Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps
Hebrew Infusion
Winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity
Hebrew Infusion Book Trailer
Each summer, tens of thousands of American Jews attend residential camps, where they may see Hebrew signs, sing and dance to Hebrew songs, and hear a camp-specific hybrid language register called Camp Hebraized English, as in: “Let’s hear some ruach (spirit) in this chadar ochel (dining hall)!” Using historical and sociolinguistic methods, this book explains how camp directors and staff came to infuse Hebrew in creative ways and how their rationales and practices have evolved from the early 20th century to today. Some Jewish leaders worry that Camp Hebraized English impedes Hebrew acquisition, while others recognize its power to strengthen campers’ bonds with Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people. Hebrew Infusion explores these conflicting ideologies, showing how hybrid language can serve a formative role in fostering religious, diasporic communities. The insightful analysis and engaging descriptions of camp life will appeal to anyone interested in language, education, or American Jewish culture.
"Benor, Krasner and Avni have written a paradigm-shifting work that promises to reshape Jewish educators’ basic approaches to the whys and hows of language learning."
- Shaul Kelner, author of Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism
"A lively, evocative and wide-ranging account of American Jewry's complex and often maligned relationship with Hebrew, this important book is as much about community as it is about language. In finding creativity where others have found fault, Hebrew Infusion challenges us to rethink our assumptions about the cultural grammar of the modern Jewish experience."
- Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments
"The first serious work on Hebrew in Jewish summer camps is as important a work of history as it is an ethnographic study of a range of contemporary camps. This book will become an essential work not only for those interested in Jewish American cultures, but other diaspora communities in the United States, who face remarkably similar issues. An outstanding contribution to all of those interested in language, culture, and identity."
- Riv-Ellen Prell, author of Fighting to Become Americans: Jews, Gender and the Anxiety of Assimilation