Camp Kinderland

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Camp Kinderland is a summer camp located in Tolland, Massachusetts, for youngsters aged eight through sixteen. The camp's motto is summer camp with a conscience since 1923. The main topics of the curriculum are: equality, peace, community, social justice, activism, civil rights, Yiddishkeit, and friendship. Campers may stay for four weeks in July, three weeks in August, or all seven of the offered weeks. There is also a two-week session available for first-time campers in the youngest group.

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Founding and history

Kinderland was founded by members of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, a leftist Jewish fraternal organization, in 1923 in Hopewell Junction, New York. As a result of internecine conflicts between organizers of the camp who were closer to the Socialist Party and others who were closer to the Communist Party, there was a serious breach within the Yiddish-speaking Jewish left, one side pro-Communist, one side anti-Communist. As a result, there were starting in 1927, two different camps, Camp Kinderland, in the pro-Communist sector, which was run by a pr-Communist Yiddishist Jewish organization, and Camp Kinder Ring, which continued as the camp of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring. As of 2025, both camps still exist.

Politics

The camp's left-wing politics led it to be the place many red diaper babies were sent growing up, [1] which caused it to be investigated during the McCarthy era. Attendee and counselor Katie Halper directed and produced Commie Camp, a light-hearted 2013 documentary on the camp. [2]

Notable Kinderland alumni

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Butnick, Stephanie; Leibovitz, Liel; Oppenheimer, Mark (October 2019). The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia: From Abraham to Zabar's and Everything in Between. Artisan Books. p. 55. ISBN   978-1-57965-953-0.
  2. ↑ Jewish Film Institute, ca. 2013, "Commie Camp" https://jfi.org/programs/jfi-film-archive/commie-camp
  3. ↑ "Camp Kinderland class of 1958".

Further reading

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