Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps

by Sarah Bunin Benor, Jonathan Krasner, Sharon Avni

Overview

Winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813588759
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	326
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

SARAH BUNIN BENOR is professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College and courtesy Professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California. Her books include Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism, published by Rutgers University Press and winner of the Sami Rohr Choice Award for Jewish Literature.
 
JONATHAN KRASNER is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Education Research at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.  He is the author of The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies.
 
SHARON AVNI is professor of Literacy and Linguistics at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and a Research Associate at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I   Past
1          Hebrew Infusion in American Jewish Summer Camps, 1900-1990
2          Camp Massad in the Poconos and the Rise and Fall of Hebrew Immersion Camping
3          Camp Ramah: A Transition from Immersion to Infusion
Part II  Present
4          A Flexible Signifier: Diversity in Hebrew Infusion and Ideology
5          The Building Blocks of Infusion
6          “Sign” Language: Visual Displays of Hebrew and Jewish Space
7          Bringing Israel to Camp: Israeli Emissaries and Hebrew
8          Conflicting Ideologies of Hebrew Use
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

"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." 

author of Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism - Shaul Kelner

"The research contained within Hebrew Infusion sits at the nexus of the fields of Hebrew education and camp education and touches upon the field of Israel education. Those whose research agenda sits within these fields will find that Hebrew Infusion provides a new set of data points worthy of examination and may even generate new research questions worthy of study."

Journal of Jewish Education

"An extremely important contribution towards the study of a major aspect of the American Jewish Diaspora community and to sociolinguistics."

author of The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History - Bernard Spolsky

"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."

author of Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments - Jenna Weissman Joselit

"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."

author of Fighting to Become Americans: Jews, Gender and the Anxiety of Assimilation - Riv-Ellen Prell

"Speaking Camp Hebrew: Jewish summer camps offer kids a unique linguistic landscape," by Jenna Weissman Joselit
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/286444/speaking-camp-hebrew

Tablet Magazine

Summer camps are rarely studied as significant social and linguistic experiences. This book is a first, as it shows how the infusion of Hebrew into English in Jewish summer camps emblematically establishes local solidarity and diasporic identity. The book offers an enlightening, new perspective on American Jewry in relation to Hebrew and Yiddish at the same time that it stands as a sociolinguistic landmark.

author of The Development of African American Language: From Infancy to Adulthood - Walt Wolfram

"Hebrew infusion offers insightful viewpoints from sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to approach the Jewish ‘sacred national treasure—the Hebrew language’ and its importance to the Jewish American community via CHE....A truly useful book for scholars of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology, and Jewish education."

Language in Society

"One of the most interesting aspects of the analysis presented in Hebrew Infusion can be found in the five values that the authors identify as motivating the use of Hebrew in American Jewish summer camps of today. These are: Israel, Judaism, Distinguishing Camp from Year- Round Life, Camp Tradition, and Jewish Collectivity."

Hebrew Higher Education

"Hebrew Infusion is the remarkable result of a 7-year collaboration to explore and illuminate Hebrew language use, teaching, and learning in American Jewish camps. Bringing together historical, sociolinguistic, and applied linguistic perspectives, the authors examine the organization and meanings of Hebrew infusion practices and how they have varied over time and across settings. The authors effectively apply multiple theoretical frameworks to tell the story of how Hebrew has been deployed in camp contexts to construct local, national, and transnational understandings of Jewishness. For any scholar interested in the relationship between language and community, this book is essential reading."

Associate Professor of Teaching & Learning and Linguistics at The Ohio State University - Leslie C. Moore

Hebrew Infusion is an impressive and well written scholarly work that extends our understanding of American Judaism both past and present. It is a profound academic work, and at the same time it avoids jargon and may serve as a relevant reading for teachers and educators.”

Adi Sherzern Jewish History

Hebrew Infusion introduces a new concept into the study of post-war American Jewish camping and transforms our understanding of Hebrew’s place in American Jewish life. A happy combination of history, sociology, linguistics, and education, it will be widely discussed among scholars, practitioners and policy makers alike. 

author of American Judaism: A History - Jonathan Sarna

"Funny things happen on the way to heritage language revival. Creolized languages develop to serve even more useful functions for identity and community for migrants. This book offers a fascinating study into the emergence of "camp Hebraized English" in American Jewish summer camps. It provides another rich example of how translingual practices serve the needs of diaspora communities."

author of Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations - Suresh Canagarajah

This is an excellent scholarly book that deeply examines the multiple dimensions of using Hebrew at Jewish summer camps, a major pillar of Jewish education in the United States. The authors weave together the extensive data, collected from a vast number of overnight summer camps, to trace the historical arc of the policies, implementations, and goals of Hebrew, and arrive at major conclusions regarding the unique character of Hebrew infusion - a process and product that allows for tremendous local creativity but that also raises questions about the transnational nature of Israeli Hebrew. The book will be of great interest to varied audiences: researchers of multilingualism, language teachers, and Jewish educators who are interested in creating and improving Hebrew education programs, as well as those who personally experienced Jewish camps as campers or staff.

author of Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches - Elana Shohamy

"In this lively and engaging account of the rise of Hebrew content at Jewish-American summer camps, the authors illuminate the cultural work of language across generations."

author of Children's Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp - Leslie Paris

"This engaging book delves into the use of Hebrew in the Jewish summer culture camps of the United States. While there is a call by some leaders to do Hebrew immersion to create proficient speakers, camps find immersion difficult to accomplish. Paralleling Native American language/culture camps and other language revitalization programs, infusion of heritage language allows Hebrew speakers to feel personally attached to their own beloved language by using what they know in daily conversations, even as the rest of the conversation is English. While there are differences between the situations of endangered indigenous languages vs. Hebrew for the Jewish diaspora, the many similarities establish this volume as a recommended read for everyone involved in endangered and minoritized language survival."

author of Bringing our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families - Leanne Hinton

"Hebrew Infusion is a good read for anyone interested in Jewish summer camps....The breadth and depth of the data, drawn from observations at 36 camps, as well as survey and historical research, are also praiseworthy....Hebrew Infusion’s singular focus on the use of Hebrew at summer camps is thorough, capturing its emotive sound and deepening our understanding of the Jewish summer camp experience."

Contemporary Jewry

Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at Jewish Summer Camps is a reminder that words matter and that relationships are shaped by language. At a time when “social distancing” has disrupted our sense of community, the ways in which the Jewish camps build connections through language seems ever more important. The authors weave together a fascinating linguistic, historical and sociological assessment of how Hebrew is taught and used to socialize children not just to communicate, but to experience being part of something larger. Its lessons are more important than ever.

author of How Goodly Are Thy Tents: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences. - Leonard Saxe

Hebrew Infusion is an impressive and well written scholarly work that extends our understanding of American Judaism both past and present. It is a profound academic work, and at the same time it avoids jargon and may serve as a relevant reading for teachers and educators.”

American Jewish History - Adi Sherzer

"What a fascinating teach-in about a subject so often discussed in passing but rarely seen up close -- the use (or not) of Hebrew in Jewish schools and camps and why (or whether) it matters to modern American Jewish identity. Finally a book about that elusive creature 'Hebrew School Hebrew!'"

author of The Creole Debate - John H. McWhorter