The following letter was written by Arielle Anhalt, a Jewish teen from New Jersey. This past summer, Arielle spent some time at the Ronald Lauder/JDC International Jewish Summer Camp in Szarvas, Hungary.

The two weeks of my life spent in Hungary went by like a whirlwind. I am writing this because I want to try to explain the impact this little camp had on my life. While in camp, I had an amazingly fun time. The Americans bonded immediately, and everything was great. We joked around all the time, and laughed late into the night about every possible subject. A tight knit bunch, we all had so much in common.

In Budapest, during the first weekend of this life-changing memorable experience, I roomed with Rachel Katzman. Whispering under the covers into Saturday's early morning hours, we discussed our Jewish lives. I found her life in Omaha, Nebraska, astonishing and unbelievable in so many respects.

Rachel first described her Jewish community. Her shul, she said, is very small, and she is the only teenager that holds membership. She further explained her academic setting, telling me that there are very few Jews in the public school she attends. Most of her friends at school are not Jewish. Shocked by her life and everyday struggle in leading a Jewish life, I openly tried to paint a picture for her of my life in New Jersey.

Every Shabbas there are over 70 girls and guys in shul from my grade in school. I explained to her that seven hundred families belong to my shul in Englewood. I go to a yeshiva on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which five hundred other students attend. My siblings are in a yeshiva four blocks from my house. I don't know anyone who is not Jewish. To her, my life is incomprehensible. That morning, I realized that not only is the Jewish community in America unique, but also within the states themselves there is distinctiveness.

Upon my arrival at Camp Szarvas, suddenly the differences that lay between the Americans melted away and we formed one cohesive group, united on our mission in representing America together. I began to meet children from all over Eastern Europe, all of them just like me in so many senses. After a day or so, I found I wasn't just casually saying hello in my Hungarian or Ukrainian greeting words. I was forming relationships with the kids I was meeting.

We discussed everything from serious politics to our personal families to soccer and our favorite music. My natural openness to friendship rose to the surface quickly, and soon I felt like I knew certain people my entire life. While talking to these kids, and learning from them, and listening to everything they could tell me about their lives, I began to think a lot about myself. By the time the second week rolled around, I started to reflect on and question my life as a Modern Orthodox Jew living in the U.S.

I called my mom, and when I heard her voice I just began to cry. She asked me frantically what was wrong, and what had happened. I couldn't speak. No words would form from my lips. How could you explain what Szarvas is to someone who hasn't experienced it? How could I tell my mother why I was crying? I was crying because of my shameful ignorance. I was raised in a bubble, a fantasyland where all Jews are as comfortable as I.

How could I explain how I felt when I asked a non-religious Turkish friend, Morris, why he wears his kipah all the time, even at night, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Szarvas is the only place where I can where my kippah?" How can I explain how I felt when I pictured my two little brothers going off to school each morning wearing one of their funky basketball designed kippot?

As I cry on the phone, Vita from Lithuania goes through my mind. As she sits in the middle of a group of us Americans, her beautiful voice singing us English songs, I remember her telling me the night before how she wished she could be religious in her country. How she wishes her mother wasn't fired from her job because her mother is not old enough to get retirement income yet. Her sweet voice sings American tunes, yet behind the smile I see yearning for Judaism. I continued to cry, almost yelling at my mother for bringing me up in this dream world of Jewish perfection. The second week of this trip was extremely emotionally rough for me, yet there was no way I could have prepared for what I experienced.

Camp Szarvas opened up my eyes to a world I never knew existed. It introduced me to some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I keep in touch with every single friend I made, sending packages to Turkey, and constant letters to Israel, Lithuania, Estonia and the Ukraine.

I am a changed person who appreciates my life at a new level. It has taken me a couple of months to comprehend and verbalize what am I trying to thank JDC and the Lauder Foundation for. This [letter] is just a slight taste of understanding of what an incredible experience this was for me. I hope that with my new sense of world wide Jewry I will be able to continue to service the Jewish community in any way I can.