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Allowing children to be children again: Monterey’s Kimama Halfmoon camp hosts children of Israeli hostages

"[S]lowly but surely, you could see them dancing on the basketball court, and their smiles eventually came back to them while they enjoyed the summer," Camp Director Yael Skikne recounted about the campers.

Monterey — On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel and, along with various other Palestinian militant groups, took 251 people hostage to the Gaza Strip, the first major conflict in the Israel-Hamas War, which raged on for the next 15 months leading to nearly 50,000 deaths before the two sides reached a ceasefire agreement on January 19, 2025.

In the summer of 2024, The Kimama Group, which operates multiple camps and programs worldwide, offered children of hostages a chance to be a camper at Kimama Halfmoon in Monterey. In all, 30 children between the ages of nine and 18 years old who had a parent or family member taken hostage took part in the camp’s two- and three-week programs.

Kimama paid for the program, along with the Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ (CPJ’s) Israel Emergency Fund, which helped to cover the cost of campers’ flights from Israel to Monterey, insurance, and additional staff at Halfmoon.

Camp Director Yael Skikne said that, for the campers, “I made camp as a bubble.” “For those few weeks, the campers did not have to deal with politics and did not get any updates from back home,” Skikne told The Berkshire Edge. “At first, the campers were all in shock because they moved into a different culture. They were used to going out every Saturday night to demonstrate and shout ‘Bring back my family!’ They could not do that at camp because we wanted the campers to become children again. We wanted the campers to be able to go back and dance, talk to friends, and go back to normality.”

Skikne said that, at the beginning of the camper’s time, it was hard for the children to enjoy their experiences. “They were like ‘How can I come to camp and enjoy it while members of my family are being held in a war zone?’” Skikne recounted. “You could see that the conscience that they had affected them. But slowly but surely, you could see them dancing on the basketball court, and their smiles eventually came back to them while they enjoyed the summer.”

Skikne said the campers participated in multiple summer activities including sailing, arts and crafts, and dancing. “They were always surrounded by their counselors and camper care, so they all had a support system,” Skikne said. “This included a psychologist and a social worker. The hardest time for the campers was the Kabbalat Shabbat [a Jewish ritual held on Friday nights that welcomes the Sabbath]. That is when we all sit at a dining table with our families for a Friday night meal. That was the hardest for them, but eventually, the camp family became their family.”

Kimama Halfmoon is an international camp and employs staff members from around the world. “Some staff members are from Spain, Mexico, England, and Australia,” Skikne  said. “A lot of them don’t even know what Israel is, and they have no idea of the politics or the major events that are happening there. We had to do some explanations and some sessions to explain that these campers are in a traumatic stage. Over time, it was an amazing experience for the staff members because they felt like they did something good and they helped in the recovery process for those campers.”

Skikne said that, by the time the program ended, the campers were sad to go back home. “The scenery at Kimama Halfmoon is amazing, and being on the lake and in the forest calms your nerves,” Skikne said. “They all understand that they’re going back into a war zone. But the effect of the camp for those campers was amazing. They did amazing things, and they all stayed in touch with each other.”

Skikne aid that Kimama Halfmoon plans to continue the “The Summer of Hope” program into this summer with 40 campers.

For more information about Kimama Halfmoon, visit its website.

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