“This camp fills up quickly. You need to register right away,” Andrew Weir recalls his son, Tyler, telling him several weeks before the deadline to attend Camp Solelim this coming summer. The camp is one of Canadian Young Judaea’s (CYJ) seven summer camps. 

Only the Richmond Hill boy is not being allowed to attend — because he is not Jewish. 

Tyler, 13 going on 14 this month, attended last year at Solelim’s “feeder camp” Shalom, for kids, aged seven to 13.

But his being allowed to attend Camp Shalom last year was apparently “a result of an administrative oversight,” said Risa Epstein, national executive director of CYJ in an email response to Post City.

Tyler’s response to the whole thing, according to his dad, was: “All my friends are going to have a good time, and I’m not. This is really sad because I really like these guys,” he said before walking away. 

In her email Epstein stated that “In order to maintain our mission, we must have Jewish campers.” 

Epstein also said in her email that “Solelim’s mission statement, which guides everything we do, identifies nurturing Jewish identity and values, fostering a sense of pride in Israel and building future Jewish leaders as part of its core.”  

Camp Solelim, located in Sudbury, Ont., is a Jewish non-profit camp for kids aged 14 to 15. 

“They are not considering the feelings of this one child and what it’s going to do to him. This will resonate with him for the rest of his life,” Andrew Weir said.

Epstein stated in the email that the camp “reached out to the boy’s family numerous times to explain our position and the Solelim mandate.”

“To me all these kids are an example of what the world would be like without any sort of labelling. They respect each other’s values without judgment,” Weir said.