Description:
About a century after the first Jewish overnight summer camps were established in
North America, Hebrew remains an important component of the camp experience.
Some camps use very limited Hebrew, such as blessings and a few terms like Shabbat
shalom and tikkun olam. Others incorporate Hebrew in activity names, announcements,
and theatrical productions. To understand better how and why camps use Hebrew,
the three of us—a sociolinguist, a historian of Jewish education, and an educational
linguist—conducted this study.