Building Home/Land: Jewish Summer Camps as Architecture of Zionism in America

Since its inception in the late 19th century, summer camping has become one of the most quintessential American activities. Jewish summer camps (camps attended by mostly Jewish patrons with varying degrees of religious and cultural programming) emerged during the same moment in American history. These camps and the culture they have produced have become so cemented in American consciousness, that even those who have not had first hand experience with Jewish summer camping, still understand its weight. This dissertation looks at the rise of the American Jewish summer camp movement in order to investigate what the role of the summer camp has been in forging a specifically American version of Jewish ethno-nationalism and identity. By looking into three aspects of Jewish summer camping – the precise relationship built to nature (both within the summer camp in the US and the Kibbutz movement in Palestine), the importance of intimacy for forging an intensity of group bonding and community-building, and the use of camp aesthetics as a disciplinary framework, rather than a liberatory one – this dissertation outlines the ways the Jewish summer camp has become an ideal site for Jewish nation-building, serving to strengthen the bonds Jewish Americans feel to the US and Israel simultaneously.Ph.D