Being normal at sleepaway camp
Local family’s help gets sick Israeli kids upstate
In July, 17-year-old Tamar Feuer of Israel visited a unique sleepaway camp in the Catskill Mountains.
Every year, the camp integrates about 40 children with kidney disease, kidney impairment, or kidney transplants into daily camp life.
This inclusive camp, run by Frost Valley YMCA of Claryville, N.Y., was spearheaded by Tamar’s great-grandmother half a century ago. Since 2017, a few kidney campers from Israel have participated every summer except during covid.
Tamar said she was impressed that the kidney campers are fully mainstreamed with about 850 other kids during each overnight camp session.
“You couldn’t tell that there was a kidney program within the camp because this program makes the kidney campers feel like any other camper,” Tamar said. “They were running around with the other kids, and I wouldn’t have known which ones were kidney campers if they hadn’t been identified for me.
“The fact that they’re not separate was really nice to see.”
She noted that the dialysis center at camp, a satellite of the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Einstein Medical Center, is situated discreetly so the kids don’t feel embarrassed or self-conscious when they go there for treatment.
Frost Valley YMCA established the Kidney Camp in 1975, in partnership with the Ruth Gottscho Kidney Foundation. It was founded in memory of Tamar’s great-aunt, Ruth Gottscho of Millburn, who died of congenital kidney disease in 1960. She was 15 years old.
Tamar’s grandmother, Judith Gottscho Eichinger of Teaneck, chairs the foundation. “My sister always dreamed of going to sleepaway camp but couldn’t because of her illness,” Ms. Eichinger said.” She was very jealous when her friends and I went away to camp.” The sisters’ parents, Eva and Ira, met as summer-camp counselors.
Once kidney dialysis became widely available in the early 1970s, Eva Gottscho searched for a camp willing to accommodate children with kidney conditions. Frost Valley YMCA accepted this challenge in cooperation with the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, establishing the nation’s first mainstream camp experience for children with kidney disease. To this day, there’s no other camp like it.
Over the last 50 years, more than 2,000 kidney campers, who range in age from 7 to 16, many of them from low-income families, have been treated to an all-expenses-paid, 12-day camp experience. Most are referred by their doctors or social workers.
Kidney campers bunk with peers of the same age, learn new skills and techniques for managing and coping with their condition, and above all, enjoy opportunities to make friends, gain independence, and have fun.
“Last year marked 50 years since the program was begun, and we are running a campaign to raise a million dollars, which, when added to our current $4 million in assets, will help ensure the program will continue for another 50 years,” Ms. Eichinger said. She and her cousin, Rick Gottscho, will match all contributions up to $500,000. Since 2020, the Community Foundation of New Jersey has administered the fund.
Israeli pediatric nephrologist Yehuda (Lewis) Reisman, who used to live part time in Bergen County, has volunteered at the Kidney Camp’s dialysis unit for about 20 summers, starting in 1981. In 2017, he began facilitating the inclusion of Israeli kidney campers — Jewish, Muslim, and Christian — in partnership with Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel. He continues to be closely involved in the camp.
“This year, among 38 kidney campers, we had three Israeli teens attending,” Ms. Eichinger said. “One of them was the first kidney camper from Israel to participate in the four-week counselor-in-training program.
“In addition, it’s the second camp season we’ve had Dr. Daniella Levy Erez, a pediatric nephrologist from Schneider Children’s Hospital, traveling with the kids and working in our dialysis unit as the doctor in charge of all kidney campers for one session.”
Dr. Levy Erez has a New York State medical license as well as an Israeli one.
Ms. Eichinger hosted the Israeli kidney campers, Dr. Reisman, Dr. Levy Erez, and Dr. Erez Levy’s daughter Abigail — who attended Frost Valley YMCA’s day camp — for brunch at her house on July 13 when they arrived in the United States. This brunch has become an annual tradition since Israeli campers first started participating.
Ms. Eichinger’s daughter, Karen Feuer, and her son, Dan Eichinger, serve on the board of the Ruth Gottscho Kidney Foundation. Ms. Feuer spent a session at the camp when she was 8 years old. Now she lives in Israel, but she and her daughter Tamar came this summer to mark the start of the 51st Kidney Camp season.
“The 50th anniversary is a critical time for the program,” Ms. Feuer said. “We have to raise enough money to keep it going for generations.” She emphasized that the family foundation is independent and unaffiliated with any other kidney organization, and all the logistical work that goes into making the camp program possible year after year takes place in her mom’s Teaneck home.
Ms. Feuer said that as far as she can determine, “this might be the only camp in the world that fully integrates children needing medical support with mainstream campers. It was revolutionary in 1975 — and it’s still revolutionary today.”
On their visit to the camp, which has a diverse camper population, she and Tamar saw that the Israeli campers “felt extremely supported and welcomed,” Ms. Feuer said. “One of the boys told Tamar that his English is not very good and he doesn’t understand everything, but he’s loving it and having a great time.”
Ms. Eichinger said it is “amazing for the other campers to meet kids from Israel and discover they are just like them. There’s no difference. I remember that in past years, the Israeli campers taught an Israeli song to the other campers and they all sang it together.”
One of this summer’s new kidney campers was Dashel Prywes, a 13-year-old Tenafly boy with chronic kidney disease who attends the same synagogue as Ms. Eichinger — Temple Emeth in Teaneck. Dashel set a Guinness World Record in 2024 for building a 50-foot 8-inch tower using Magna-Tiles. One reason he embarked on this project was to raise awareness of pediatric kidney disease.
It’s not easy for parents to entrust their children with kidney conditions to the sleepaway camp staff, Ms. Feuer said, adding that the Israeli parents in particular are “incredibly brave” fojr allowing their medically compromised kids to travel thousands of miles from home.
Tamar observed that the supervisory health team encourages the kidney campers to take responsibility for their care regimen. “One of the nurses in the dialysis center said a lot of parents are nervous about them taking their meds, so when they come to the center, she films it for the parents, to show them that the kids do this on their own responsibility. They are on top of everything.”
Her grandmother agreed. “It’s transformative,” she said. “The kids become much more independent as a result of the camp experience, and that’s one of the goals.”
During Ms. Eichinger’s visit to a camp session this summer, a 10-year-old kidney camper said that “the best thing about camp is being with my bunkmates, because they’re just regular kids. When I’m with them, I forget about my kidney disease and I feel I’m just like them.”
“It was a very touching moment,” Ms. Eichinger said.
Ms. Feuer seeks to expand the Kidney Camp’s circle of support, not only in terms of additional resources and volunteers but also in terms of awareness.
“We want people to know that this option exists for children with kidney disease who may never have had the opportunity to go to summer camp,” she said.
For more information, go to cfnj.org/gottschokidney or email jge@gottschokidney.org.
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