Camp Boiberik

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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]

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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 August 27, 2023.
  3. Gottesman, Itzik (January 1, 2014). "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