The objective of alumni weekend for Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, based in Wingdale, N.Y., is “to create Jewish marriages and matches,” said Anna Claire Bessendorf, a former camper. And indeed, that’s how it worked out for her.
Ms. Bessendorf, who was 22 then, attended the reunion over Labor Day weekend in 2015, and on Friday night met Jason Seth Goldberg, who was 25. They hadn’t known each other as campers — they later realized Mr. Goldberg’s older sister, Carrie Goldberg, was Ms. Bessendorf’s counselor the summer of 2006 — but fell into easy conversation. Separating to go back to their friends, they pinky-swore they wouldn’t be strangers the next day.
Spotting each other at a keg party on Saturday night, Mr. Goldberg asked if she’d like to take a walk to the water fountain, a technique they both remembered from teenage days. “She called me out on it immediately: ‘Such a camp boy move,’” he said, laughing. “I loved being called out. I was like, all right, this girl’s got personality.”
The two made their way to the property’s most romantic spot, a deck overlooking Lake Ellis, where they shared their first kiss. “Having grown up at camp, that’s kind of the romantic dream,” Ms. Bessendorf said. “To have had my first kiss with my husband on the sun deck really brings it full circle.”
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Both were living in Manhattan at the time, so they met up later that week for a stroll on the Battery Park City Esplanade. They fell in love on their second date, Ms. Bessendorf said, which began at a friend’s birthday party on a boat where they only spoke with each other. From there the conversation continued back on the Esplanade, then they grabbed drinks, then dinner, and finally wound up at a “dingy” club on the Lower East Side to see Mr. Goldberg’s friend’s band perform.
The date lasted 13 hours. “We just talked and talked, and we didn’t want to leave each other,” she said.
