"How Goodly Are Thy Tents": Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences (review)

Like many other Jewish children I knew, I attended a Jewish summer camp. It must have been a giant leap for my overly protective parents to send me away with strangers for eight weeks, but, as they said, they did it for a "good reason." It wasn't to expose me to Jewish culture, since my life was lived within an eruv of Jewish culture; it wasn't to make sure that I met other Jewish children, since virtually everyone I knew was Jewish. Their "good reason" was their belief that, if I breathed city air and drank city water, I was at greater risk of catching polio. So, off I went to the presumed safety of Adirondack air and water.

My transition from home to camp was seamless; the setting was different, and there were more sports activities, but the daily and weekly rituals of Jewish life were the same: tefillah, kashrut, birkat, kabbalat Shabbat, Shabbat, and havdalah. The camp was an extension of my Jewish life, and I was happy.

Those pleasant memories of camp have endured over the years, and recently I was swept with a sense of nostalgia when I read "How Goodly Are Thy Tents": Summer Camps as Socializing Experiences by Amy L. Sales and Leonard Saxe. The authors have completed a comprehensive study of Jewish camps throughout the twentieth century, rich in detail, and based on site visits, interviews, and written records of Jewish camps. While I might have been more engaged in my reading had the authors used more anecdotes and related more personal recollections from campers across many years and generations, Sales and Saxe offer detailed information through tables and charts about demographics, attitudes, criteria, and "Jewishness," broadly defined.

The criteria for inclusion in the census of camps in the study were: Jewish ownership, at least half the participants identify as Jews, and categorization of the camp as Jewish in its promotional materials. Based on these criteria, the authors identified 191 mainstream camps¹ which serve approximately 81,000 Jewish children. To illustrate the spectrum of camp philosophy and sponsorship, they place the mainstream camps into three categories: community camps (those sponsored by Jewish federation or communal agencies), movement camps (such as Zionist or denominational camps), and private for- and not-for-profit camps with a broad spectrum of Jewish practices. These categories, however, are more historically interesting than they are relevant to understanding the nature of the contemporary Jewish camp experience, since 70 percent of the camps today are broadly mainstream. The most apparent distinction remaining between community and private camps appears to be the degree to which the former group serve more needy children.

In fact, despite the authors' impressive efforts to utilize their research findings, the major drawback to the study is that the essential Jewish identity of the summer camps remains elusive. What makes each of the camps "Jewish" always appears to be just out of reach: Is it shared values related to Jewish culture, practice or commitment? Sales and Saxe convey wonderful stories about distinctly Jewish practices at particular camps, and one has a sense of the great variety of experiences and possibilities Jewish camps can provide. At the same time, their study also suggests a certain fragility about Jewish camps. The Jewish camps described exist because the owners and key personnel are Jewish, or the campers represent a particular market niche, usually regional, or a combination of both. Many trends in society—for example, the growth of short-term, intensive theme camps, such as technology, video production, or theater arts—can change the popularity and, ultimately, the viability of traditional Jewish camps.

One drawback of "How Goodly Are Thy Tents" is the extensive use of figures and tables throughout the book—there are more than thirty. Some are...