The Jews of Summer

The Jews of Summer PDF Author: Sandra Fox
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503633896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
In the decades directly following the Holocaust, American Jewish leaders anxiously debated how to preserve and produce what they considered authentic Jewish culture, fearful that growing affluence and suburbanization threatened the future of Jewish life. Many communal educators and rabbis contended that without educational interventions, Judaism as they understood it would disappear altogether. They pinned their hopes on residential summer camps for Jewish youth: institutions that sprang up across the U.S. in the postwar decades as places for children and teenagers to socialize, recreate, and experience Jewish culture. Adults' fears, hopes, and dreams about the Jewish future inflected every element of camp life, from the languages they taught to what was encouraged romantically and permitted sexually. But adult plans did not constitute everything that occurred at camp: children and teenagers also shaped these sleepaway camps to mirror their own desires and interests and decided whether to accept or resist the ideas and ideologies their camp leaders promoted. Focusing on the lived experience of campers and camp counselors, The Jews of Summer demonstrates how a cultural crisis birthed a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life.

The Jews of Summer

The Jews of Summer PDF Author: Sandra Fox
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503633896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the decades directly following the Holocaust, American Jewish leaders anxiously debated how to preserve and produce what they considered authentic Jewish culture, fearful that growing affluence and suburbanization threatened the future of Jewish life. Many communal educators and rabbis contended that without educational interventions, Judaism as they understood it would disappear altogether. They pinned their hopes on residential summer camps for Jewish youth: institutions that sprang up across the U.S. in the postwar decades as places for children and teenagers to socialize, recreate, and experience Jewish culture. Adults' fears, hopes, and dreams about the Jewish future inflected every element of camp life, from the languages they taught to what was encouraged romantically and permitted sexually. But adult plans did not constitute everything that occurred at camp: children and teenagers also shaped these sleepaway camps to mirror their own desires and interests and decided whether to accept or resist the ideas and ideologies their camp leaders promoted. Focusing on the lived experience of campers and camp counselors, The Jews of Summer demonstrates how a cultural crisis birthed a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life.

Making Shabbat

Making Shabbat PDF Author: Joseph Reimer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781684580972
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
An accessible and engaging treatment of the experience of Jewish summer camps. This book tells the story of how Jewish camps have emerged as creators of positive spiritual experiences for Jewish youth in North America. When Jewish camps began at the dawn of the twentieth century, their leaders had little interest in creating Jewish spiritual experiences for their campers. Yet over the course of the past century, Jewish camps have gradually moved into providing primal Jewish experiences that diverse campers can enjoy, parents appreciate, and alumni fondly recall. Making Shabbat Real explores how Shabbat at camp became the focal point for these primal Jewish experiences, providing an interesting perspective on changing approaches to Jewish education and identity in North America.

A Summer World

A Summer World PDF Author: Stefan Kanfer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374271800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The story of the attempt to build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the days of the ghetto to the rise and decline of the great resorts.

A Place of Our Own

A Place of Our Own PDF Author: Michael M. Lorge
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817352937
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This is a collection of seven essays, which commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the first Reform Jewish educational camp in the US. The text covers topics related to both the Reform Judaism movement and the development of the Reform Jewish camping system in the US.

Jewish Summer Camping and Civil Rights

Jewish Summer Camping and Civil Rights PDF Author: Riv-Ellen Prell
Publisher: Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies the Univ S
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


Serious Fun at a Jewish Community Summer Camp

Serious Fun at a Jewish Community Summer Camp PDF Author: Celia E. Rothenberg
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498540783
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
Unique in the literature on Jewish camping, this book provides an in-depth study of a community-based, residential summer camp that serves Jewish children from primarily rural areas. Focused on Camp Ben Frankel (CBF), established in 1950 in southern Illinois, this book focuses on how a pluralist Jewish camp constructs meaningful experiences of Jewish “family” and Judaism for campers—and teaches them about Israel. Inspired by models of the earliest camps established for Jewish children in urban areas, CBF’s founders worked to create a camp that would appeal to the rural, often isolated Jewish families in its catchment area. Although seemingly on the periphery of American Jewish life, CBF staff and campers are revealed to be deeply entwined with national developments in Jewish culture and practice and, indeed, contributors to shaping them. This research highlights the importance of campers’ experiences of traditional elements of the Jewish “family” (an experience increasingly limited to time at camp), as well as the overarching importance of song. Over the years, Judaism becomes constructed as fun, welcoming, and easy for campers, while Israel is presented in ways that are meant to be appropriate for a community camp. In the camp’s earliest decades, Israel was framed by “traditional” Zionist discourse; later, as community priorities shifted, the cause of Russian Jews was the focus. Most recently, as Israeli politics have been increasingly viewed as potentially divisive, the camp has adopted an “Israel-lite” approach, focusing on Israel as the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people and a place home to Jews who are similar to American Jews. In sum, this study sheds light on how a small, rural, community camp contributes in significant ways to our understanding of American Jews, their Judaism, and their Zionism.

"How Goodly are Thy Tents"

Author: Amy L. Sales
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584653479
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
An entertaining ethnographic study of how Jewish summer camps foster Jewish sensibilities and education.

A Worthy Use of Summer

A Worthy Use of Summer PDF Author: Jenna Weissman Joselit
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Camps
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description


Summer Haven

Summer Haven PDF Author: Holli Levitsky
Publisher: Jews of Poland
ISBN: 9781618115164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume provides for the first time a collection of writing that investigates the stories and struggles of survivors in the context of the Jewish resort culture of the Catskills, through new and existing works of fiction and memoir by writers who spent their youths there. It explores how vacationers, resort owners, and workers dealt with a horrific contradiction--the pleasure of their summer haven against the mass extermination of Jews throughout Europe. It also examines the character of Holocaust survivors in the Catskills: in what ways did they people find connection, resolution to conflict, and avenues to come together despite the experiences that set them apart? The book will be useful to those studying Jewish, American, or New York history, the Holocaust and Catskills legacy, United States immigration, American literature, and American culture. The focus on themes of nostalgia, humor, loss, and sexuality will draw general readers as well.

Mamaleh Knows Best

Mamaleh Knows Best PDF Author: Marjorie Ingall
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN: 0804141428
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
We all know the stereotype of the Jewish mother: Hectoring, guilt-inducing, clingy as a limpet. In Mamaleh Knows Best, Tablet Magazine columnist Marjorie Ingall smashes this tired trope with a hammer. Blending personal anecdotes, humor, historical texts, and scientific research, Ingall shares Jewish secrets for raising self-sufficient, ethical, and accomplished children. She offers abundant examples showing how Jewish mothers have nurtured their children’s independence, fostered discipline, urged a healthy distrust of authority, consciously cultivated geekiness and kindness, stressed education, and maintained a sense of humor. These time-tested strategies have proven successful in a wide variety of settings and fields over the vast span of history. But you don't have to be Jewish to cultivate the same qualities in your own children. Ingall will make you think, she will make you laugh, and she will make you a better parent. You might not produce a Nobel Prize winner (or hey, you might), but you'll definitely get a great human being.