From the Couch of Taz

Chevra Shmooze
From the Couch of Taz:
Over the past few weeks, many people
(young and old) have asked me about the whereabouts of Zat. For those new to the Chevra
Shmooze
experience,
Zat is my evil twin. The
main differences between me and him: He
has a mustache and
doesn’t like Pizza Day.
What a weirdo! Also,
he’s evil. I know this
because I wrote he’s my
evil twin a few sentences
ago. Anyway, what these
askers
didn’t
chap
(that’s chap like Chap-a
-Nosh, not chap like
Chap Stick) is that Zat only appears after the Nine
Days! That’s when he grows his nefarious mustache! Well, the Nine Days have come and gone,
so without further ado, I present my yearly tradition, an issue (potentially one of multiple) written
entirely by my favorite evil twin, Zat. Enjoy!
From the Couch of Zat
Hello Chevra! It is I, the evil
half of the Taz-Zat twin situation!
Every set of twins has one evil one,
and this case I am he. Weinsteins, I’d
suggest you figure out your own situation posthaste. It is now time to recapitulate the week that was.
The week began on Monday,
which rhymes with Hyundai. What’s
Sonata with you? This particular
Monday, however, also happened to
be Erev Tisha B’Av, which meant
two things: first of all, camp ended
early. Booooooo! Second of all, we
had our annual Cantata! I would say “Yaaaaaay!”
but it’s a serious play to put us in the mood of
Volume 8, Issue 4
Tisha B’Av, so I’ll hold off on the celebratory
fireworks.
The staff worked extremely hard to put
together an honest-to-goodness serious theatrical
performance for the campers. This year’s Cantata
was about a childless man named Chaim, who
learned that he needed to
gain
forgiveness
from
someone in his past in order
to have children. He asked
person after person, but to
no avail. Eventually, he realized—one morning at
2:00 AM—that the person
he’d harmed was actually
his own chavrusa, and close
friend, Moshe! In fact,
Moshe had entirely forgotten the incident, but had
moved on since they were
so close. The lesson: sometimes we hurt people
and we let it go, but it doesn’t mean we’ve been
properly forgiven. We must remember to always
be kind to everyone, even those we are really
close to. Special thanks to our entire staff, especially Rabbi Peikes, especially not Taz.
(Bwahahahahaha! Evil laugh!)
If you ask me, the best part of the Cantata
was the part where no one put towels in
the oven.
Oh, and before I forget, the Cantata
also featured musical intervals from
our Camp Chevra staff choir! Was it
amazing? Oh yes it was, even though
Taz was in it. Although rumor has it he
was lip-synching anyway. Thanks to
Shalom Ber who led the choir with his
hand motions.
Tuesday was Tisha B’Av, and we had
no camp. However, Rabbi Peikes held
his annual program with detailed Kinos
and Chofetz Chaim Foundation presentations. It was well-attended as usual.
On Wednesday, things got back to nor-
Chevra Shmooze
mal! Camp resumed! Music returned! We went
swimming… at our brand-new, luxurious pool!
People shaved! Meat was eaten! The air smelled
like pancake syrup! And, incidentally, the playoffs
began. Here’s how the teams finished their regular
seasons:
In the super-junior division, Sruly’s Angry
Hornets snatched the number-one spot with a 6-22 record. Mann’s Nnams and Ari’s Iras tied in second (and third!) at 3-5-2. Oshi’s Cookies were
winners in their own special way.
Among our middlest campers, Tzviki’s Skyrockets skyrocketed into the top position, right ahead
of Yehoshua’s Moose. In third stood Avramie’s
Camels and Elisha’s Anvils are really nice people.
Finally, in the elder division, Yitzy’s Mordechais went wire-to-wire at the top, finishing 103-2. They were followed immediately by Little
Bob’s Little Discount Furniture at 7-5-3 and Big
Bob’s Little Discount Furniture at 5-7-3. Wrapping up the seniors are Menachem’s Bunch of Bananas, who appreciate the little things in life!
And azoi, playoffs began! For most of the
camp, anyway: the yung’uns held off their roundrobin tournament until Thursday. But we’re not up
to there yet! If you want to see what happened on
Thursday, skip ahead a few paragraphs. But if you
do that, you’ll miss out on all of Wednesday’s
Chevramazing action! And you don’t want that,
do you?
Playoffs! Let’s not get sidetracked again.
In the intermediate division, Tzviki defeated Elisha in an UPSET and Yehoshua beat Avramie in
ANOTHER
UPSET!
I think I
may be
misusing the
word
“upset.”
All
I
know is
that I’m
upset Elisha and Avramie lost, so that’s what I’m
talking about. Anyway, Tzviki faced Yehoshua in
the championships on Thursday, but we already
discussed the potential of skippage.
