Camp Gilboa is one of the six North American machanot associated with the socialist-Zionist youth movement, Habonim DrorNorth America. Located near Big Bear Lake in California, it is open to children entering 3rd-10th grade, and incoming 12th graders are accepted as Madatz. All of the madrichimot are young college students who take part in the Habonim Dror movement.
History
Habonim Dror is the result of a 1982 merger between two groups, Habonim and the youth Zionist movement Dror. Camp Gilboa has existed in the Los Angeles area since 1936. The camp operated on its own site in Idyllwild in the 1960s and 1970s, closed in 1982, then reopened in 1995 and operated at rented camp facilities east of Los Angeles until 2010. In 2011, Gilboa purchased a 40-acre campsite from the Wildlands Conservancy on Bluff Lake in the pine-forested mountains of Big Bear Valley, east of Los Angeles.
Summer Camp
The summer camp runs for 6 weeks. Campers have the option of staying for the full summer or for shorter sessions. Each session has approximately 140 campers. Young campers have the option of a 4-day camp experience called Nitzanimot. As with other Habonim Dror camps, it instills the community-minded values of the kibbutz movement, but in an American Jewish context. Campers participate in traditional camp activities, such as hiking, kayaking, arts and crafts, and archery; there is also an emphasis is on "Israel, Hebrew, understanding current events and, most importantly, making campers personally responsible for the success of their Gilboa experience." According to a 2013 study, 85% of Habonim Dror alumni have visited Israel multiple times, 70% have lived in Israel for 5 months or more, and 75% consider themselves politically progressive. HDNA camps attracted international attention with their transformation of many Hebrew words into gender neutral alternatives. For example, in traditional modern Hebrew, chanich means a male camper ; chanichah means a female camper. At HDNA camps such as Gilboa, camper is the gender-neutral chanichol.
Age Groups
As with other HDNA camps, Camp Gilboa is attended by children finishing grades 3 through 9, who are split into schavot.
Post 2nd grade-Nitzanimot
Post 3rd grade-Younger Goofimot
Post 4th grade-Amelimot
Post 5th grade- Sayarimot
Post 6th grade- Chotrimot
Post 7th grade-Shomrimot
Post 8th grade-Bonimot
Post 9th grade-Bogrimot
Post 10th grade- Machaneh Bonim Israel or Kadima
Year-Round Programming
In addition to summer camps, HDNA has 16 chapters, called kenim in Canada and the US that operate during the school year. Three kenim are associated with Camp Gilboa, in Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Diego. One program during the school year is the Bonimot Tzedek Leadership Development Program supporting teens, college students and young adults. Camp Gilboa teens help run youth programming in Los Angeles, such as a day camp for young students during the 2019 LAUSD teachers strike, and partner with community organizations in social action activities in both Northern and Southern California, including a donation drive for refugees, a seder for the downtown community, and interfaith vigils and interfaith programs.
Other Machanot (camps)
Habonim Dror has six active camps in North America, five of which were originally Habonim and one of which was originally Dror. All the other Dror Machanot have folded. The camps are called Miriam, Tavor, Gesher, Moshava, Galil, and Gilboa. Gesher was originally Dror.
Habonim Dror leadership programs
Post 10th graders from Gilboa participate with 10th graders from all 6 Habonim Dror North America camps in a summer program in Israel called Machaneh Bonim b'Israel or in an alternative program in and around Detroit called Kadima. Post 11th graders engage in a summer leadership program called Madatz. This is a tochnit dedicated to developing hadracha and heightening the sense of kvutsah, similar to a CIT type experience and most of the graduates go on to become Madrachim the following summers and youth leaders during the school year. Post 12th graders participate in the Habonim Dror year program in Israel, Workshop, which is the longest running North American gap-year program in Israel.
Facilities
Camp Gilboa bought its 40-acre camp on Bluff Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest, at an elevation of 7,600 feet near Big Bear Lake, in 2011 for $2.5 million from the Wildlands Conservancy, which had purchased and renovated the property five years earlier. The property includes a large dining hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, sports field, basketball court, and archery range. Bluff Lake is immediately adjacent to the camp and is available to campers for kayaking. The summer camp scenes from the Walt Disney film, The Parent Trap were filmed at the camp, then known as Bluff Lake Camp, owned at that time by the Pasadena YMCA. Dr. Dolittle 2, starring Eddie Murphy, was filmed at Bluff Lake.
