After 15 years at the helm of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Jeremy Fingerman announced last month that he is stepping down as CEO of the organization.

Effective March 1, Fingerman will transition to the role of senior advisor, while the foundation’s chief program and strategy officer, Jamie Simon, will assume the role of interim CEO until the board hires a full-time successor. 

Before leaving the role, Fingerman, who previously served as a for-profit executive and consultant, sat down with eJewishPhilanthropy to discuss his time with the organization — steering it through the aftermath of the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic and the current rise in global antisemitism — and his plans for the future, namely with his children in Israel.

The interview has been edited for clarity.

Nira Dayanim: After 15 years at the Foundation for Jewish Camp, can you tell me a little bit more about your decision to step down? Why now?

Jeremy Fingerman: With the intensity of the job, trying to do it for 15 years every day, those pressures and balancing that within what was happening in our family life, it seemed like the right time to step down. I got FJC to a great place. The field is strong. FJC is strong, and so I’m proud of where we are.

We have two kids, both of whom live in Israel. We celebrated the first birthday of our first grandson, and Bsha’ah Tova No. 2 is on the way in June. So I think my wife and I realized we need to be spending more time in Israel.

ND: What’s that going to look like?

JF: We’re not moving yet, but, we’ll sort of be back and forth, and we’ll be exploring what we need to do, whether we’re renting, buying. We’ll see where we go. But I’m excited about that, and also just being able to spend more time with my wife and kids. When I told my son that I was stepping down, he said, ‘Does that mean you won’t be working all the time?’ And, you know, I have been working all the time. That’s what the job required, but now it’s time to get back to family.

ND: There have been increased demands on Jewish educational spaces and Jewish educators this past year. I’m wondering how that’s played out for you and for FJC?

JF: We’re on a roll. We had record enrollment this past summer, and finally reached and then exceeded our pre-pandemic record level of participation, now serving over nearly 190,000 youth, teens and college-age counselors. I’m really proud that we’ve been able to, through “The Surge” and all of the good work that the field has done, the collective effort it took to be able to build back to where we were before the pandemic. We’ve just come off our record-breaking Leaders Assembly, our biennial convening, where we had over 900 participants in Chicago for the first time to run a Jewish camp summit in partnership with the Harold Grinspoon foundation. And there’s been tremendous funder support and interest, the biggest of which was announcing a $15 million grant from The Gottesman Fund for capital expansion grants. We also announced some major investments in Israel education and Israel connections that will be happening this coming summer. Seventy camps will be receiving support from us to hire incredible Israel educators, to really have them as part of their summer staff. The Israel experience, we know from this past summer, actually improved, and we think it’ll continue to improve. What do I mean by that? We had more Israeli shlichim [emissaries], we had an influx of Israeli campers, teens, many of whom were from the displaced communities in the south and in the north. Over 1,500 Israeli teens came and were in the camps, and they built connections to their North American colleagues better than any educational program. It provided a respite for the Israelis, but also a hug and a partnership with the North Americans who’ve been through so much as well.

ND: You mentioned that record enrollment and comeback from COVID-19. What contributed to that growth?

JF: It’s been a collective effort. We focused our efforts in three areas. First, how do we support the camp professionals, the talent that is working day in and day out, and give them either incremental training, incremental mentoring and support. I’m really proud of the good work that is happening, camp by camp. The second area of how we’ve gotten there is by continuously refreshing the program or the overall support that camp provides, whether it’s in mental health support, or mental health and wellness. Our Yedid Nefesh initiative benefited over 100 day and overnight camps that received funding for incremental mental health professionals, and they created a community of practice, and sharing with each other. That’s helped to lift the field. And then over the last 15 years, we’ve made sure that camps are adding either new camps, specialty camps — to attract kids for whom maybe the traditional camps weren’t right, or they had aged out and looking for a skill building experience — or in a number of camps we created specialty tracks within traditional camps. It was a way of getting more kids, either to stay, to come for another session, or to experience camp longer. So it’s a host of efforts that, combined, led to growth. It’s a combination of ways we’ve gone about sort of attacking the challenge of growing enrollment and growing both new campers and retention of campers. 

ND: Can you tell me a little bit about how the field’s priorities and challenges might have shifted since the Oct. 7 attacks?

JF: After the trauma of Oct. 7, we knew that camp was going to be different. It would be unlike any other experience for the camps, for their staff, the campers and the families. Everybody needed more support, and we invested in trips for camp directors to go to Israel. We had, I think, 45 directors who went to Israel in February before last summer, so they could feel firsthand and see for themselves what had taken place, and be able to communicate that. As I mentioned, we had extra mental health support. The big investment was bringing both Israeli campers and counselors to be in camps. And here’s what was so compelling. We thought we were giving the Israelis a respite, and it was the North Americans that were giving a hug to the Israelis. And it turned out, by the time camp came around, the Israelis were giving a hug to the North Americans too, because of all of the challenges they had faced on their college campuses or in their school or their own communities. It was a mutual coming together that I think forged relationships and friendships that’ll last a lifetime.

ND: Looking back on the last 15 years, can you tell me some of the notable ways that the world of Jewish summer camp has shifted?