Volume 8, Issue 4
In the super-seniors, Mordechai SHOCKINGLY beat Menachem and Shalom Ber prevailed over his younger kin. However, since this is
the senior leagues, we know everybody cheated
anyway.
And now, Thursday! If you skipped to get
here, you didn’t follow my prior advice. So be it. I
honestly don’t know how we managed to fit so
much stuff into Thursday. Seriously, it’s like that
story when the
sun didn’t set
because of the
war.
Except
there was no
war. Just fun
stuff.
Let’s start with
championships
and get it over
with. In the junior league of AWESOMENESS, they had a roundrobin tournament, and Yehuda Mann came out on
top to win the championships! I can tell you that
Taz is personally very happy with this outcome,
because Yehuda has been keeping track of the
standings for him all year. Since I am his evil
twin, however, I snarl at the result. Snarl!
In the intervision championships game,
Tzviki defeated Yehoshua. I have nothing more to
write about that.
In the senior division, Mordechai completed his season of dominance by defeating Shalom
Ber. The Chevra Shmooze congratulates all the
winners.
But before concluding this riveting sports
recap, let’s hop over to the special staff leagues,
where Uncle Ushy’s Ugly Umbrellas finished in
first place! Worst to first! Ovadia’s Oatmeal finished in the respectable second slot and Taz’s
Toes took third. Chaim Shmuel’s DEARTHS finished in last and fired their head coach again before the playoffs. In the first round of playoffs, Eli
Jakubavic’s DEARTHS defeated Uncle Ushy’s
Ugly Umbrellas! PSYCHE! Ushy won. Ushy always wins… or does he? In the other playoff
game, Ovadia’s Oatmeal topped Taz’s Toes, but
only because Taz let them. And that takes us to
the ultimate championship game, wherein Ushy
faced Ovadia and the winner was… Ovadia’s Oat-
Chevra Shmooze
meal! Ushy did get more points, but we found out
that he was cheating, so he was disqualified.
Oops.
Okay, but that was just the beginning of
Thursday! There’s so much more! On Thursday,
we also had our annual PIRT! What’s a pirt, you
ask? I don’t know. Let me ask Taz. Hold on.
Okay, back. Taz said that a pirt is the opposite of a trip (I should’ve figured that out), and
it means that the trip comes to us! We had water
slides and barbapapa (that’s French for cotton candy) and popcorn and Sno-Cones and giraffes and
milk and sporks and pieces of paper and other neat
items! There were so many inflatable wonders! It
was awesome AND amazing all rolled into one!
Hooray!
AND THAT’S STILL NOT ALL! On
Thursday,
we
had a dancing
contest! Yosef
Mordechai
Schwartz won!
And so did Avi
Resnick.
So
what did we do?
Answer: we had
a
tie-breaker
between their counselors. Unfortunately, Yosef
Mordechai had a distinct advantage since his
counselor was not Shalom Ber. Avramie Gross
and the aforementioned Bob squared off in a
square-dancing competition, and I think we already know who won. Congrats to Yosef Mordechai, whose counselor pulled off the victory!
Let’s not forget the deserved honorable mentions
to Eli Schechter and Peter.
So that’s it for Thursday, right? NO!
There’s still even more! The intercamp winners
Volume 8, Issue 4
(which you may remember from last week) got to
go to Slurpees! And they’re not the only ones who
got to go: Shalom Bob and Menachem Reiser took
their bunk for Slurpees as well! So much frozen
sugar water!
And then came Thursday night. Or
Thursnight. Whilst most peeps went home, the
seniors had a
special night
swim and barbecue! They
even had a
special guest
speaker… our
very
own
Rabbi Sheinberg! And we
have oh so
many thank yous! Thanks to the Weisses (of the
Moshe Leib variety, not of the Tzviki variety)
who graciously hosted the event. Thanks also to
Yisroel Baruch who brought 150 pieces of beef
jerky. And finally, thanks to two anonymous
sponsors who brought steak for, um, everyone.
Are we up to Friday yet? Yes. Really?
Yup. Okay, finally. What was even left to do? We
had the championships already, we were all wiped
from Thursday, so what could we even do? How
about… a mini-banquet! And super dooper raffles
too! We have raffles every week, but this Friday,
we celebrated the end of the half with extraextravagant prizes! And that goes slickly with the
loads of nosh from the mini-banquet.
What a half it was! Taz is going to recap
the whole thing shortly, but before we get to that,
let’s look ahead at the week that will be. On Monday, we have the worst day of the week: PIZZA
DAY! How does Taz like that stuff? It’s so filled
with cheese and other things. On Tuesday, leagues
re-begin, but I won’t discuss that further since this
issue has been heavy on the leagues stuff.
Wednesday will be our water fight, but since we
don’t like fighting in Camp Chevra, it’ll be more
of a water discord. Thursday will be a trip of some
variety, and then on Friday we’re penciled in for
Line-Gaga-Nation. The second half is sure to be
as fun as the first, if not better!
