In response to some weird questions about Jews and summer camp I discovered a history grounded in feminism, inclusion, and the radical idea that play is important.
As a west coast Jew ... all the kids I knew went to camp. Some went to day camp and others went to sleep away camp. I did both ... The JCC in SF and Camp Swig in the Santa Cruz mountains. But this was before technology. I have fond memories of both. I was also a camp counselor at the JCC day camp. Good times!
I went to sleep away camp for a month every summer for many, many years. As a kid with a tumultuous home, sleep away camp was the BEST time of the year. (And yes, it was a JCC-sponsored camp, and I actually loved the “religious stuff” maybe more than the rest, because it was very novel to me.
Of course this was pre-cell-phones so I have no idea how they handle that now, but man. People who poo-poo camp have obviously never been.
Love this! Kids deserve a break and if one doesn’t appreciate the liberation on the parenting side you are in need of a book like “Codependent no More” My parents went to Rome and without doing any research aside from some other kid going there whose parents they knew, dumped us in Camp Betsey Cox somewhere in Vermont. There was one horse in my memory and our most frequent activity was retrieving tennis balls for fizzies. It turned out to be a Christian Science Camp and after I refused to pray( my family doesn’t believe in god) I was called “the poor little girl whose parents don’t believe in god.”) my son, went to an awesome Michigan camp and lived in a stinky cabin with 5 boys for 2 weeks. He shot a gun there and said it was the greatest part of his childhood. I want thrilled about his medal in riflery but what can you do?
Me, a Boston-area Jew, went to a secular overnight camp (sleep away always sounded ridiculous to me) every summer from the time I was 10. My wife, a New Jersey Jew, never went to overnight camp and was horrified when I suggested we send our kids. Then we took my daughter on a tour of a few overnight camps in New Hampshire and my wife called her mother and said "Why the hell didn't you send me to sleep away camp?" (She said "sleep away" because, you know, Jersey.)
All three of my kids went to a Jewish-affiliated camp that they chose. Not me. I actually wanted them to get away from all institutions--school, religion, social media--in the summer, but they liked the Jewish camp best. Two of them had the times of their lives. One of them hated it. Hey, every kid is different.
My memories of overnight camp are of always being sweaty, dirty and irrationally happy.
My sister was the director of a lakeside county-run camp for underprivileged kids for several years. The college-aged counselors had cut a trail through woods to a popular seasonal bar about a quarter mile away. They would sneak over after lights out to have a couple beers before heading back to camp.
Love this, Liz! I grew up in Richmond, VA, and many of my friends and I went to sleep away camp - none of us were Jewish.
I married a Jewish guy from Baltimore, where we now live...and where many of the Jewish kids go to sleep away camp. Many of the families insist that sleep away camp is a Jewish thing, and I let them know that it was also a goyim thing 😉
Our daughters had no interest in sleep away camp, but interestingly my older daughter made one of her best friends at day camp. They have stayed close for years despite being in different schools.
Thanks for this fascinating dive into sleep away camp history!
So many amazing memories of a childhood at Camp Lake Owego, but I’ll never forget the entire camp getting together to watch Charles and Diana get married, in support of our many British counselors (why were there so many British counselors?)
I never went to sleep away camp, but I did go to day camp, which I absolutely adored. And I never thought about, perhaps because the area of Ohio I grew up in had a large Jewish population, and so I was always around people of other faith, but it didn't occur to me that a whole bunch of thr kids at camp were Jewish. But it didn't matter. So your post is surprising to me thst this is something people talk about it. I mostly have neutral feelings about this: I went to camp, there were a whole bunch of Jewish kids there, but there were also kids that weren't Jewish, and hey! Are you going swimming for afternoon block, or over to the horses, because if it's horses, I will totally go to that afternoon block! This is interesting to me.
All we ever wanted to know about sleep away camp and more! I was a Camp Fire Girl and went to a week of sleep away camp every summer. I looked forward to it all year and for what it’s worth, my parents did not come on Parents’ Night - the thing that made me sad wasn’t their absence but the fact that my mom never sent a care package like the other girls’ moms did. My mom figured I was only gone for seven days, what could I possibly/need want? (She wasn’t wrong but that doesn’t mean she was right, either.) I’m laughing to myself about your Scout camp comment about wearing a tie and uniform all day. My son was a Scout for 12 years and the uniform was only worn for specific activities at camp, not all the time. We both consider our time at camp some our best memories of childhood.
"Some kids have single parents or work-out-of-the-house parents who don’t get two or three months of paid vacation (looking at you wistfully, Europe)"
With respect, there are 45 countries in Europe, we aren't a monoculture. Even so, I've never heard of a country that offers three months of paid vacation. 28-30 days is common.
Camp was nothing I grew up with (and as an extremely shy homebody would probably have hated it) but I enjoyed this and can certainly see the benefits. My daughter did a 1 week camp 2 years in a row, it was religious (rather more extremely religious than I realized at the time), she enjoyed the time away, and being with friends, and just let the evangelical stuff roll right off.
