Camp Massad (Poconos)
Camp Massad (Machaneh Massad/מחנה מסד in Hebrew) was a Jewish summer camp, which originated as a day camp in 1941 with 30 campers, and eventually grew to three sleep-away camps in the Pennsylvania Poconos serving over 1100 campers. Massad's creator, Shlomo Shulsinger, emphasized Hebrew language as a key value in a multi-denominational Jewish Zionist environment.
Given the goal of an immersive Hebrew-language environment, Massad became the locus for a good amount of new Hebrew vocabulary, e.g. to describe American sports. Massad's focus on spoken and written Hebrew extended to publishing a literary periodical and a hardback Hebrew-English dictionary.
Like many Jewish summer camps founded in the 20th century, Massad offered parents the opportunity to put their children in a bucolic setting, an appealing alternative to the sweltering cities, where Polio was a concern.
Massad's influence on other major Jewish camps was significant. The founder of Ramah attended, and Camp Morasha and Moshava both modeled themselves after it.
The camp shut down in 1981. The Tannersville grounds are used during the winter for snow tubing, but you can still see the remains of many of the bunks and the dining room there.
The Massad movement also created four camps in Canada (Montreal, Winnipeg Beach, and Torrance), two of which (Camp Massad of Manitoba and Camp Massad of Montreal) still exist.
The three volumes of "Kovetz Massad" document Camp Massad's culture and history. The first volume, published in New York in 1978, focused on Massad summer camps in the United States. The second volume, published in Jerusalem in 1978, was dedicated to Hebrew camping in North America, including a historical survey of several Hebrew camps and sociological data on the integration of Massad alumni into Israeli society. The third volume, published in Jerusalem in 1991, is a pictorial history of Camp Massad's forty years.
Notable alumni
- David Berger
- Noam Chomsky
- T. Carmi
- Alan Dershowitz
- Menachem Golan
- Blu Greenberg
- Hillel Halkin
- Ephraim Kanarfogel
- Ralph Lauren
- Jay Lefkowitz
- Haskel Lookstein
- Michael Mukasey
- Dennis Prager
- Joseph Telushkin
- Leeor Jerushalmy
References
- http://www.forward.com/articles/3946/
- http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=10040
- http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a7141/News/New_York.html
- http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Modern/ModernSocial/Camps.htm
- http://www.columbia.edu/~dv2018/Simulatingthenation.pdf
External links
- Edited footage of the Jewish-American Massad summer camp in 1948 from the Speilberg film archive
- 1941 staff picture
Coordinates: 41°13′05″N 74°52′12″W / 41.218°N 74.870°W