At Camp Yavneh, we think deeply about how to inculcate Jewish peoplehood and what it means to be part of Klal Yisrael. We plan and then we plan some more. We craft programs and strategize about moments that will connect our campers to their Jewish identity, to Israel and to Jews worldwide.

But sometimes, the most profound expressions of Jewish peoplehood happen when we’re not planning at all.

Courtesy/Micah Klein

Camp Yavneh welcomes the 2025 mishlachat to camp.

Just the other week, we weren’t sure our mishlachat, the camp’s annual contingent of young Israeli emissaries, would make it to camp. But when word came that they were finally on their way, we told our counselors in training (CITs): “Let’s welcome our mishlachat to Yavneh. Make some signs.”

What happened next, we could never have planned.

The mishlachat arrived in the middle of dinner. Our cheder ochel (dining hall) buzzed with hundreds of campers eating and talking. But as the shlichim (emissaries) approached the doors of the dining hall, tired from their journey yet radiating joy, something electric happened. The entire dining hall transformed into a spontaneous celebration that could never have been scripted.

It began with singing. Then dancing. Within moments, hundreds of campers were embracing twenty-eight complete strangers as if they were long-lost mishpacha. These Israeli young adults found themselves swept up in a whirlwind of welcome that transcended any boundary between strangers. We all knew each other even as no one knew anyone’s name yet.

Our mishlachat entered to the singing of “Od Yoter Tov” (“Even Better”) by Uri Davidi. As we watched Americans and Israelis dancing with arms linked, voices raised in this contemporary anthem, I could not help but wonder: How could it get any better than this?

In that unplanned moment, every camper experienced what it means to be part of something bigger than themselves — part of Klal Yisrael. To belong to a people whose bonds transcend borders, time, culture and language. The exhaustion of travel melted away. The uncertainties of war felt distant. What remained was the powerful truth that we are one people — and that when we come together, something extraordinary happens.

Our campers didn’t need to be taught about Jewish peoplehood that night. They lived it. They felt it as they embraced young Israelis who had crossed a physical and metaphorical ocean to be with them.

The beauty lay not just in its spontaneity, but in its authenticity. These weren’t forced interactions or staged programming. This was organic Jewish joy erupting from the recognition that, despite being strangers, we belonged to each other. The mishlachat members, weary from their odyssey through wartime complications, suddenly found themselves home for the summer — not because they had reached their destination, but because they had found their people.

What struck me most was watching our CITs instinctively understand their role. Without instruction beyond “Let’s welcome them,” they created an atmosphere of celebration that spoke to something deeper than hospitality. They were claiming these young Israelis as family, declaring through song and dance that Jewish peoplehood isn’t an abstract concept but a lived reality.

This is why Jewish camping matters. Not just for planned programs like Zimriya, Maccabiah and Yom Yisrael — all highlights at Camp Yavneh — but for spontaneous bursts of Jewish joy that will be etched into the collective Jewish memory of all our chanichim (campers).

As our exhausted but exhilarated mishlachat finally settled into their bunks, I reflected on what we had witnessed — a masterclass in Jewish peoplehood from American Jewish teens and Israeli young adults. It was unscripted, authentic and more powerful than anything we could have designed.

That’s the magic we’re privileged to witness at Camp Yavneh. That’s the power of Jewish peoplehood in action.

Benji Davis is a scholar of Israel education and Camp Yavneh’s Head of Israel education, a position funded by the Teaching Israel at Camp Initiative of the Foundation for Jewish Camp.