Thank You, Daily Caller, for Red-Baiting Camp Kinderland

Katie Halper 
July 20, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/168983/thank-you-daily-caller-red-baiting-camp-kinderland

First of all, I'd like to thank the Daily Caller and
Americans for Limited Government for red-baiting Camp
Kinderland. For one, I'd be upset if they praised us.
Also, it allows me to experience to a very limited
degree the 1950s, in all of its McCarthyist glory,
without having actually lived through it.

Erica Groshen, Obama's nominee for commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, evidently sent her children
to Camp Kinderland. We should probably look at every
educational institution any child of any nominee has
attended to make sure we don't turn any Communist into a
government appointee.

But since I don't have time for that, let me tell you
some of the things we do at camp that the ALG and Daily
Caller would consider subversive.

1. We sing civil rights songs, which must sound like
nails on a chalkboard to them.

2. We sing songs from other countries in languages that
aren't even American.

3. We learn about countries that aren't even American.

4. We commemorate the Holocaust.

5. We commemorate the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.

6. We make really good friends.

7. We have socials where we dance.

8. We go swimming in the lake.

9. We make collages-and yes, we do make dreamcatchers
and God's eye.

10. We play soccer, though not very well.

In all seriousness, as an alum and former counselor and
the director of the soon-to-be-released documentary film
about the nearly ninety-year-old Camp Kinderland, I know
the camp intimately enough to say that involvement with
it only enhances a person's abilities as a citizen and
public servant. ALG's report, which (mis)informs
yesterday's Daily Caller article attacking Groshen,
quotes me as saying that "The values and the politics
are built into the programming of the camp."

That is true. And the core values of Kinderland can be
traced back to old roots. Principle One was
Menschlichkeit-the Yiddish word for humaneness-that
thrived in the caring for others among impoverished,
oppressed Jews in Eastern European towns, and in the
intellectual and industrial centers of Eastern Europe
cities. Jews often participated in and often led
intellectual and social movements for fairness and
justice for all, which included a concern for life
beyond one's self and one's group, and the commitment to
end injustice and make a better life for all humankind.

As campers, Erica Groshen's kids would have lived in
bunks named after people that lived by the principles of
Menschlichkeit-Hannah Senesh, Harriet Tubman, Shalom
Aleichem, Emma Lazarus, Woody Guthrie and others, Jews
and non-Jews alike whose lives made a difference for
other people. Unlike most other sleep-away camps, there
are no color wars at Kinderland but rather the World
Peace Olympics, where the cultural program, learning,
and cooperation weave their way through athletics. And,
oh, yes, the sports shack is named for Puerto Rican
Roberto Clemente, for the major league outfielder who
died in a plane crash on his way to Nicaragua to
distribute food and supplies to earthquake victims.

A parent visiting Kinderland would see kids singing
songs about peace, civil rights, workers' rights and
love; dancing hip-hop and folk dances; debating about
ecology, race, gender, law and more, both in history and
the future. It is no surprise that Kinderland campers
often apply their apply study and discussion to action,
for that is what being a true human being, a mensch,
means in the core tradition of the camp.

The Kinderland I know and that Groshen and her children
would have known is a place that welcomes all, and tries
to make children nothing more-and nothing less- than the
ideal at the heart of Menschlichkeit. As one counselor
says at the end of my film: "We're trying to teach
people how to be a mensch." That's the story that the
Daily Caller should be writing, but to say that Erica
Groshen sent her kids to a camp with humanitarian roots
would not make a headline.

About the Author

Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and
filmmaker based in New York. 

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate