By Lois Amdurski Butwin

From Day 1, Herzl Camp welcomes music to the daily life of our campers.

Over the years, whatever your age, aren’t there certain songs that automatically bring you back to some event, some person, some activity at camp? When I was a camper back in the “60’s ( I know, how I could I be that old??!!), Peter, Paul and Mary’s “If I had a Hammer” was popular. Camp announcements and wake up were done on a speaker system called the “ramkol(sp?).” Music was often played as a wake up call and sometimes the words were changed to camp words. For instance, the Beatle’s “Yellow Submarine” was sung as “We all live in an orange machaneh, an orange machaneh, an orange machaneh….” To this day, I still think of the camp words whenever I hear that song.

Whenever I am at our synagogue or any other one for that matter, I love when the congregation sings a Hebrew song which I know from my Herzl Days. It can be “Oseh Shalom” or “Ani Maamin” and I always feel proud that I know the song and more importantly that I learned it at Herzl.

Another Peter, Paul and Mary song that has only recently stopped bringing a lump to my throat is “Jet Plane.” My friend, Barb Gutkin” played it for me one year before camp was almost over and I have always loved hearing it. (Todah Rabah to my son, Andy, for giving me the 4 disc set of “The Best of P,P & M, so that I can listen whenever I choose!)

As a counselor, I was once one of the planners of Bikkurim which way back then was a 3 day program with a theme. That year, the names of the teams were from a “Fiddler on the Roof” tune and I still do not know the real words to that song- only the ones we made up for our theme song.

The music industry has undoubtedly benefited over the years, from all of us purchasing the music we loved from our camp days as soon as we returned home to the real world. I know I did that and so did my kids, especially when they were campers. If the music didn’t come from a special camp program then it was the music the counselor played to help wake them up, go to sleep, during minucha, or whenever.

So……………..over the next week, think about the songs that bring back special Herzl memories for you and let the rest of us know what they are. Your memories may help someone else think of that certain friend or experience that was special to them.  Shavua Tov!