Many adults remember their time at Jewish summer camp as magical. Few can extend that magic into not only a career, but also an outlet for other young adults to relive or experience for the first time the joys of Jewish summer camp through three-to-four-day immersive Jewish experiences. But that’s what Carine Warsawski did when she founded Trybal Gatherings in 2016.
Born and raised in Boston by a secular Israeli father and a Peruvian Jewish mother, Warsawski grew up strongly identifying with diaspora Jewry. “We visited family across the world, which led me to feel connected to my Jewish roots abroad, but camp is where I first felt connected to my Judaism here in the U.S.,” said Warsawski, who attended the Reform movement’s Eisner Camp in the Berkshires.
Warsawski studied abroad in Israel during high school and while attending Bates College, even staffing a summer trip to Israel for Eisner Camp after her junior year. The Union for Reform Judaism’s director of camp and Israel programs asked Warsawski to work for him after she graduated, but, pre-med and with other plans in mind, she laughed it off.
Few can extend that magic into not only a career, but also an outlet for other adults to relive or experience for the first time the joys of Jewish summer camp through three-to-four-day immersive Jewish experiences.
It was only when she felt unfulfilled after leading a wilderness teen expedition through Norway via a non-sectarian trip provider that she realized her true passions. “For the teens, Norway was just a trip, not a journey,” said Warsawski. “I realized the missing thread was a sense of ideology to connect the participants to the land, people, and culture of where we were. For me, it became important to lead experiences that helped people connect to their Jewish culture, no matter the geography.”
She called the URJ’s director back and agreed to work for the organization, eventually moving to the Israel tour operator Authentic Israel in Washington, D.C., three years later. Throughout her career, Warsawski dreamed of bringing the magic of summer camp to her Jewish contemporaries. After interning in Israel at Startup Nation Central, a nonprofit that supports and connects Israeli start-ups, and subsequently graduating business school at Boston University, she realized it was time to try to make her dream a reality.
“Summer camps are one of the Jewish community’s greatest assets,” Warsawski added. “Trybal is an opportunity to take my own transformative experiences from camp and offer it to others.”
Hockey player: Warsawski played ice hockey in the Empire State Games, a New York statewide winter sports competition, in 2009.
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