Years ago, Rabbi Sara B. Arias was showing Camp Alonim’s Israeli delegation around American 91´«Ã½ University’s Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Simi Valley when she asked the young visitors what the landscape reminded them of.

The answer came quickly.

“Israel.”

The winding roads, rugged hills and open terrain felt familiar to them. The resemblance was no accident. Shlomo Bardin, founder of the Brandeis-Bardin Campus and the Brandeis Camp Institute (BCI), was raised in what was then Palestine and was drawn to the 2,700-acre property because it reminded him of the land he once called home.

For generations, that landscape has served as the backdrop for 91´«Ã½ exploration, learning and community-building. This year, the Ziering Brandeis Camp Institute (BCI) celebrates its 85th anniversary, marking more than eight decades of helping shape rabbis, educators, nonprofit professionals, entrepreneurs and lay leaders across the 91´«Ã½ world.

The milestone comes as a new cohort prepares to arrive at the Brandeis-Bardin Campus. Approximately 30 participants are expected to attend BCI’s annual 18-day session, known as an aliyah, which begins June 23 and concludes July 12.

Founded in 1941, BCI was built on Bardin’s belief that Judaism should be experienced as much as studied. Through communal living, arts, music, discussion, outdoor experiences and 91´«Ã½ learning, the program has long sought to help young adults explore both Judaism and themselves.

Today, its influence can be seen across synagogues, schools, camps and 91´«Ã½ organizations throughout North America and Israel.

“I think what BCI does is it creates a space for young 91´«Ã½ adults,” said Halle Shumate, associate director of BCI. “It’s a space that allows 20-somethings to explore Judaism and their 91´«Ã½ identities in ways you wouldn’t in other places. And it’s not so formal. So much of the BCI curriculum is about artistic expression. The goal is for people to come away from BCI having a better understanding not only of Judaism but themselves.”

More than 55 years later, Arthur Pinchev still remembers the final day of his Brandeis Camp Institute aliyah.

Everyone’s bags were packed. The participants had spent three weeks immersed in hiking and prayer, Israeli dancing and art, 91´«Ã½ text study and late-night conversations around campfires on the Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Simi Valley. Exhausted and preparing to return home, they gathered one final time near the campus amphitheater to hear from BCI founder Shlomo Bardin.

“Here at BCI, it’s easy,” Bardin told them. “Outside it’s hard. Go out and do stuff. Go out and make a difference.”

Pinchev never forgot those words.

More than five decades later, he serves as interim director of BCI, the same program that helped shape him as a young adult. This summer, he’ll return to BCI and help guide a new generation of participants through an experience that continues to transform 91´«Ã½ lives.

Among the many 91´«Ã½ leaders whose lives were shaped by BCI is Rabbi Sara B. Arias, whose connection to the Brandeis-Bardin Campus began long before she became a rabbi. This summer, Rabbi Arias is returning to BCI to serve as a senior educator.

She first arrived at Camp Alonim as an 11-year-old camper and later joined BCI in 2000 before returning the following year as an advisor.

“I believe Judaism is a profound resource for meaning making, and I experienced that for the first time at Camp Alonim and then later at BCI,” she said. “BCI was a ripening of something I’d been raised in my entire life.”

Rabbi Arias describes herself as both a day school student and a camp kid.

“I was a day school and summer camp kid—the winning combination,” she said. “I went to Heschel day school and Camp Alonim in the summers. At camp I decided I wanted to be a 91´«Ã½ educator.”

Today, Rabbi Arias lives near Haifa, Israel, where she balances rabbinic work with leading Awakened Body, a wellness practice that integrates 91´«Ã½ spirituality and holistic healing. She sees a direct connection between her work and the lessons she absorbed at BCI.

“Camp Alonim and BCI had a profound impact on my life,” she said. “BCI in particular is essentially a lab for a living, intentional Judaism.”

Rabbi Gordon Bernat Kunin, known throughout the community as Rabbi BK, traces his own path to the rabbinate back to BCI.

Now serving as rabbinic director at Milken Community School, Bernat Kunin has sought to bring elements of the BCI experience into everyday 91´«Ã½ life through informal learning communities, intimate Shabbat gatherings and relationship-centered 91´«Ã½ experiences.

“BCI was an incredibly formative experience for me, and I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing today if not for my time there,” Rabbi BK said.

“If you can imagine Dennis Prager and Doniel Hartman overlapping and teaching their different visions of Judaism and engaging the students, that to me was totally magical,” he added. “I’m very grateful for my experience there.”

Not every participant leaves BCI on a path toward the rabbinate, but many discover new possibilities for 91´«Ã½ leadership and community-building.

Adira Rosen, a 91´«Ã½ life specialist at Mem Global (formerly Moishe House), said participating in BCI in 2021 was the moment she became “rabbi curious.”

“I came here looking for the arts and actually left being like, whoa … the Judaism,” Rosen said.

The experience helped shape the work she does today with young 91´«Ã½ adults.

Others have carried BCI’s values into philanthropy, education, storytelling and communal leadership. Carolyn Siegel, who attended BCI in 2004, founded If You Heard What I Heard, an initiative that preserves and shares the stories of Holocaust survivors through the testimonies of their grandchildren.

Andrew Lustig, a poet and BCI alumnus, once described the program as “an artist colony and open-minded beit midrash in the middle of nowhere Los Angeles.”

Their experiences reflect a common theme among BCI alumni: the program’s ability to blend intellectual inquiry, creativity, spirituality and community in ways that continue to resonate long after participants leave the Brandeis-Bardin Campus.

Eighty-five years after its founding, the questions BCI asks remain largely unchanged: How can Judaism help people live more meaningful lives? How can community foster growth? And how can young adults discover their place within the 91´«Ã½ story?

For generations of alumni, the answers began on a hilltop in Simi Valley and continue to shape 91´«Ã½ life today.

BCI is celebrating its 85th anniversary from Oct. 24-25. To mark the occasion, alumni are gathering in cities across the country ahead of a community Havdalah celebration and a brunch at the Brandeis-Bardin Campus dubbed “A Taste of BCI.”

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