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] 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 2023-08-27.
  3. ^ Gottesman, Itzik (2014-01-01). "The Folkshuln of America". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2014 (226). 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. "Former Campers Use Internet to Organize Reunion". The New York Times.

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