So long and farewell to those who are
leaving, and to all a wonderful shabbos!
Chevra Shmooze
Hey everyone! Taz here. Hope
you liked the Shmooze that Zat wrote.
Hope you didn’t like it as much as you
like mine. Anyway, it’s time for our first
-half recap.
Who’s
ready?
Me!
The summer began with
my FAVORITE day of the week: PIZZA DAY!
I don’t know what Zat’s problem is. It’s
so filled with cheese and other good
things. We also began our
benching contest, which
went really well, by my
estimation.
Later in the first
week, we had our special
trip to SporTime USA,
which is spelled SporTime USA. And then we
had Quidditch, and if you
think I’m explaining that again, you’re
being silly.
In the second week, we had Pay
Day (the activity) and our grand trip to
Runaway
Rapids!
We also
had
a
special
activity
on Thursday… oh
no wait,
that
turned out to be absolute balderdash!
Then on Friday, we had Capture the
Volume 8, Issue 4
Counselors, which ended up as OLYMPICS BREAKOUT!
The first day of Week Three was
Olympics, and
Elisha
Beyman
led
his
Blue
Team to
victory!
It
also
happened
to be Game Week, with Jeopardy, Deal
or No Deal, and Bunk Feud!
Finally, this past week, we had
our annual Cantata and a
Pirt! And on the last day,
we had a mini-banquet
with tons of nosh and awesome raffles!
And let’s not forget all the
amazing trips to Shopper’s
Haven,
Slurpees,
and
more! And of course, the
nightly staff shiur, which is
all the way up to Daf Yud Zayin!
(That’s number 17, for those keeping
score at home.)
How can we top that next half?
Listen,
it’s Camp
Chevra.
We can
do anything.
Good bye
to those
who are going, hello to those who are
coming, and happy birthday to our executive director, Rabbi Yissy Cherns!
Bunk ‫א‬
Efraim Schechter
Bunk ‫ב‬
Ari Schechter
Bunk ‫ג‬
Avi Proctor
Bunk ‫ד‬
Ariel perry
Bunk ‫ה‬
Yechiel Weiderman and Yaakov deitch
Bunk ‫ו‬
Mechoel Hizami
Senior Citizens
Noach and Naftali Weinstein
Staffer of the Week
Gav
Rabbi Burstein
Binyomin Berkowitz
Rabbi Peikes
Ariel Perry and Motty Cherns
Rabbi Spivak
Dovid Stochel
Rabbi Sheinberg
Yossi Weinraub
Bunk ‫א‬
Nachi Rosenfeld
Bunk ‫ב‬
Meir Nissenbaum
Bunk ‫ג‬
Yosef Mordechai Schwartz
Bunk ‫ד‬
Chaim koenig
Bunk ‫ה‬
Zev Schuster
Bunk ‫ו‬
Avi Zelefsky
Senior Citizens
Avi Resnick
Staffer of the Week
Zevi ornstein
Rabbi Burstein
Dovid Bekermus
Rabbi Peikes
Dovid Mizrachi
Rabbi Spivak
Hillel Perry and Yaakov Deitch
Rabbi Sheinberg
Aaron Kane
Staff 2010
~~~
Head Staff:
Executive Director— Moshe Genuth (845) 596 7161
Executive Director— Rabbi Yissy Cherns (845) 248 1811
Director—Yaakov “Taz” Mayerhoff
Head Counselor and Learning Director— Rabbi Noam Peikes (845) 270 8256
Assistant Head Counselor (Sort of)— Gavriel Mayerhoff
King— Ushy Schwartz (917) 288 7756
Assistant TO THE Head Counselor— Eli Jakubovic
Chevramazing Counselors:
Junior Division Head—Mordechai Kahana
Bunk ‫—א‬Yehuda Mann and Sruly Jakubovic
Bunk ‫ —ב‬Ari Kaufman, Oshi Jacobs, and Shua Frank
Bunk ‫ —ג‬Avramie Gross and Moshe Weisz
Bunk ‫ —ד‬Yehoshua Reiser and Heshy Kaufman
Bunk ‫ —ה‬Tzviki Weiss and Elisha Beyman
Bunk ‫ —ו‬Mordechai Kahana and Shloime Bob Bernemtzov
Senior Division Head— Shalom Who?
Assistant Senior Division Head—Menachem Reiser
Swikers Director— Uzi Kamensky
Assistant Swikers Ditector—Moshe Gottesfeld
Rabbeim:
First and second grades —Rabbi Burstein
Third and fourth grades— Rabbi Peikes
Fifth and sixth grades— Rabbi Spivak
Seniors— Rabbi Sheinberg
Specialty Chavrusa—Elie Schiff
Office Administrator: Mrs. Devorah Schwartz
Videographer: Chaim Shmuel (Not Charlie) Stitzer