A different kind of camp

WESTON -- Take 80 teens of different faiths, throw them together for six days, and you just may have the ingredients for world peace.

The alumni of Camp IF set their sights high. Seven of them gathered at the Congregational Church of Weston last Sunday to talk about the summer camp for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian teens run by the New England branch of the Anti-Defamation League. The talk was sponsored by the Weston-Wayland Interfaith Action Group.

Mixed in with the usual camp activities like bonfires are discussions about customs, doctrines, and the similarities and differences among the different faiths. A kosher kitchen is available for Jewish participants observing strict dietary laws, and a halal one for Muslims. The participants talk about how they feel about their religious upbringing and about their experiences with discrimination. And in between all the structured activities, they chat about the sorts of things any group of teens would discuss: school, music, politics, movies, and TV shows.

Greg Speidel, a 17-year-old from Belmont, said he expects to encounter racism, homophobia, and other prejudice in his adult life, but he now feels obligated to challenge it.

''I know I can do that, because of Camp IF," Speidel said. He credits the program with making him more outgoing and open, not just to other faiths but to people in general.

Speidel became good friends at the camp with Muslim brothers Bilal and Ammaar Mirza of Framingham. They continue to get together occasionally.

Two-time camper Bobby Brennan said his parents urged him to attend, although he initially wasn't that excited about the idea.

''I had this image that when I got there it was just going to be a bunch of kids carrying Bibles, and 'God camp' didn't sound that appealing to me," said Brennan, an 18-year-old from Sherborn.

But he said all that changed by the end of the first day. ''You make some of the best friends at this camp. I learned things about Judaism and Islam, and more importantly the ways they connect to each other," said Brennan, who is Christian.

Brennan said he was one of many campers who got up before sunrise to join Muslim friends in the first of their five daily prayers.

Grace Gunderson, a 15-year-old from Sudbury, reinforces her camp experience by belonging to Lincoln-Sudbury High School's interfaith group. She's not shy about how meaningful her week at camp was. She described the bonds with her fellow campers as ''perhaps strong enough to one day, as we say at Camp IF, save the world."

Joe Mayher, a pastor at Weston Congregational Church and a founding partner of Camp IF, said that when the camp first began, some religious leaders and parents were concerned that it would lead to confusion and conversion. But Mayher said that many of the participants come away with a stronger connection to their own faith.

''Sometimes it's a hard sell" to make religious leaders understand how this will benefit their community, said Jennifer Smith, the ADL outreach director. ''It's a hard sell for parents, too, sending their child away -- they're concerned about how their child will be able to practice their religion in a pluralistic environment.

''After the second intifadah, lots of our communities have been suffering through mistrust," she added. ''It takes some convincing for people to understand that this is a safe environment."

Camp IF is the outgrowth of the Interfaith Youth Leadership Program, which began in 1996 as a six-month series of meetings among teens. The six-day camp was started three years ago and serves as a jumping-off point for the program's Regional Action Groups, where the teens collaborate on interfaith projects in their communities.

One group put together a presentation on other faiths for seventh-graders at a Catholic church. Another volunteered at a soup kitchen and used that as an opportunity to discuss their own dietary practices and traditional foods.

In the camp's first year, 40 high schoolers from New England gathered at Camp Micah in Bridgton, Maine. By last summer, the camp's third, attendance had doubled, said Smith. This year the camp is moving to Camp Kenwood-Evergreen in Potter Place, N.H.

In an interview after their presentation, the campers said that while some topics were tough to talk about at camp, nothing was really off limits. Brennan cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one difficult area, in part because some of the Jewish participants in the program planned to go to Israel to serve in the army.

''One of the things you do is confront your own biases," said Speidel.

''For me, personally, I've gotten into very -- I wouldn't say heated, but intense -- discussions about 'The Passion of the Christ,' for example," said Rachael Bird, a 17-year-old Catholic from Marshfield. ''But one of the things about camp is [that] you're so open you can sort of go back to normal."

''We all recognize that we're friends," added 18-year-old Rachel Harvey of Canton, who is Jewish.

Besides, said Bilal Mirza, 18, ''one of the major points of attending the camp is dealing with these type of questions."

Mayher said the bonds fostered by spending a week in such close quarters is what makes the program work.

''The seeds of misunderstanding and hatred are already planted in our world. They're actively uprooting those," Mayher said of the campers. ''They're not just a group or a religion -- they're friends."

Slots are still available for this year's camp, to be held Aug. 15-21. Contact the ADL's New England office at 617-406-6300 or boston@adl.org. The camp is free and open to teens who have completed the ninth grade but haven't yet graduated from high school. Stephanie V. Siek can be reached via e-mail at ssiek@globe.com.