Camp Works, a recent study commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Camp, revealed that Jewish camp builds Jewish identity, Jewish community and Jewish leadership. As adults, campers are 21% more likely to feel that being Jewish is very important, 37% more likely to regularly light Shabbat candles and 55% more likely to feel very emotionally attached to Israel than peers who did not attend Jewish overnight camp.

One out of three Jewish professionals (rabbis, cantors and teachers) started out as camp counselors and one out of five Jewish educators credit Jewish summer camp as a key experience that caused them to enter the field. My five sessions working at Young Judaea camps in California, Wisconsin and New York infused in me a profound love of Israel, Judaism and K’lal Yisrael (Jewish Peoplehood) which led to me spending a year in Israel before majoring in Jewish Studies in college and embarking on a career in the Jewish community. And I am not alone. The staff of the Boulder JCC has spent 77 collective years at one of 11 different Jewish overnight camps. And this summer, we will offer a robust calendar of day camp options.

Now that I have your attention, consider that Colorado is home to three fantastic Jewish overnight camps: JCC Ranch Camp, Ramah Outdoor Adventure Camp and Shwayder Camp. Representatives from all three will be on hand Sunday, February 12th from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm at the home of Jennifer and Andy Goldman to answer questions about their programs. (To register for the event, call the Boulder JCC at 303-998-1900. The Goldman’s address will be provided upon registration.) All three camps provide nurturing Jewish environments in which campers create Jewish memories, make friends that last a lifetime and enjoy a wide variety of camp activities including horseback riding, sports, ropes course, music, arts and crafts and many more!

If you have or know children in grades 2-11 who might be interested in spending one or more weeks at Jewish overnight camp in Colorado this summer, please attend the Camp Info Program on Sunday, February 12th at 2:00 pm. Who knows? Your camper might just be the next leader of the Boulder Jewish community.

Jewish tradition encourages us to make every effort to prevent and diminish human suffering. From the Talmud, we learn that, “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

In partnership with Congregation Bonai Shalom, Har HaShem will host the Bonfils Blood Donation Drive and new Save a Life Health Fair. The goal is to provide an opportunity to make a blood donation as well as to educate the Jewish Boulder community on organ donation, the bone marrow registry, BRCA/hereditary cancer and ovarian cancer, and recently expanded testing options for Jewish genetic diseases.

Representatives from a variety of organizations will provide materials and answer questions in the North Building Social Hall including Bonfils Colorado Marrow Donor Program, Donor Alliance, American Transplant Foundation, Rachel Greig, a local kidney and pancreas recipient, Colorado Ovarian Cancer Alliance, and Dr. Ellen Elias, a Denver based geneticist at Children’s Hospital with support from the Victor Centers for Jewish Genetic Diseases.

Appointments to donate blood MUST be made in advance. To schedule a time to donate blood, contact Donna Werner at (303) 449-4672 or donna@bw-construction.com.

If not donating blood, there is no registration required to attend the Save a Life Fair to speak with representatives and pick up materials. For information or to volunteer, contact Susan Labowitz at (303) 543-0516 or labovitzs@gmail.com.

Jay Wilson, D.C. has taught postgraduate courses nationally in clinical nutrition, dysbiosis, herbal medicine and clinical kinesiology. In addition to being noted as a chiropractor, Jay is also very knowledgeable about how to keep our bodies and brains healthy with nutritional foods and supplements.

Anne Giesen, D.O. is board certified in geriatric medicine, family medicine and hospice/palliative medicine. She has been a practicing geriatric physician for ten years, the past eight in Boulder. She is especially interested and knowledgeable in ways to keep our brains young.

Dr. Nekoorad-Long is a Board Certified geriatric psychiatrist and has extensive experience caring for aging adults facing dementia and its challenges. She has operated the Longmont-based Colorado Mood and Memory Clinic since 2003.

Fernanda Litt earned her Masters’ Degree in Adult, Continuing and Community Education and is a Licensed Brain Gym Practitioner.

Young Judea:  Young Judea, recently spun off from Hadassah, run really solid programs in Israel.

Israeli Scouts (haTzofim):  The Scouts’ (Tzofim) trips also have a great reputation and have an added advantage of having 30% of participants being Israeli teens.

The evening program is scheduled on February 15th at 6:30 pm at Bnai Havurah, 6445 East Ohio Ave, Denver 80224 303-388-4441.

Please RSVP by January30 to indicate interest in attending and get any last minute information. Contact me with questions via e-mail: IsraelSummer2012@yahoo.com.

b’Shalom-

Shmuel Deitel

A recent JBG Meeting

On Thursday February 2^nd, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers will address the JBG (Jewish Business Group) at its monthly breakfast meeting at the Westin Westminster. The meeting is from 7:30 am – 9:00 am.

Mr. Suthers will discuss significant current lawsuits of interest to Coloradans including the National Health Care Lawsuit that headed to the Supreme Court. The presentation will be followed will by a Q & A.

The February meeting promises to be very informative in understanding the challenges of the National Health Care debate as it heads to the Supreme Court in the spring.

