Annual Tzedakah Report - Camp Ramah

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The Miller family name went up on our second
Gazebo where children learn to dance and
sing the songs of our people.
Bruce Whizin helped us complete the front
entrance to our camp with a beautiful rose
garden and grass for children to play — Rebbe Nachman taught that
every blade of grass sings the song of God.
The Farber family helped us renovate our baseball field where kids
HAVE FUN and learn kavod through good sportsmanship.
The Familian-Smalley family helped us complete a renovation of our
pool (including new bathrooms) so kids can fulfill the Talmudic
requirement to learn to swim (if you don’t believe me, look in
Kiddushin 29a).
To help the neediest among us come to camp, scholarship funds were
greatly enhanced through significant gifts by and in honor of Shari and
Michael Weiner; by the Kaplan family’s very generous addition to
increase the Sybil and Mannon Kaplan Scholarship Endowment Fund;
by the Goodglick family’s generous additions to the Grandparents3
Scholarship Endowment Fund; and by Fred Siegel’s generous additions
to the Lana Berke Silverman Scholarship Endowment Fund.
Manny Kaplan’s tzedakah in 2005 also made it possible to invite Natan
Sharansky as the scholar-in-residence for the January, 2006 Ramah
Learning Weekend.
Ruth Ziegler and the Barnhard, Beren, Jacoby, Matoff and Platt families
continued their very generous support of the Tikvah Program by
adding to the endowment. Karen Gamoran enabled young adults with
special needs to participate in the Ezra vocational program, inspiring
all of us to see God’s image in everyone. A grant from the Jewish
Community Foundation of Los Angeles made possible a spiritual
retreat weekend at camp for families with children who have special
needs. And Murray and Mildred Cohen continued their marvelous
tradition of setting an example for and encouraging others to give
generously and frequently to the Tikvah Program. Continuing disbursements
from the estate of Martin F. Witkin through his charitable trust
permit the camp to fund facility and program enhancements—
tzedakah that endures.
The Spitzer family sponsored Ikar
grants, inspiring staff to take their
programming to the next creative
level, including projects such as the
Ezra store, and a mural created by the
Machon edot from sessions 1 and 2.
Leon Janks and his Israel Committee
raised thousands of dollars so that a
record number of kids (71!) from our
camp could go on Ramah Israel Seminar, fulfilling the mitzvah to
visit and support Israel, with nobody left behind for financial reasons.
Again—these are really just a few of the mitzvot made possible by the
generosity of these families and so many, many more—including your
family. We are truly blessed—all the very generous gifts we received are
simply too numerous to list in this letter, but are included in the
donors listings beginning on Page 10. Please forgive us for and alert
us of any omissions.
Your support of Camp Ramah in 2005 is truly appreciated, and I hope
that together we will continue to make mitzvot possible in 2006 and
beyond, to benefit our campers for the next 50 years.
B’virkat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Greyber
Irene Levine, Natan Sharansky, Howard Levine