{"id":5904,"date":"2011-08-24T14:59:16","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T18:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=5904"},"modified":"2011-08-24T09:42:42","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T13:42:42","slug":"ny-times-summer-camp-caters-to-jewish-kids-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-summer-camp-caters-to-jewish-kids-of-color","title":{"rendered":"NY Times: Summer camp caters to Jewish kids of color"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camp Be\u2019chol Lashon (\u201cIn Every Tongue\u201d) in the hills of California’s Marin County about 35 miles north of San Francisco is an ordinary\u00a0youth camp, “right down to poison oak and bug juice,” according to Samuel Freedman writing for the New York Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

The camp “caters to an emerging population of Jews of color,” he notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s Christians of all colors and all kinds, and Muslims of all colors and all kinds,\u201d Amalia, 11, said over Shabbat lunch, \u201cthen why would Jewishness be any different?\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her fellow campers, Josh Rowen-Keran, 14, who was born to black and Korean parents and then adopted by an interracial couple in the Bay Area, sounded similarly nonchalant. \u201cBeing Jewish isn\u2019t looking a certain way,\u201d he said. \u201cI could look at anyone and not know if they are or aren\u2019t Jewish. You can\u2019t know till you know the person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freedman continues:<\/p>\n

Yet what strikes these children as the same old same old, an American-Jewish community of multiple hues and heritages, has arrived as a seismic change. Religiously and historically, Judaism has generally placed little emphasis on evangelism and conversion.<\/p>\n

While Israel\u2019s law granting instant citizenship to any Jew has brought it a sizable number of Ethiopians and Indians, the American Jewish picture has looked much whiter. As the largest group of Jewish immigrants to the United States, those from Eastern Europe have set the cultural tone since the early 1900s. Their folkways \u2014 bagels, Yiddish, New Deal politics, Borsht Belt jokes \u2014 became a virtual religion. Which meant that nobody from outside could ever get completely inside.<\/p>\n

Entering the new century, however, the demographers Gary and Diane Tobin conducted a survey that estimated that 10 percent of America\u2019s six million Jews were nonwhite. Their route into the community had been through conversion, adoption and interracial parentage, rather than Ellis Island. (Other scholars place the number slightly lower, at roughly 450,000.)<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camp Be\u2019chol Lashon (\u201cIn Every Tongue\u201d) in the hills of California’s Marin County about 35 miles north of San Francisco is an ordinary\u00a0youth camp, “right down to poison oak and bug juice,” according to Samuel Freedman writing for the New York Times. 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