Yehuda Kurtzer
Every summer, thousands of American Jewish teenagers leave their homes to spend weeks making trouble and memories in what might be their favorite place in the world: summer camp. But Jewish camp isn’t just fun, games and reenactments of Aliya Bet; it’s a place for Jewish kids to learn about history, ritual and belonging, an opportunity for teens to understand themselves as part of the Jewish story.
Host Yehuda Kurtzer is joined by Sandra Fox, Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew & Judaic Studies at NYU and author of The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America, for a conversation about summer camp and its role in the formation of American Jewish identity. In a conversation that ranges from Color War to hookup culture to Yiddish immersion, they explore the ways in which Jewish camping has always been, and continues to be, a site for the negotiation of the American Jewish community’s hopes and anxieties about its future.
Identity/Crisis: The Ideas Behind the News is a podcast of the Shalom Hartman Institute.
A transcript of this episode is available here.
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In a frenzied media cycle, Identity/Crisis delves into the big ideas behind the news from a uniquely Jewish perspective. Host Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, talks with leading thinkers to unpack current events effecting Jewish communities in North America, Israel, and around the world, revealing the core Jewish values underlying the issues that matter to you.
