Camp Ramah Darom has created a scholarship fund in memory of a camp family killed in a plane crash in Costa Rica in late December.
The Weiss Family Scholarship Fund honors the memory of Leslie, 50, and Mitchell Weiss, 52, and their children, Hannah, 19, and Ari, 16, from Belleair, Fla. It was established to help campers “experience the magic of Ramah,” just as Hannah and Ari did, the Ramah website says.
The Weiss children spent 10 summers at the Conservative movement’s overnight camp in Clayton.
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Leslie Weiss was a neonatal pediatrician, and her husband was the head of interventional radiology, both at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla.
Hannah was a sophomore at List College, the undergraduate school of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Ari, a high school student, was a standout musician at Ramah and regularly played guitar, bass and piano at camp concerts.
The family died when the single-engine turboprop in which they were passengers crashed shortly after takeoff.
Also killed in the crash were the Steinbergs, a family of five from Scarsdale, N.Y., as well as an American tour guide and two crew members. It was the deadliest plane crash in Costa Rica since 1990.
“Some members of the Weiss family had asked to create this camp scholarship,” said Ramah Darom’s director of development, Sharon Rosenfeld. “I spoke with the family about setting up the fund, and we are honored to do so.”
Leslie Weiss and her sisters attended Ramah camps growing up.
Donations to the scholarship fund can be made at ramahdarom.org/weiss-family-scholarship-fund.
“They were extraordinary role models for their peers and others in the Jewish community,” Ramah’s website says. “Their loss has left a deep void in our community.”
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