By: Rabbi Ariel Tal, Founder – The Tefilla Project

Tefilla and Summer Camp. Usually not synonymous with each other, and definitely not the first (or tenth) thing that pops in your mind when you think about summer camp, if playing an association game. However, Tefilla is a vital component of any successful Jewish summer camp, regardless of denomination, and incredibly important for the identity of any Orthodox Jewish summer camp. Rabbi Matt Marks, the new Executive Director of The Tribe UK, the youth group of the United Synagogue in the UK, has a strong desire to create an engaging Tefilla in his network of summer camps and reached out to The Tefilla Project to partner with them. Together, The Tefilla Project and The Tribe UK are creating a strategic approach to making Tefilla great and engaging again at summer camp!

We signed an agreement and are diligently working together in a series of Zoom meetings and exchanging ideas to create the best model for Tefilla for years 5 – 10, the “sweet spot” of engagement for The Tribe UK’s hundreds of Jewish campers. After a few introductory phones calls and our first strategic meeting session, Rabbi Matt Marks and Rabbi Tal are working diligently on building a Tefilla that will be both highly engaging, and help transform the Tefilla experience from a check in the “religious box” into a daily opportunity that everyone looks forward to.

This is an exciting project. Not many Jewish educators think about Tefilla in a strategic model. Many simply want to make Tefilla important and “not suck”, and even if they value Tefilla, there is not always strategic thinking that goes into creating the model for the staff. Rabbi Marks has a bold vision, and The Tefilla Project is excited to partner with him and his executive team, Rabbinic team, and madrichim to make a long-term Tefilla model that will serve The Tribe UK in 2026 and for years to come. What is our model? We don’t know yet, and that’s the exciting part. We are creating a tailor-made Tefilla model, not a cookie-cutter curriculum that the madrichim will have to pull off of the shelf and plug in. More updates to come….