Report from Children's Summer Camp in Tel Aviv

We, the counsellors for the children’s summer camps, split into two groups and one group, including me, went with Father David to Tel Aviv to animate the week of summer camp in the parish there. On Saturday, I already went with him to view the available space in the parish locale for the camp’s activities.

The Catholic parish of Tel Aviv is in the neighbourhood adjacent to the central bus station. Father David called it a slum and, in fact, I think I have seen similar conditions in the streets of Cairo. Rows of houses that are really like makeshift barracks (although each one has a house number!), disintegrating buildings and indescribable staircases of apartment buildings. The premises of the parish are in a two-story building. On the ground floor, in the room that once was a workshop, with two shuttered entrances to the street, there is the church. On the floor above the living quarters of the parish priest and the nuns as well as two family units of the extensive day care center that is directed from the parish. Everything is compact. The ground floor church is painted blue with plastic chairs everywhere. The church is equipped with a powerful sound system and big screens for the projection of the texts and songs of the liturgy.

The patroness of the church is the Blessed Virgin Mary called here “the valiant woman” – Our Lady Woman of Valour (cf. last chapter of Proverbs). "A valiant woman who can find? Well beyond pearls is her worth". The large icon on the wall opposite the entrance is a classic image of the Madonna, her mantle spread gather under it men, women and children (including those who wrote the icon as well as Father David). In the background are not the walls of the holy city of Jerusalem, as in the classic icons, but rather the bus station and the buildings of the neighbourhood in Tel Aviv. It is a bit naive but in this context it is very beautiful and touching.

The faithful of the parish are mostly Filipinos, as are the parish priest and the sisters who live in the locale. Mass is celebrated in English and Tagalog, however other priests come to celebrate in three Indian languages (Konkani, Malayalam and Gujarati) in Sinhala (for the Sri Lankans) and in Ge’ez for the Tigrinye speaking faithful from Eritrea. There are also masses in Hebrew for the children who speak almost only Hebrew.

The summer camp for the many children of the parish is in Hebrew, It was a wonderful week but rather tiring, because we, counsellors, had to make the daily journey by public taxi, setting out at 6:30 in the morning and returning at around 16.00. By 17.00, we were at home, and, in the end, the camp was less difficult than in Jerusalem, even though we had many more children.

In Tel Aviv, my task was to organize and manage the group that did theatre and played games. Overall, it went pretty well, even if the groups were very numerous, consisting of about 20 children each. It was not easy to involve everyone and keep them entertained. Especially the older ones were often like those of the Gospel: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn" (Matthew 11:17).