Camp Boiberik Explained

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]

Bibliography

• Book: Joselit . Jenna Weissman . A Worthy Use of Summer: Jewish Summer Camping in America . Mittelman . Karen S. . 1993 . National Museum of American Jewish History . en.
• Book: Rosten . Leo . The new Joys of Yiddish . Bush . Lawrence . 2001 . Three Rivers Press . 978-0-609-80692-0 . Completely updated, 1. paperback . New York.
• Book: Strom, Yale . The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore . Chicago Review Press . 2011 . 2002 . 978-1-61374-063-7 .
• Book: Frazier, Michael . Rhinebeck . 2012 . Arcadia Publishing . 978-0-7385-9251-0 . en.
• Book: Mishler, Paul C. . Raising reds: the young pioneers, radical summer camps, and Communist political culture in the United States . 1999 . Columbia Univ. Press . 978-0-231-11045-7 . New York.
• Krasner . Jonathan B. . Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910–1960 (review) . . Project Muse . 96 . 3 . 2011 . 1086-3141 . 10.1353/ajh.2011.0000 . 225–227. 161869467 .
• Book: Drachler, Norman . A Bibliography of Jewish Education in the United States . 2017-12-01 . Wayne State University Press . 978-0-8143-4349-4 . en.
• Book: Diner, Hasia R. . We remember with reverence and love: American Jews and the myth of silence after the Holocaust, 1945 - 1962 . 2009 . New York Univ. Press . 978-0-8147-2122-3 . New York, NY London.
• Book: The Tribe of Dina =: [Shivṭah shel Dinah]: a Jewish women's anthology . 1989 . Beacon Press . 978-0-8070-3605-1 . Kaye/Kantrowitz . Melanie . Rev. and expanded . Boston . Klepfisz . Irena. 37.
• Web site: The Secular Yiddish School and Summer Camp: A Hundred-Year History . 2024-10-06 . Jewish Currents . en. https://web.archive.org/web/20140108132032/http://jewishcurrents.org/the-secular-yiddish-school-and-summer-camp-a-hundred-year-history-19879. 2014-01-08 .

External links

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

Notes and 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 . en . 13 . 1 . 19–37 . 10.1353/hcy.2020.0021 . 1941-3599. free .
2. Web site: Reid . Olivia. Summer of Peace, Love, and Yiddish Song: The Legacy of New York's Camp Boiberik . 2023-08-27 . Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage . en-US.
3. Gottesman . Itzik . 2014-01-01 . The Folkshuln of America . International Journal of the Sociology of Language . 226 . 259–261 . 10.1515/ijsl-2013-0083 . 1613-3668.
4. Fox . Sandra F. . 2019 . "Laboratories of Yiddishkayt": Postwar American Jewish Summer Camps and the Transformation of Yiddishism . American Jewish History . en . 103 . 3 . 279–301 . 10.1353/ajh.2019.0031 . 1086-3141.
5. Web site: Napoli. Lisa. Former Campers Use Internet to Organize Reunion. The New York Times. May 1, 1998.