Overview

In the decades directly following the Holocaust, American Jewish leaders anxiously debated how to preserve and produce what they considered authentic Jewish culture, fearful that growing affluence and suburbanization threatened the future of Jewish life. Many communal educators and rabbis contended that without educational interventions, Judaism as they understood it would disappear altogether. They pinned their hopes on residential summer camps for Jewish youth: institutions that sprang up across the United States in the postwar decades as places for children and teenagers to socialize, recreate, and experience Jewish culture. Adults' fears, hopes, and dreams about the Jewish future inflected every element of camp life, from the languages they taught to what was encouraged romantically and permitted sexually. But adult plans did not constitute everything that occurred at camp: children and teenagers also shaped these sleepaway camps to mirror their own desires and interests and decided whether to accept or resist the ideas and ideologies their camp leaders promoted. Focusing on the lived experience of campers and camp counselors, The Jews of Summer demonstrates how a cultural crisis birthed a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life.

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Sandra Fox is visiting assistant professor of Hebrew Judaic Studies and Director of the Archive of the Jewish Left Project at New York University, and founder and executive producer of the Yiddish-language podcast Vaybertaytsh: A Feminist Podcast in Yiddish. Sharon Freedman is an actor, narrator, producer, and international arts educator. Her acting credits include Just Beyond (Disney+), Chicago Med (NBC), Henry Danger (Nickelodeon), Cold Winter's Night (Emmy Award winner), It's Your Birfday (with Keith David), Ladies Room (official selection of Slamdance), and The Ski Trip (LOGO Network). She won a Scenie Award for best actress in a comedy for her lead role in Ensemble Studio Theater/LA's Pigs and Chickens. She's done commercials and voice-overs for everything from A&E to Volkswagen and has narrated books for PRH, Tantor, Findaway, Pink Flamingo, and Scholastic. She is the executive producer of Tisch Represents an organization dedicated to creating opportunities for under-represented voices in the television industry. She was cocreator and company manager of the play development organization The 24Seven Lab in NYC for seven years, where she developed work by writers including: Pulitzer winner Annie Baker, Tony nominee Lucas Hnath, Macarthur genius grant winner Sam Hunter, WGA award nominee Ron Fitzgerald, and Emmy nominee Cusi Cram. She was a resident teaching artist with B.R.I.D.G.E. Theatre Project, has taught internationally in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, and is currently at teaching artist at California State Prison. A member of the Obie Award-winning Partial Comfort Productions (NY), EST/LA, and an associate member of Sacred Fools, Sharon is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School.

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