Camp is a safe haven, and right now, we really need one
Image by iStock
Image by iStock
The first Jewish summer camps were founded at the turn of the 19th century as a youthful escape from squalid urban living. Out in the country, children could grow in little pockets of bliss separated from worldly ill. There was dancing, playing, swimming and very little worry.
As time passed, camps of all sorts emerged, fitting the niches of camper interests and parent values. Some infused religion into their programming, thinking that constant reminders of Judaism would enrich young lives. Others focused on sports, arts, even socialism.
But there was a common thread to each: escape, almost utopia. Whatever the world lacked, camp provided. Whatever the world had too much of, camp quieted. Non-Jewish camping, whether in the Boy Scouts or elsewhere, shared the same impulse. Maybe it’s the air, the lack of adults, or even the food (probably not that one), but somehow, camp becomes holy ground. A little Garden of Eden in the modern jungle.
My own camp story began in the 1970s — a long time ago, especially considering I was born in 1998. In the summer of 1976, Tracy Hockfield first met George Gordon at Camp Harlam, a Reform Jewish enclave in rural Pennsylvania. Tracy and George were long-distance friends for a few years before starting to date on the camp’s trip to Israel, staying together through college and marrying in 1989. I was born, the third of four siblings, in 1998.
Camp was never really a question. My siblings and I would go to Harlam, as my parents did, and we would love it. In our home, camp was talked about with a reverence I imagine others have for Moses, or maybe heaven. When my dad talked about his years at camp, his voice lost 30 years. He and my mom would giggle and hug in a way that intrigued me as much as it grossed me out. What was the magical place that made my parents googly-eyed kids?
Somehow, my siblings and I soon agreed, camp was even better than advertised. July days in the sun of Kunkletown, PA were magical. I don’t quite understand how the magic took place, but it did. The other ten months of my year were filled with butterflies and text threads with my camp friends. My favorite camp song is called “Summertime Forever.” It begins “I only wish that we could stay, and spend the rest of every day, in the place where it’s summertime forever.” I’d think the cultish message was creepy if I hadn’t witnessed camp myself, but I have. Camp usually works like an otherworldly cure-all.
I have never needed camp’s escape more than right now. It will not be news to you that a deadly virus is stampeding through the globe. I would give anything for a sunny afternoon of Gaga with my friends, or even a rainy day of cards in the bunk. Honestly, instructional swimming would be a dream these days. This is why closing camps this summer hurts so much. Camp is the place we go to get away, and we need to get away now more than ever.
Nothing I’ve written here should be seen as an argument against closing camps. Now that I’m an adult, I recognize that no amount of elbow grease or Jewish dancing can stop a pandemic. The logistics of running a camp this summer are terrifying, and smarter people than I have judged them insurmountable.
But despite the necessity of closing camps, I think it’s useful to illustrate the immensity of our pain at doing so. Young people feel like their ground is being shaken, like the thesis of camp is a lie. That should be honored, even as the world deals with grander problems.
Every camper has to learn, eventually, that camp cannot really protect us from everything. I remember when my friend’s grandfather passed one summer from cancer. My friend was taken home, and his difficulty was multiplied by the shattering of his camp sanctuary. Still, the following summer, he came back to camp, and was immediately transported back to its majesty. Camp may be even sweeter once we realize its protection is imperfect. We may never again take it for granted.
As “Summertime Forever” goes on to say, “I’ll see you when summer comes again.” It will.
Jake Gordon is a recent graduate of Northwestern University and incoming student at Harvard Law School. He is the author of a collection of short essays titled Tears to Ice Cream.
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