The JBG offers professionals, CEO’s and entrepreneurs an opportunity for business networking, expanding business skills through informative and empowering presentations and Jewish social interaction. The JBG gathers monthly and is open to the entire community regardless of affiliation.

“The Jewish Business Group has really worked for me” says Mrs. Sharon Prager-Wortham owner of Custom Made Fitness a business that helps businesses introduce healthy lifestyle in their work environment and at home. “I have made quite a few new contacts by attending the meetings and have enjoyed the presentations immensely.”

Meetings are open to employers and employees of the business and professional community. Retirees are also welcome.

A $15 fee covers a buffet breakfast. For more information and to RSVP please call 720-984-5805 – email milehighchabad@aol.com or visit www.JewishBusinessGroup.com

About Mr John Suthers

Mr. John Suthers, Colorado Attorney General

John W. Suthers has served the citizens of Colorado as District Attorney, presidentially-appointed U.S. Attorney and now as Colorado’s 37th Attorney General, having just been reelected to his second term. He also served as the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections under Governor Bill Owens. As Attorney General, he represents and defends the interests of all Coloradans and is chief legal counsel and adviser to state government and its many agencies, boards and commissions. In his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Suthers has initiated successful programs to protect children from Internet predators, reduce mortgage and foreclosure fraud, and combat methamphetamine abuse in Colorado.

“We thought they were going to ask us to serve on a committee or run a program,” Danny recalls. “We were shocked and surprised when they asked us to be honored at  Reflections.”

It’s fitting that the Tumble Room was the setting for the Sherwinters’ invitation to be this year’s “Rising Stars,” along with “Bright Stars” Audrey and Andy Franklin.

“We love the Tumble Room,” Karli says. “We’re there all the time and we have all our kids’ birthday parties there.”

It’s also fitting that the Sherwinters were chosen to be honored by the Boulder JCC, which has become a second home for the family since they moved here in 2005.

“We grew up at our JCCs,” Karli explains. “I was in the JCC plays and attended the JCC camps. So from the beginning we felt comfortable at the Boulder JCC.”

The Sherwinters met in 2000, when they were both college seniors. Karli, who attended CU, went on a Birthright trip with Wendy Aronson, now the JCC assistant director. “We were singing all the time on the trip, and when we got back Wendy invited me to sing with her Jewish a cappella group at Hillel.”

Karli attended a Jewish a cappella conference in Chicago, where she met Danny, a senior at Washington University who was also there with his group.

After graduating, Danny got a job in St. Louis, while Karli was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study in the Philippines and then a Bronfman fellowship that took her to Washington, D.C.

Following a courtship delayed by distance, the couple married and moved to Boulder, where Karli became the Hillel program director and Danny graduated from law school and began working as a patent lawyer. Kayla was born in 2007 and Reuben was born in 2009, and the family became even more deeply immersed in Jewish life.

“Our kids probably know more than we do,” Karli says of her children. “Havdalah dance parties are Rueben’s favorite thing.”

While Karli’s Birthright trip was the catalyst for her deep involvement in Jewish life, Danny had discovered a strong Jewish connection when he attended a program in Israel between high school and college. When he came back he decided to continue keeping kosher and observing Shabbat.

“I just kept going, and am still going,” he says of his deepened commitment to Judaism.

For Karli, all roads led to the Boulder JCC. As program director of Hillel, she came to the JCC in a professional capacity to collaborate on programs. As a founder and first employee of Limmud, Colorado, she quickly became friends with board director Mark Loewenstein, whose wife Linda Loewenstein was the JCC’s executive director at the time.

When Kayla was born, Karli started attending PAL classes and Shalom Baby programs and then enrolled her in the preschool.

“We made a ton of friends right away,” she says. Karli applied for a grant to start a Havurah for families with young children and invited everyone she met to join. Much to her surprise, many of the families most interested in participating were previously uninvolved in Jewish life.

The Sherwinters also like to have guests for Shabbat and to host large holiday celebrations, and are always searching out people who are not otherwise connected to the Jewish community.

Karli is currently busy planning the Purim Carnival for the second year, along with Jodi Basch. She also has been active introducing the national Ayeka “spiritual tune-up” program to Boulder.

Danny was a founder of the Jewish CSA, and the couple has become increasingly involved with Hazon, attending the national food conference as a family.

They are currently members of Bonai Shalom and associate members of Aish Kodesh. “And we go to Har HaShem whenever there’s a kids event we like,” Karli adds. “We do a lot of shul hopping.”

Although they were surprised to be honored at Reflections, they say that there has been an even more unexpected response from other young families they know.

People tell us they are so happy that someone they know is being honored, someone they feel they have something in common with. They are excited because they know us, and we’re like them.”

Danny says he’s also excited about the honor because of the timing. “This is such an exciting time for the JCC. It isn’t just another year. It feels amazing because of what’s happening as the plans for the new JCC have become concrete. It’s even more of an honor.”

“I’m also excited that Karli is being honored. It can be thankless of spend hours creating programs, from being the visionary to being the one who takes care of all the logistics. If it’s done well no one knows you are doing it.”

