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Professor Sandra F. Fox Ph.D., New York University, History and Hebrew & Judaic Studies will trace the history of romance and sexuality in Jewish summer camps and illustrate how Jewish youth themselves are forcing camps and groups towards a safer, more thoughtful future . It will be held on November 2, 2022, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation. Fox is currently in the process of publishing her book entitled The Jews of Summer: Hopes, Dreams, and Jewish Camping in Postwar America.
The evening, sponsored by Shir Chadash Sisterhood, its Men’s Club and Hadassah, will consist of a talk on ‘The Hookup Culture in Jewish Youth Spaces,’ a Question-and-Answer session and a dessert reception. It is open to the public.
Summer camps and youth groups have long been known in the Jewish community as powerful sites for altering the identities of children and teens, using fun, recreation, and experiential education as their primary tools.
According to Fox, as rates of interfaith marriages began to rise in the late 1960s, however, one of their main goals became encouraging young Jews to find romance and potential husbands and wives.
“Jewish camps and youth groups became rather sexually liberal spaces during and well after the Sexual Revolution with this new goal mixing with the broader culture climate, “ Fox said. “But in the 1980s and 1990s, the communal focus on future “Jewish babies" revved up dramatically, with young Jews bearing the brunt of this focus.
“In the years since #MeToo in particular, teen and twenty-somethings have called out their educators and leaders for allowing Jewish camps and youth groups to become spaces of intense sexual pressure, blurred boundaries, power imbalances, and harassment in service of this larger goal.”
Fox’s other professional appointments included Senior Researcher with a Concentration in Education & Jewish Studies as well as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University. She was also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Ben Gurion University Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism.
The link to Fox’s website is: www.sandrafox.net
Her book can be preordered at https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35390.
To make reservations, contact Shir Chadash Sisterhood President Charisse Sands at annsandsc@aol.com or (504) 231-6464.
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