Camp Boiberik was a Yiddish cultural summer camp founded by Leibush Lehrer in 1913. In 1923 the camp purchased property in Rhinebeck, New York where it would remain until closing in 1979.[1] It was the first Yiddish secular summer camp in America at the time.[2]
Affiliated with the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute,[3] named after Sholom Aleichem, Boiberik was a secular, apolitical institution which emphasized Yiddishkeit or Yiddishkayt,[4] or Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish folk culture, including songs, dance, food in the tradition of the Borscht belt, theater, and humor. Although non-religious, Boiberik observed shabbos and kept a kosher kitchen.
Boiberik had interactions with and was somewhat similar to Camp Kinder Ring.
The name 'Boiberik' appears as a town in which the Tevye stories by Aleichem are set, as a fictionalization of the resort town Boyarka.
In 1982, the former campgrounds were purchased by the Omega Institute which currently resides there. Omega hosted a reunion of former campers in 1998.[5]
References edit
- ^ Fox, Sandra (2020). ""Is This What You Call Being Free?": Intergenerational Negotiation, Democratic Education, and Camper Culture in Postwar American Jewish Summer Camps". The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. 13 (1): 19–37. doi:10.1353/hcy.2020.0021. ISSN 1941-3599.
- ^ Reid, Olivia. "Summer of Peace, Love, and Yiddish Song: The Legacy of New York's Camp Boiberik". Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
- ^ Gottesman, Itzik (2014-01-01). "The Folkshuln of America". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2014 (226). doi:10.1515/ijsl-2013-0083. ISSN 1613-3668.
- ^ Fox, Sandra F. (2019). ""Laboratories of Yiddishkayt": Postwar American Jewish Summer Camps and the Transformation of Yiddishism". American Jewish History. 103 (3): 279–301. doi:10.1353/ajh.2019.0031. ISSN 1086-3141.
- ^ Napoli, Lisa. "Former Campers Use Internet to Organize Reunion". The New York Times.
- A Worthy use of summer: Jewish summer camping in America. Jenna Weissman Joselit, National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, Pa.) National Museum of American Jewish History, 1993
- The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated. Leo Rosten. Random House, Apr 14, 2010
- Strom, Yale (2011) [2002]. The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61374-063-7.
- Rhinebeck. Michael Frazier. Arcadia Publishing, 2012
- Raising Reds: The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States. Paul C. Mishler. Columbia University Press, 1999
- Krasner, Jonathan B. (2011). "Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910–1960 (review)". American Jewish History. 96 (3). Project Muse: 225–227. doi:10.1353/ajh.2011.0000. ISSN 1086-3141. S2CID 161869467.
- A Bibliography of Jewish Education in the United States. Norman Drachler. Wayne State University Press, 1996
- We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962. Hasia R. Diner. NYU Press, Apr 1, 2009
- The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology. Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz, Irena Klepfisz. Beacon Press; August 31, 1989. p. 37
- The Secular Yiddish School and Summer Camp: A Hundred-Year History. Barnett Zumoff. Jewish Currents. August 9, 2013.
External links edit
- Camp Boiberik Home Page, hosted by MIT Media Lab's Mitchel Resnick
- About Omega: Camp Boiberik. Omega Institute