Camp Boiberik
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Camp Boiberik was a Yiddish cultural summer camp founded by Leibush Lehrer in 1913. In 1923 the camp purchased property in Rhinebeck, New York, where it would remain until closing in 1979.[1] It was the first Yiddish secular summer camp in America at the time.[2]
Affiliated with the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute,[3] named after Sholem Aleichem, Boiberik was named after Sholem Aleichem fictional village of Boiberik. Camp Boiberik is a secular, apolitical institution which emphasized Yiddishkeit or Yiddishkayt,[4] or Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish folk culture, including songs, dance, food in the tradition of the Borscht belt, theater, and humor. Although non-religious, Boiberik observed shabbos and kept a kosher kitchen.
Boiberik had interactions with and was somewhat similar to Camp Kinder Ring.
The name 'Boiberik' appears as a town in which the Tevye stories by Aleichem are set, as a fictionalization of the resort town Boyarka.
In 1982, the former campgrounds were purchased by the Omega Institute which currently resides there. Omega hosted a reunion of former campers in 1998.[5]