Aimed at fostering Jewish self-awareness, unity, and community connection among Jewish children across the Former Soviet Union, FJC’s successful summer camp initiative, JSummer, has created a unique themed learning program to accompany the informal educational efforts in over 80 Jewish day camps.

The mission set for summer 2024 by the J-Park project is to nurture Jewish identity and community spirit while also encouraging children to explore and develop their unique talents by blending experiential informal Jewish education and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) activities.

The camp’s leading theme, J-Park, is built around the legend of J-PowerPark, an amusement park designed for the joy and well-being of all Jews, where Judaism study and traditions are central themes. The energetic campers are tasked with activating the park’s attractions by solving challenges and learning about the park’s characters.

Each day, the children explore new zones of the park, help characters solve tasks, and work together to activate different areas of the park. Successful activation is marked with a red light on the map, and the final task involves redirecting energy to a main switch to fully illuminate the park.

The themed program adds to the FJC’s ‘Gan Israel’ network of day camp summer programming, which traditionally includes sports, swimming, shows, attractions, trips, tours, nutritious meals, social games, and much more.

Photos from the Jewish day camp in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine