He's still creating incredible summer memories for thousands of boys and girls
You might know him as the famous voice of Shloompy Shapiro from the Marvelous Middos Machine and Borosov from Abie Rotenberg and Rabbi Shmuel Klein’s The Golden Crown. But in real life, RABBI MOSHE BLAUSTEIN is a talented third-grade rebbi at Eitz Chaim Toronto, and the longtime and beloved director of Camp Agudah Toronto. Even through his own personal challenges — he lost an adult special-needs son and recently faced a daunting illness — he’s still creating incredible summer memories for thousands of boys and girls in separate camp seasons
It was either 1968 or 1969 when Bentzion Shenker came to Camp Agudah in New York for a color war breakout. He broke it out by teaching the camp a new song, “Zekeinim im ne’arim, yehallelu es sheim Hashem…” from the third Hallelukah, and the two teams were, of course, Zekeinim and Ne’arim. That was “wow” – people who were there as kids still remember it. Then there was a certain Yiddish song that head counselor Simcha Kaufman used to sing when he woke the camp. It became a real Agudah classic.
We blast the song of whichever singer is coming to give a concert in camp that night, to get the kids pumped for the concert.
We generally go for the ones that start off slow, then pick up a faster tempo and become dance-able. Tzur Mishelo fits the bill on Friday night. We start off seated, and then it morphs into singing and dancing. I’m makpid that everyone is included, so we get up and dance around all the tables. We have our zemiros booklets, but if there is a heatwave, or if I don’t think the singing is going well, I’ll decide to cut it short.
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