jack Bloom’s cabin were reunited on the NRC.

In 1989, when my term in California concluded, Dr. Shelly Dorph gave me the position of vice president for Ramah Programs in Israel, a position I held for sixteen years. I spent most of those years working with Dr. David Breakstone, a brilliant Jewish educator. He really taught me about Zionism when I visited Israel two to three times a year.

In summary, Camp Ramah taught me about Judaism, Israel, Zionism, and shul activity in a way that no other institution could. I made enduring friendships with numerous luminaries within the Conservative Movement. A few thousand San Diego kids have gone to Camp Ramah in Ojai, and many hundreds have gone to Israel with Ramah, perhaps some of them through my influence.

I myself am retiring from thirty-four years of neurology practice here in San Diego. There are six of us in my neurology group. Three of us were campers at Camp Ramah (two from Wisconsin, one from Poconos). What are the odds?

Paul Schultz, M.D., is the Past President of Camp Ramah in California and the Past Vice President of the National Ramah Commission.