As a west coast Jew ... all the kids I knew went to camp. Some went to day camp and others went to sleep away camp. I did both ... The JCC in SF and Camp Swig in the Santa Cruz mountains. But this was before technology. I have fond memories of both. I was also a camp counselor at the JCC day camp. Good times!
I went to sleep away camp for a month every summer for many, many years. As a kid with a tumultuous home, sleep away camp was the BEST time of the year. (And yes, it was a JCC-sponsored camp, and I actually loved the “religious stuff” maybe more than the rest, because it was very novel to me.
Of course this was pre-cell-phones so I have no idea how they handle that now, but man. People who poo-poo camp have obviously never been.
Love this! Kids deserve a break and if one doesn’t appreciate the liberation on the parenting side you are in need of a book like “Codependent no More” My parents went to Rome and without doing any research aside from some other kid going there whose parents they knew, dumped us in Camp Betsey Cox somewhere in Vermont. There was one horse in my memory and our most frequent activity was retrieving tennis balls for fizzies. It turned out to be a Christian Science Camp and after I refused to pray( my family doesn’t believe in god) I was called “the poor little girl whose parents don’t believe in god.”) my son, went to an awesome Michigan camp and lived in a stinky cabin with 5 boys for 2 weeks. He shot a gun there and said it was the greatest part of his childhood. I want thrilled about his medal in riflery but what can you do?
Love this. You may have heard me say this before... but when people ask about camp and summers apart, my response is:
We miss her. We don't miss parenting.
She misses us. She doesn't miss being "parented" by us.
Me, a Boston-area Jew, went to a secular overnight camp (sleep away always sounded ridiculous to me) every summer from the time I was 10. My wife, a New Jersey Jew, never went to overnight camp and was horrified when I suggested we send our kids. Then we took my daughter on a tour of a few overnight camps in New Hampshire and my wife called her mother and said "Why the hell didn't you send me to sleep away camp?" (She said "sleep away" because, you know, Jersey.)
All three of my kids went to a Jewish-affiliated camp that they chose. Not me. I actually wanted them to get away from all institutions--school, religion, social media--in the summer, but they liked the Jewish camp best. Two of them had the times of their lives. One of them hated it. Hey, every kid is different.
My memories of overnight camp are of always being sweaty, dirty and irrationally happy.
One kid went to music camp. The other two went to church camp. Thanks for researching this!
My sister was the director of a lakeside county-run camp for underprivileged kids for several years. The college-aged counselors had cut a trail through woods to a popular seasonal bar about a quarter mile away. They would sneak over after lights out to have a couple beers before heading back to camp.
Love this, Liz! I grew up in Richmond, VA, and many of my friends and I went to sleep away camp - none of us were Jewish.
I married a Jewish guy from Baltimore, where we now live...and where many of the Jewish kids go to sleep away camp. Many of the families insist that sleep away camp is a Jewish thing, and I let them know that it was also a goyim thing 😉
Our daughters had no interest in sleep away camp, but interestingly my older daughter made one of her best friends at day camp. They have stayed close for years despite being in different schools.
Thanks for this fascinating dive into sleep away camp history!
So many amazing memories of a childhood at Camp Lake Owego, but I’ll never forget the entire camp getting together to watch Charles and Diana get married, in support of our many British counselors (why were there so many British counselors?)
I never went to sleep away camp, but I did go to day camp, which I absolutely adored. And I never thought about, perhaps because the area of Ohio I grew up in had a large Jewish population, and so I was always around people of other faith, but it didn't occur to me that a whole bunch of thr kids at camp were Jewish. But it didn't matter. So your post is surprising to me thst this is something people talk about it. I mostly have neutral feelings about this: I went to camp, there were a whole bunch of Jewish kids there, but there were also kids that weren't Jewish, and hey! Are you going swimming for afternoon block, or over to the horses, because if it's horses, I will totally go to that afternoon block! This is interesting to me.
Thank you for demystifying summer camp! Great take for those of us who are familiar but still didn’t know EVERYTHING ❤️
All we ever wanted to know about sleep away camp and more! I was a Camp Fire Girl and went to a week of sleep away camp every summer. I looked forward to it all year and for what it’s worth, my parents did not come on Parents’ Night - the thing that made me sad wasn’t their absence but the fact that my mom never sent a care package like the other girls’ moms did. My mom figured I was only gone for seven days, what could I possibly/need want? (She wasn’t wrong but that doesn’t mean she was right, either.) I’m laughing to myself about your Scout camp comment about wearing a tie and uniform all day. My son was a Scout for 12 years and the uniform was only worn for specific activities at camp, not all the time. We both consider our time at camp some our best memories of childhood.
"Some kids have single parents or work-out-of-the-house parents who don’t get two or three months of paid vacation (looking at you wistfully, Europe)"
With respect, there are 45 countries in Europe, we aren't a monoculture. Even so, I've never heard of a country that offers three months of paid vacation. 28-30 days is common.
Camp was nothing I grew up with (and as an extremely shy homebody would probably have hated it) but I enjoyed this and can certainly see the benefits. My daughter did a 1 week camp 2 years in a row, it was religious (rather more extremely religious than I realized at the time), she enjoyed the time away, and being with friends, and just let the evangelical stuff roll right off.