On Sunday night, mental health nonprofit Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, Inc. agreed to hand its winning bid for Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa., to the second-place bidder, ensuring that the Modern Orthodox camp would continue operating in its current format.

But just before the tentative agreement was to be legally recognized on Monday morning, the second-place bidder said he would not offer his original bid, scuttling the deal and throwing the fate of the camp into limbo, eJewishPhilanthropy has learned. 

While Ohel remains the winning bidder, a source involved in the proceedings, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told eJP that the nonprofit is working with parents to find a potential new buyer willing to purchase the camp and keep it running as is.

Camp Lavi is one of more than two dozen summer camps — several of them Jewish — that went up for auction after their owners, the New York-based Shabsels brothers, declared bankruptcy in June after the brothers double pledged assets and missed bond payments, racking up over $344 million of debt. 

Ohel was the highest bidder for Camp Lavi in the auction for auction for the Shabsels’ properties, which ended on Aug. 3. The nonprofit had planned to use the site to run its own programming rather than keep the camp going. This caused Camp Lavi parents to launch a campaign calling for the sale to be halted, including a change.org petition that, as of yesterday, was signed by more than 4,300 people, including politicians and rabbis. 

In response to the outcry, by Sunday Ohel had decided to drop the bid; the nonprofit serves the same community that attends the camp, and the parent-led campaign had the potential to impact its reputation and donor base. Instead, as eJP previously reported, Ohel reached a verbal agreement to pass the sale to the runner-up, Shlomo Drazin, owner of Montreal-based real estate company Rester Management. Drazin is connected to American Youth Camping, which also purchased five other properties from the Shabsels’ portfolio and also includes the hedge fund Rubric Capital’s David Rosen as a partner. Drazin agreed to run Camp Lavi as is. 

But late Sunday night, negotiations between Ohel and Drazin allegedly grew tense. According to the source, it was hoped that Drazin would match Ohel’s $8.75 million bid, but Drazin didn’t want to. His second-place bid had been for $8.5 million, but now he was offering $7 million instead; Ohel would take a $1.75 million loss as a result, as they would still be expected to cover the difference. 

Monday began as planned, with the Committee of Concerned Parents of Camp Lavi withdrawing its objection to the sale of the camp to Ohel, which they had filed a week prior to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey; and Ohel offered to allow Drazin to take the bid for $8 million and the nonprofit would cover the $750,000 deposit and his expenses for the sale. Still, Drazin refused to budge, according to the source, leaving the sale at a standstill. 

Christine M. Gravelle, chief judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, was expected to make a decision about the sale at 11 a.m. As of Monday night, however, Ohel still holds the winning bid, with 10 days until the sale closes, five business days after camp season ends at Camp Lavi. 

Ohel is meeting with camp families and seeking other interested parties who would run the camp grounds in its current format, the source said, but everything needs to be decided by the board.

Drazin declined to be interviewed for this piece, and Ohel did not return requests for comment.