Camp Boiberik

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Gottesman, Itzik (2014-01-01). "The Folkshuln of America". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (226): 259–261. doi:10.1515/ijsl-2013-0083. ISSN 1613-3668.
4. 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.
5. Napoli, Lisa (May 1, 1998). "Former Campers Use Internet to Organize Reunion". The New York Times.

Bibliography

• Joselit, Jenna Weissman; Mittelman, Karen S. (1993). A Worthy Use of Summer: Jewish Summer Camping in America. National Museum of American Jewish History.
• Rosten, Leo; Bush, Lawrence (2001). The new Joys of Yiddish (Completely updated, 1. paperback ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-609-80692-0.
• Strom, Yale (2011) [2002]. The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61374-063-7.
• Frazier, Michael (2012). Rhinebeck. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-9251-0.
• Mishler, Paul C. (1999). Raising reds: the young pioneers, radical summer camps, and Communist political culture in the United States. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11045-7.
• 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.
• Drachler, Norman (2017-12-01). A Bibliography of Jewish Education in the United States. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-4349-4.
• Diner, Hasia R. (2009). We remember with reverence and love: American Jews and the myth of silence after the Holocaust, 1945 - 1962. New York, NY London: New York Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-2122-3.
• Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie; Klepfisz, Irena, eds. (1989). The Tribe of Dina =: [Shivṭah shel Dinah]: a Jewish women's anthology (Rev. and expanded ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-8070-3605-1.
• "The Secular Yiddish School and Summer Camp: A Hundred-Year History". Jewish Currents. Archived from the original on 2014-01-08. Retrieved 2024-10-06.

External links

• Camp Boiberik Home Page, hosted by MIT Media Lab's Mitchel Resnick
• About Omega: Camp Boiberik. Omega Institute