JF: I would hope that camp is even more recognized as a sacred space and as a critical vehicle for developing Jewish pride and Jewish identity. Fifteen years later, fortunately, it has done a stronger job for campers and counselors, especially so that camps provide that welcoming community, that sense of belonging. Not every camp is right for every kid, so we have to have a lot of options and fortunately, now we do. The smiles are the same everywhere you go, the quality of the experience, the Jewish joy, and that transformative experience that happens across the board at all the camps, but each camp, a little bit differently. For each kid or each family, we’ve got the right camp for them, and not every campus is right for each kid. Our role has been focused on the professionals. How do we continue to support and train and develop and invest in the professionals at every level, the content, the Jewish experience itself, the connection to Israel, the use of Hebrew, and the knowledge and learning that comes from that, and then specific initiatives. We’ve just completed a $12 million Yashar initiative, which was to help camps become more accessible for those with disabilities. It was, I think, 46 camps that received funding. In total, over 10% of the campers come now with a disability, it’s increased dramatically. 

I also want to talk about the challenge of affordability. Over 15 years, FJC has raised nearly $250 million, a quarter of a billion dollars, to help support the field. The federation system has stepped up and been incredibly generous to individual camps and their own fundraising for scholarships and capital improvements has grown dramatically. I’m really proud that the field got back to pre-pandemic levels of enrollment. We’re now starting to dream again, and in announcing the new capital expansion grants, we’ve been overwhelmed with over 70 camps. There are 300 nonprofit Jewish overnight camps across North America. Over 70 have applied for one of our capital expansion grants now and and they’ve got lots of expansion projects coming over the next three years. The fact that there’s pent up demand for camp both that they need more space for campers and for counselors, it’s a wonderful problem to have, really and it excites me to feel that our growth will continue. I hope that’s one of the lasting legacies — that the vibrancy of the field continues. 

ND: What are some of the “dreams” that this growth makes possible?

JF: For the kids today, you can’t just keep doing the same thing you’ve been doing year after year. You’ve got to continue to refresh both the physical site, but also the programmatic offerings and content. What we find is that the best directors are really looking to see how to make camp a year round and lifelong connection. Some camps, their facilities allow, based on geography or climate, programming that takes place at their camp during the year. But that doesn’t just have to take place at the camp. And it’s not just year round, but it’s lifelong. How do camps make sure they’re staying connected with their alumni, with their camp families and their camp communities, where camp is a bigger player in the Jewish communal enterprise? We invest in camp because camp is the best vehicle for creating a vibrant Jewish community and a vibrant Jewish future. Through our investment in camp, we’re starting to see how those camps are having a bigger impact in their local communities during the year and beyond just the camp experience.

ND: Can you tell me a little bit more about that broader impact?

JF: We’ve worked really hard to make sure camp professionals feel like they’re a part of the camp field. But they’re really part of the Jewish communal enterprise, what I call “Jewish Inc.” They work for Jewish Incorporated. In doing so, we have camp directors that have gone from camp to Hillel, to let’s say, to federation, and then back to camp. Others have started at camp, gone on to other roles — rabbis that were congregational rabbis that then become camp executive directors. We’re a part of that whole ecosystem. The most recent research from Leading Edge says camp is the number one contributor to Jewish experience in common across all Jewish communal professionals. I think it’s important that we help the camp field, but help the broader Jewish community value the camp professionals and value the camp experience as an important part of professional development for Jewish Inc.

ND: As your tenure at FJC comes to an end, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

JF: I’m leaving so filled with gratitude. Gratitude to our team here, our board, but even more so to the camp professionals, our funders, our individual donors, our federation partners. It’s really been a collective effort, and I feel like I’ve worked hard to make sure it’s been a collective effort. To have so many wonderful people who care so deeply that feel like we’ve been supportive of them, it’s very validating and very humbling. I’ve received an outpouring of beautiful and actually emotional messages of thanks and appreciation. I write back to them, thank you but you’re the one that helped. You did all so much of the work, and you helped, really to advance our work to uplift both the camps and camps’ role 

Beyond just camp. I’m really proud of the mentoring I did with camp professionals, and when they play back to me that either a conversation or a visit to a camp or some kind of partnership really made a difference for them. I didn’t come from this, my experience was corporate branding, marketing and corporate leadership, not the camp field. So I came in with perhaps a different pair of eyes in looking at the work of the field, but I could help the professionals to widen their perspective on the work they’re doing and how their careers could continue to grow. So I’m very, very proud of that. Camp remains recognized as the formative experience for creating Jewish identity and Jewish pride. It happened to me 50 years ago. I went to Camp Ramah and it created lifelong friends. It created role models of people that I wanted to emulate, and it put me on my path, on my own Jewish journey. And now to look back 50 years later and to think that I had a role in helping others do the same?

ND: How do you hope things will look for the organization moving forward?

JF: We’re very fortunate in the position we’re in, the momentum that we have, and I’m very confident in Jamie Simon, who’s stepping up as our interim CEO. She’s been my partner for the last two years. We have an experienced senior leadership team working and supporting Jamie. With confidence that not only I have in Jamie, but that our funder community and the camp community has, I’m very confident we’ll maintain our momentum. We’ll continue our current programs, and we’re continuing our strategic planning and our… dreaming, if you will. 

And I’m not walking away completely. I’ll be sort of behind the scenes as a strategic advisor and advocating and cheering and helping in any way I can. But we have a strong team, a good, solid board, a lot of confidence among the collective community, and I think we’ll continue to deliver and make camp the seminal experience that it has been for so many years.