Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp. Peoplehood Papers Edition #36.

Jewish summer camps offer campers a gateway to belonging to a people. For a few weeks each year campers live inside a Jewish collective rather than learning about one, and much of what they carry home was never written into the schedule.

Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education asked camp practitioners and scholars to write down what usually goes unwritten. In Jewish terms, what is camp's value proposition? If strengthening Peoplehood consciousness is one of them, what can camps do pedagogically to address that opportunity?

We also asked how the values taught at camp, the pedagogies used, and the practices nurtured there inspire a sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Peoplehood requires a pluralistic vision, so how does that vision translate into the camp context, and which pedagogic approaches work best? And how can camps make room for multiple, sometimes conflicting views of Israel while holding a core commitment to the Jewish State?

Seventeen writers answered, scholars and camp practitioners alike, with perspectives rooted in the lives of Jewish summer camps today. The editors grouped their essays into five sections:

• Features of Camp. The ordinary moments where Peoplehood already lives, from the Israeli dance circle to the late-night conversation campers call the DMC.

• Worthy Investment. The philanthropic case for camp, from Montreal's long-running endowment strategy to what funding Jewish camp at scale could produce.

• Foundations of Camp. Where camps draw their Jewish ideas, including Mordecai Kaplan's philosophy of Peoplehood, the Torah's account of Sinai, and what an Anglican lay clergy member noticed during her first camp Shabbat.

• Global Community. Hebrew immersion at camp, the Israeli shlichim who spend their summers there, and Jewish camping outside North America.

• Visions of the Future. What camp could become, including a camp built for Jews of every ethinic and cultural background, a plan for carrying camp values into year-round adult life, and the case for teaching campers to disagree as Jews.
  

The issue brings together Diana Bloom, Rose Clubok, Ella Damaser, Benji Davis, Jeffrey Eisenstat, Lotem Eilon, Julie Finklestein, Erica Goldman, Helen Grogutt, Ami Hersh, Avi Katz Orlow, Jonathan B. Krasner, Claude Lewis, Michelle Mohnblatt, Adam Morris, Ian Rosenrich, Joel Seltzer, Satya Sheftel-Gomes, Natana Shek, Jamie Simon, and Jonah Tobin.

Peoplehood Papers 36 was initiated by Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education. The editors are Dr. Shlomi Ravid, founding editor of the Peoplehood Papers and Director of CJPE, and Rabbi Avi Orlow, Scholar-in-Residence at Foundation for Jewish Camp. We thank Lindsey Fleishman for her editing and Jamie Simon for her support of the initiative.

You can download the full edition here, and if you'd like to stay part of this conversation, subscribe to receive future updates from CJPE.