Said to Myself

As someone who personally takes parenting seriously and professionally has the pleasure of working with Jewish camps, I can proudly say that I am in the business of making mensches.

Camp offers an ideal environment for character development.  To harness the potential of this, we created a periodic table back in 2014 to develop a common language for this holy work. This was met with a great deal of excitement and creative initiatives by many educators in camps, synagogue schools, and Jewish Day schools, and parents alike.

Inspired by their response and an amazing website on the Periodic Table on TedEd, we’re thrilled to announce an expanded, interactive website version of Making Mensches, a project of FJC’s Hiddur Initiative, made possible by The AVI CHAI Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation, and the The Maimonides Fund.

We developed this project to help people explore how to communicate each of these values through text, programs, and different media.  Like the process of actually making mensches, this tool will continually be in progress as a living resource bank.  We encourage you to help us grow this resource by sharing your programs, as well as text and media inspiration for these values.

Like the original poster version of the table, there’s no wrong way to use this. We can’t wait to hear about the moments of intentional character development you create for your campers, staff, students, parents, board members, peers, and children!

If you have any questions or are open to sharing additional resources, please contact Teri McGuire at teri@jewishcamp.org. For other inquiries email me at hiorlow@gmail.com  . Happy Mensch-Making!