Serious Fun at a Jewish Community Summer Camp

Reviews / Votes

[Rothenberg] paints an engaging picture of what actually does happen at camp....Rothenberg's book should be on the reading list of anyone interested in research about Jewish summer camp. * Journal Of Jewish Education * [Rothenburg] does an excellent job of analyzing how the experience of small town Jews is central to the ways in which the camp creates a Jewish world.... Rothenberg is most effective as the ethnographer with a strong grounding in the history of the region and the camp. She walks the reader through the life of the camp with a light, and...elegant touch. * Reading Religion * Unique in the literature on Jewish camping, this book provides an in-depth study of a community-based, residential summer camp that serves Jewish children from primarily rural areas. . . This research highlights the importance of campers' experiences of traditional elements of the Jewish "family". . . this study sheds light on how a small, rural, community camp contributes in significant ways to our understanding of American Jews, their Judaism, and their Zionism. * Israel Book Review * Over the last two decades we have gathered important empirical evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of summer camp in instilling Jewish identities for Jewish youth. The magic of Rothenberg's eloquent and well-written ethnography is that it reveals the inner workings of how camps actually do it! -- Randal F. Schnoor, York University, co-author of Back to School: Jewish Day School in the Lives of Adult Jews A wistful and nostalgic academic reflection on Camp Ben Frankel by the author, who is an alumna, that puts this small "Reconformadox" camp in the context of the American Jewish camp experience. A lovely and interesting read. -- Mara Cohen Ioannides Moving the analysis of Jewish summer camps beyond the well-trod campgrounds covered by earlier studies, Serious Fun places the experience of small town Jews at the center. By looking where others have not, Rothenberg offers new insight into how Jewish summer camps create a feeling of family and develop a folk Judaism of their own. -- Shaul Kelner, Vanderbilt University In Serious Fun at a Jewish Community Summer Camp, Celia Rothenberg delves into life at Camp Ben Frankel (CBF) today and in years past. Rothenberg has longtime ties to the camp and comes to her topic with great enthusiasm. She offers meticulous research and careful depiction of the camp's setting and layout as well as its population and program. At the same time, she appropriately holds her emotions in check until the Afterword, where she nostalgically expresses full feelings of love and appreciation for the camp. * Contemporary Jewry *