The sounds of squeaky sneakers and balls bouncing on the hardwood, along with whistles and yells from young voices, filled the gym last week at Kaiserman JCC, near City Avenue in Wynnewood.
Although children were being put through basketball drills, this was not a typical youth summer camp. The 80 participants – ranging in age from 6 to 14 – cycled from the court to a classroom, where they received presentations on racism, antisemitism and other topics. Children, as young as first and second graders, had an opportunity to discuss their experiences and thoughts about prejudice and discrimination.
“I think the kids are responding well,” said Jared Armstrong, the organizer of the program, JAB Camp, and a professional basketball player in Israel.
On Thursday, representatives from the Anti-Defamation League read aloud to a group of younger campers. In one of the books, children unfamiliar with Jewish traditions make friends with a boy and ask him about his kippah and sidelocks. Another title explained racial prejudice in easy-to-understand ways.
“I like our rest times,” Ezra Girson, 7, of Wynnewood, told Metro immediately following the session. “Like what we’re doing right now.”
JAB Camp aims to bridge racial, ethnic and religious divides, particularly amid a rise in hate reported in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war. Children enrolled in the weeklong program, which ended Friday, seemed to have been drawn from a cross section of backgrounds.
“Our goal is to bring kids from all different zip codes and backgrounds,” Armstrong, who is Black and Jewish, said in a February interview. “I think the diversity piece is the most important part about camp.”
In addition to the ADL sessions, JAB Camp participants attended nutrition and financial literacy classes, heard from guest speakers and played a lot of basketball.
“I’ve been practicing a lot, and I’ve been getting a lot better,” said Azzi Krasner Friedman, 12, who lives in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. “And I’ve also been making friends with a bunch of people in my age group.”
Armstrong, who grew up in Maryland and in Philadelphia’s Logan section, plans to return overseas to continue his basketball career. Through his nonprofit, he runs clinics and other programs in Israel.
He spends offseasons in the city and wants to expand JAB to include multiple camps next summer.
“Our next thing is to continue to scale,” Armstrong added.
