LGBTJ: The Queer Camp Experience, Cataloging the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Jews at Jewish Summer Camp
Location
PANEL: Jewish Studies Across Disciplines
King 101
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
4-26-2024 2:00 PM
End Date
4-26-2024 3:00 PM
Abstract
For decades, Jewish young people have spent their summers at sleep away camps. This paper focuses on the experiences of LGBTQ+ campers at Jewish sleep away summer camps in the United States through ethnographic research methods including anonymous surveys and one-on-one interviews. This project seeks to understand and uncover the systems and structures which have made Jewish summer camps socially and emotionally difficult spaces for queer-identifying campers. As an institution, the Jewish camping movement seeks to maintain Jewish tradition and culture by raising Jewish young people who will become the “Jewish future”. In doing so, they unknowingly allow for the perpetuation of heteronormativity and cisnormativity thus ostracizing their queer campers and not giving them the capacity to grow and develop into Jewish adults to the same degree as their cisgender and heterosexual peers. Social conditions such as a strong presence of hookup culture and gender binary can have significant influence on queer campers. This paper argues that Jewish summer camps have the responsibility to develop an environment which fosters inclusion and helps queer campers to feel appreciated and understand that they belong at camp and in the wider Jewish community.
Keywords:
Summer camp, Jewish, Queer, LGBTQ+, Hookup, Sex, Religion
Recommended Citation
Sacks, Leila, "LGBTJ: The Queer Camp Experience, Cataloging the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Jews at Jewish Summer Camp" (2024). Research Symposium. 14.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2024/presentations/14
Major
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; History
Project Mentor(s)
Shari Rabin, Jewish Studies and Religion
Emilia Bachrach, Religion and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
2024
LGBTJ: The Queer Camp Experience, Cataloging the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Jews at Jewish Summer Camp
PANEL: Jewish Studies Across Disciplines
King 101
For decades, Jewish young people have spent their summers at sleep away camps. This paper focuses on the experiences of LGBTQ+ campers at Jewish sleep away summer camps in the United States through ethnographic research methods including anonymous surveys and one-on-one interviews. This project seeks to understand and uncover the systems and structures which have made Jewish summer camps socially and emotionally difficult spaces for queer-identifying campers. As an institution, the Jewish camping movement seeks to maintain Jewish tradition and culture by raising Jewish young people who will become the “Jewish future”. In doing so, they unknowingly allow for the perpetuation of heteronormativity and cisnormativity thus ostracizing their queer campers and not giving them the capacity to grow and develop into Jewish adults to the same degree as their cisgender and heterosexual peers. Social conditions such as a strong presence of hookup culture and gender binary can have significant influence on queer campers. This paper argues that Jewish summer camps have the responsibility to develop an environment which fosters inclusion and helps queer campers to feel appreciated and understand that they belong at camp and in the wider Jewish community.
