-Andrew Fretwell-
Americans are the new Jews. Yes, that’s right. The most powerful nation in the world is quickly on its way to finding itself in a uniquely similar position with the (until recently) most powerless people in the world. Don’t let a massive capitalist economy, state of the art military, puffed up government distract you, Americans are quickly becoming the new Jews of the world, tumbling towards a Galut.
I of course don’t mean that in the literal sense that Americans are soon to be invaded, conquered and scattered to all corners of the Earth the way the Jews were. This American Galut will look very different while carrying some central similarities. The physical exile of America has begun, but it has taken place internally. It occurred during the white flight of the twentieth century and gained speed with the explosion of Suburbia, which is where our exile takes place: Suburbia is our Babylon.
Of all the early Zionist writers who detested Galut, the one I find most compelling is AD Gordon. His denunciation of life in the Diaspora as shallow and empty went beyond cultural trappings, messianic yearnings, political power or military prowess. His pining for an end to exile was planted firmly in his desire to connect to nature and place, which he could only do through embracing Eretz Yisrael. Gordon’s critique was as much a slap at the industrial urban tendencies of Europe as much it was a protest of the state of Jews. Were he in America today, he would only protest more vehemently. Not only can America find direction in Gordon’s spiritual guidance, it can also look to the Jewish community here for one type of resistance to the chasm between place and identity that has grown out of Suburbia: Summer Camp.
I’ll speak of my own experience with Jewish summer camp and how it has shaped my understanding of self, identity through love of a place. I have attended or worked at Camp Tel Yehudah in Barryville, NY, the national summer leadership camp of Young Judaea, for nine of the past ten years and I’m heading back for my tenth in June. I and countless other TY campers/staff/alumni, as is the case with many sleep away camps, feel a powerful bond to this specific place and its natural elements (the trees, grass, river, hills, wildlife, weather, rocks, dirt and creeks). The 150 square acre plot of land offers a physical, emotional and even spiritual anchor for us. Camp give us not only a community that is safe for our campers and staff in which to live, it is safe to learn, grow, play, push, question, trust and drop inhibitions in a way that is so hard to find in a steel, cement and vinyl siding world. This is only possible with the combination of the mission of the camp, the people who make up the community and of course having a natural space to do so, which brings people close to their environment, nature, each other and themselves. A bunk is nothing like a dormitory and a grassy field can never be replaced by a quad.
The Jewish community has utilized camping to keep its community vibrant and to be a source of constant invigoration and identity. However, as American society at large falls further into the depths of Suburbia and a spiritual-environmental galut, the need to improve, innovate and expand this industry becomes that much more critical, not just to American Jews, but maybe to even to the rest of our country.
If we as a country don’t figure this out, and if we American-Jews don’t lead the way, I fear that over the last 100 years American Jews will have just traded one galut for another.
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