The Camp Gilboa Blog

Chanukiot made on Yom Chanukah Rikkud on "Shabbat" Rikkud! Lighting the Chanukah Candles We love Gilboa!

Shomrim Sayarim Chotrim Bonim Bogrim Amelim

Making snowmen! 4 feet of snow!

Hi Everyone!  Thanks for checking in with the blog!  Sorry for the lack of photos, we've been taking them, but are having some technical difficulties with getting them on the blog.  Hopefully soon we'll be able to show you what we've been doing here! Yesterday was a great, special, Chanukah themed day.  We made Chanukiot, ate latkes, told the story of Chanukah with our kvutsot, and had a huge Maccabee vs. Greco-Syrian snowball fight! We're expecting more snow tonight, and have many fun things planned for the next day and a half before we say goodbye to our Gilboa friends and head home.  More details (and hopefully photos) to follow soon!

We have arrived safe and sound at Mountain Chai, our winter site for Gilboa this year.  After a nice hot lunch of pizza we settled into our warm cabins and everyone got a chance to know the people in their kvutsa.  With 4 feet of snow on the ground it looks beautiful and there will be plenty of opportunities to play outside!  We're very excited to celebrate the first night of Chanukah together this evening, and have are looking forward to the rest of the week. Pictures to follow soon!

Havdalla with the Shomrim-Bogrim! We met up at the Institute and hung out for a bit. Then the mean King Tom came out and started barking orders at us. But all of the sudden 3 alternative governmental styles emerged to give us options! We learned about the different kinds and decided that democracy rules and then had a discussion about the election last week and our power as well-informed youth in our democracy. Then we voted to eat pizza and we did. Some silent football, and havdalla a little later and that was that. Super fun!

Nitzanim-Chotrim ken at the La Brea Tar Pits! Not even fire stopped the nitzanim-chotrim from coming to this special ken! Meeting at the LA Brea Tar Pits we played some games and had some fun. Then we entered the museum and looked at all the cool stuff inside. Bones, gardens, movies, a life size moving mammoth! It was neat. Back outside we walked around the grounds and saw the boiling tar and the statues of ancient Ice Age animals, and rolled down the grassy hills. It sure was fun.

Awesome ken in Sunnyvale celebrating Sukkot together! We met and got started with a few games of reflection on the long past year and things we are proud that we accomplished. Then we had a few stations where we talked about our year and made resolutions for the new one, learned about the meaning of Sukkot and made decorations, and best of all- actually built the sukkah! Then we sat and chatted a bit, and celebrated Timna's birthday! Goooood times.

Pictures from the second ken in Las Vegas! Started the ken off right with a pizza dinner at a near by pizza place, then some Havdalla on the trampoline! Then we drove into the desert and had ourselves a huge medurah under the stary sky. We baked potatoes and onions and sang songs. In the morning we watched Promises and talked about the Arab Israeli conflict through the eyes of youth. What a ken!

Gilboa is happy to announce our dates for the Summer of 2009 Session 1: July 1 - July 19 Session 2: July 21 - August 2 Full Summer: July 1 - August 2 We are proud to be offering 5 weeks this summer!  More info to come soon!

Hey, here are some pictures of the first ken event in Sunnyvale. It was a pool party with games and a peula about the upcoming ken year. Fun times.

Fall Seminar 08 was awesome!!!! Full to the max, we swarmed the Institute and transformed it from an old yucky building to a mini Machaneh Gilboa for the weekend! It was a weekend of fun and friends- 65 of them!. We kicked it off with a traditional Gilboa Shabbat with shira and rikud and all. Saturday we spent some time in the park doing different chugim that the tzevet offered. We decided together to use the left over chanachim kupa money from the summer to help people who need some help paying for camp! Back at the Institute we had a few peulot. One in mixed shikvot groups, and one by kvutza. Havdalla and Meducal ended the day nicely. The food was awesome all weekend and so was the ruach. It was a great Fall Seminar and it was great to see everyone!

WOW! First ever Gilboa Ken in hot hot hot Las Vegas! We met up on Sat evening to a true Israeli feast, followed by Havdalla and a Rosh Hashana Peula about our past year and our ability to shape our future one in a positive way. Then we watched Mean Girls and had a slumber party with games late into the night. Sunday we all went to an air conditioned (thank God) indoor soccer field and played games there followed by a sweet peula. The ride was long but it was worth it. Ken Vegas is the new hot thing. Get there!