Camp Nebagamon

by Sally Lorber Stein

He was a magician, literally and figuratively.  He worked his magic on his campers and he worked his magic on stage at GTCs. There was something about Sabah Mohammed Al-Jadooa that drew people to him immediately.

Sabah also worked his magic on Muggs Lorber. In 1951, Muggs and Janet met him when the parents of Tom, Roger, and Alan Goldman invited them to dinner. Muggs immediately know that he wanted Sabah to be a counselor at Nebagamon. Why was Sabah at that dinner? As a Washington University “foreign student” he had answered an ad and became a “companion” to the Goldman boys.

Sabah was one of camp’s early international staff members and was there from 1951 to 1954. He was the first camper or counselor from the Arabian Peninsula at Camp Nebagamon—and the first Muslim, as well (there have been several more). He was magnetic in personality, and his campers loved him. Sabah quickly made friends among campers and staff. He spoke English—and I remember commenting at the time that he even chewed gum like an American (whatever that means). A handsome guy, he also cut a wide swath among the young women in the village. For years after, a few grey-haired women would occasionally ask us, “What ever happened to that nice Arab man?”

Here is a summary of what happened next: Sabah returned to Iraq after college graduation, earned an MBA in London, returned to Iraq and a good job with one of the International Oil Companies in that country, and married Shayma. They raised three daughters and a son and lived a good life. But when Sadaam Hussein and the Bathe Party seized power in Iraq, it greatly impacted Sabah and his family. Sabah lost his job in the oil fields and opened his own business, which quickly failed as a result of the international embargo on Iraq. Meanwhile, Shayma was teaching school, and the family—and thousands like them—soon retreated to home and neighborhood.

During Sadaam’s reign, any contact with the outside world was forbidden. Nardie and I wrote Sabah several times and never heard back. We learned later that our letters had been confiscated. Sabah told us that they never said Sadaam’s name at home when their grandchildren were present for fear that the kids would repeat it in the neighborhood and draw attention to the household. This could have meant prison. Occasionally a trusted friend would journey to Jordan and smuggle a Time magazine home, hidden in the folds of a newspaper, and this was surreptitiously passed from home to home.

Then America went to war in Iraq and its soldiers and policemen were released, carrying their weapons home. Hundreds of thousands of men with families to support were instantly unemployed. Sabah told us that this caused a total breakdown of law and order—and thus danger for all.

Shortly thereafter, Sabah was able to use the Internet. He got in touch with Joe Kirkish, who led him to us. In 2004, after confirming his credentials with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), we contacted Sabah’s campers and friends and asked them to join us in an effort to bring Sabah and Shayma out of the war and out of danger for several months. With few questions asked, these friends dug deep in their pockets. By the summer of 2005, we were able to arrange a Trails Forward gig at Nebagamon, and our friends were our guests for three weeks. We also had arranged for alumni friends in various cities to host them and provide venues where Sabah could speak and earn honorariums. The alumni and friends helped pay for airline tickets and other related expenses. This happened for two summers in a row. For the second one,  Sabah’s college fraternity, Sigma Nu, paid his international airfare, as he had arranged to be a guest speaker at their convention in Indianapolis.

Quite soon, life in Iraq became intolerably dangerous for Sabah and his family. Years earlier, he had helped their three daughters leave the country. Each had married and started families—in Lebanon, Dubai, and Switzerland. And now Sabah, Shayma, and the remaining family needed to leave. Their son, Ali, and his family had shared their villa in Iraq, and when the Sabah and Shayma left, Ali’s wife and children went with them. Ali had to stay behind to continue supporting his family through a good job with The New York Times.

Sabah had been working in Iraq as an administrator for USAID, helping to restore the educational system there. After moving to Jordan, USAID selected him to direct all services for the 400,000 Iraqi refugees there. Later, when Jordan established camps for thousands of Syrian refugees, Sabah was chosen to administer the educational, medical, social, and recreational services to the 80,000 desperate Syrians in the Zataari camp.

In 2010 Sabah and Shayma invited us to visit them in Jordan, and we spent two wonderful weeks as guests in their flat. We lived their life with them, saw fascinating sights, and met family and friends from the Iraqi refugee community. What a treat it was to gain this insight into their lives. I will never forget watching “Oprah” on TV with Sabah and Shayma, the English narration turned low and with subtitles in Arabic!

And then Sabah got a cancer diagnosis…  At age 85, he stopped working and continued more and more difficult treatments. His last very expensive treatment, paid for by his camp alumni friends, prolonged his life for over a year. But inevitably, he succumbed.

I must emphasize that Sabah’s and Shayma’s trips to the U.S., their initial residency in Jordan, and the expensive treatments for his cancer would not have been possible without the amazingly generous support of a group of Nebagamon alumni. Each time they were asked, these alumni donated enough funds to cover travel expenses and the family’s initial “residency taxes” in Jordan, plus his final very expensive cancer treatments. Nebagamon alumni who knew and loved Sabah were remarkably generous in an effort to offer him some safety and joy in his later years. It is impossible to describe how much this meant to him.

The sign that has stood in front of the Big House since the 1970s—THIS SHALL BE A PLACE OF WELCOME FOR ALL—simply and eloquently describes Sabah’s relationship with Camp Nebagamon. All along our journey with him, we were reminded of the motto, so true of Sabah’s life at Nebagamon: “All that you send into the lives of others comes back into your own.”

Sabah was a wonderful man who led an incredible life. He helped—and was helped by—so many others along the way.