Our Goals

Jewish camping in Southern California goes back more than eight decades and the arts have been a critical part of that experience. Who can imagine camp without guitars, or a piano?

Or synagogue services without a cantor, or a choir, or organ or all three?

The simple goal of Hagiggah,org is to raise money to allow synagogues, camps and Jewish arts organizations to hire specialists who can share their gifts with campers, congregants and students whose lives will be enriched. The Americans for the Arts “Education Navigator” fact book published in 2013, showed students who receive arts education are twice as likely to graduate, three times more likely to win attendance awards, and four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement. Moreover, school superintendents and employers overwhelmingly agreed that creativity, as seen in the arts, is an exceptionally valuable skill in today’s marketplace.

So while the need is easy to see, there has been no organization dedicated to supporting the arts at Jewish camps, temples and more in California. Hagiggah.org seeks to fill that gap and will award its first grants in the first quarter of 2027, primarily to organizations but with options to allow award individual camper or youth scholarships.