The Sherwinters believe that people who are already engaged in Jewish life should take responsibility for creating programs that serve their needs and the needs of people like them.

They are happy to serve as an example. Although it takes some juggling – Danny rushes home from Talmud class so Karli can attend a board meeting – they prove that even busy young families can make a difference in their communities. And be honored for it.

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Andy and Audrey Franklin: Shining Stars

When asked how they met, Audrey and Andy Franklin laugh sheepishly and glance at each other. It seems there are two versions of the story.

They agree that they met “après-ski” in Vail during the terrible snow season of 1976-77. But according to Andy, Audrey was brazenly flirtatious, even though he was there with a date. Audrey insists her overture to Andy was quite innocent.

It hardly matters who made the first move. What matters is they married in 1978 and that skiing has remained the couple’s abiding passion.

Andy was already living in Boulder when he met Audrey, who was living in Denver at the time. He had made aliyah to the mountains with the sole intention of being a ski bum. Almost unintentionally, he got a job at HP in Loveland as an electrical engineer in product R&D.

“I came here from Atlanta as quickly as I could to ski. I didn’t mean to get a job,” he recalls during an interview in their gracious Wonderland Hills home with sweeping views of the mountains they love.

When their son Sam was born in 1981, the Franklins joined Har HaShem and Audrey became active in the fledgling Jewish community. Andy, who grew up in the highly assimilated Reform Jewish community of Atlanta, was less Jewishly engaged in those early years leading up to his son’s Bar Mitzvah.

But when the Franklins went on a Federation mission to Israel with other B’nai Mitzvah families – including Mark and Jackie Wong, Ardee Imerman and Peter Berntsen, and Francine Lavin Weaver - Andy had a transformative experience.

It was my first trip to Israel and it was life-changing,” he explains. “It made me connect to the Jewish part of me. There was a sense of community, not just with the other families, but with Israelis and the Jewish people. I felt part of the Jewish community locally and globally for the first time.”

After the transformative trip and his son’s profoundly meaningful Bar Mitzvah, Andy allowed himself to “get sucked into Federation by my friends, especially Karyn and Richard Schad.”

Audrey notes that Andy possessed practical skills, such as knowing his way around a spreadsheet, that were extremely useful to Federation and the other Jewish and non-Jewish organizations he became involved with. He was Boulder campaign chair for a number of years and remains active with Federation as well as the AJC, where he serves on the executive committee.

Meanwhile, Audrey was diligently volunteering her time establishing new Boulder Jewish agencies. She served on the board of Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry and joined the  Boulder steering committee of ADL, where she currently serves on the board. Recently she launched the Boulder Jewish Oral History Project.

Together the Franklins have served on numerous Har HaShem committees and worked on various congregational fundraising efforts.

Their work in the secular community has been equally robust. The Chinook Fund. EFFA. Boulder Community United. Intercambio de Comunidades. Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Non Violence. Reading to End Racism. BMoCA.

These are just some of the organizations touched by the Franklins’ generous hands. Audrey was honored with the Pacesetter Award for her exemplary work in the community.

Andy observes that there’s a theme that runs through Audrey’s extraordinary list of commitments, and that is an interest in bettering the lives of marginalized and immigrant populations, dating back to the Hmong families in Sam’s early school days.

“She has always worked to make our community more welcoming, more open and inclusive and engaged,” he says. “She has always cared deeply about the disadvantaged.”

Despite their long list of accomplishments and the inestimable impact they have made on the Jewish community, this is not the first thing people in the community mention when the Franklins’ name comes up. More often it is the Franklins’ warmth that causes friends to speak with such affection and to describe the Franklins as “a lovely couple.”

Just as they have different stories about how they met, Andy and Audrey have different feelings about being honored by the Boulder JCC.

Audrey does not enjoy being in the limelight, and feels humbled to be singled out for recognition. “We are just people who say yes when asked. We’re worker bees. But we aren’t the visionaries,” Audrey says modestly. “I’m a Vermonter. I don’t enjoy the attention. I just like to help.”

While Andy does not seek the limelight, and is equally modest, he is much more comfortable accepting recognition. “I am truly honored and flattered. The appreciation is really very nice,” he says. “I am very happy to play my part. And we’re very happy to do what we can for the JCC.”

Although the Boulder JCC has not been the focus of the Franklins’ energy, they both express deep appreciation for the role it has played creating Boulder’s thriving community and recognize how vital it is to our future.

Most people came her from long-established communities,” Audrey notes. “But our generation is lucky to have had the opportunity to create and transform this community. People with vision and passion have made that happen for us, and they still are.

“I always say that you could do something Jewish every night of the week,” she adds, picking up the spring Movers postcard on the coffee table as one example. “It’s stunning what has been created in Boulder.”

The Franklins may not want to take much credit for their role in creating the amazing community they love, but they do credit each other, frequently touting each other’s virtues as they talk.

When told how beloved they are, Audrey says it’s because of Andy. Andy says it’s all because of Audrey.

Such a lovely couple indeed.

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