Maccabiah at Greene Family Camp is loud, fun, tiring, and can be hectic in the best ways. It’s over 2 days of cheers, physical and artistic contests, one big relay race, and endless ruach (spirit). For Maccabiah, camp is split into 4 teams: Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue. Each team hopes to ultimately win Maccabiah, but it’s not about winning at GFC. Maccabiah is about the experience of working as a team, cheering your teammates on, and having a positive spirit overall. Maccabiah teams are led by alufim; role model counselors. We were so thrilled to be asked to be alufim this session, and we’re excited to share about our experiences as leaders here.
This session as alufim, we helped lead team meetings, ran multiple activities, cheered our teams on, and got to take part in our teams’ dances and skits. We also had the pleasure of running the relay race, where every camper contributed to their team’s success in a unique way. We love Maccabiah because it has something for everyone – sporty, artsy, musical, you name it and we’ve got it. Watching kids thrive on their teams was such a privilege, and we felt honored to lead our teams this session.
Year after year as campers, we were a part of various teams (with varying levels of winning) and have been led by numerous alufim. We always felt that our alufim were the coolest people on camp, such great leaders, and we looked up to them even after Maccabiah ended. Their confidence, encouragement, and support meant to the world to us as campers, and participating in Maccabiah, win or lose, brought us closer together and helped us really understand camp’s values.
Getting the chance to be alufim allowed us to be these people for younger campers. While it can be exhausting and we didn’t have our voices left after Maccabiah, we loved every second of it…even the exhausting moments right after the relay. We got the chance to give back to camp and younger campers what past alufim had inspired in us, and hopefully instilled confidence and courage in the next generation of GFC.
Being an aluf is about more than yelling the loudest on your team or being the most decked out in your team color. It’s about being supportive of your team, even when they don’t always win, and understanding that, like so many other things at camp, being an aluf is about more than just yourself and is bigger than all of us. Alufim represent the best of camp’s values, and we are forever grateful for the opportunity to be alufim this session.
Shabbat Shalom,
Lane Biesman and Shayna Levy