Our Story

We are Jewish and interfaith parents who want to share the experience of Jewish summer camp with the next generation. We couldn’t find the right camp to suit our values so we decided to build our own. Some of us attended Jewish summer camps as children and even credit these places with sculpting who we are today. We all agree that one of our essential roles as parents leading the next Jewish generation is to establish a Judaism filled with joy and traditions that link us to our ancestors. At the same time, we oppose that our Judaism must be tied to the modern state of Israel.

In the spirit of the General Jewish Labor Bund of the 19th Century, we believe that “where we live, there is our country!” We commit to connection with the place and people where we reside (The Midwest region of the United States for many of us) and that liberation is only achieved when all are free. Thus, we identify with the political struggles of our neighbors in the diaspora and aspire to live by the lessons of Jewish text and tradition.

Rather than telling you a single story, we plan to share stories from our families on this page in the future.

For now, we will share our own.

A note from the founders:

From the start of our relationship we agreed that if we one day had children, those children would go to a Jewish summer camp. In the summer of 2025, we realized that the time to choose a summer camp for our two children was rapidly approaching. Rachel had grown up attending Jewish summer camp, where she made lifelong friendships and her Jewish and personal identity were shaped. We hoped to give our kids a similar experience but found there was one major problem with all of the existing Jewish camps in our research: at American Jewish sleepaway camps, Judaism goes hand-in-hand with uncomplicated and uncompromising support for the modern state of Israel. 

Rachel took the kids to visit a camp and was aghast to find that they had arrived at the tail end of “Israel Day.” It was nearly two years into the decimation of Gaza after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israeli flags were tattooed to campers’ faces and the national flag was posted throughout the campus. It was unsettling and upsetting to see this blind patriotism for the country making war and spreading hate, all while claiming that it represented Jews across the world. This did not, does not and will never represent the Judaism our family practices.

The options for Jewish summer camp seem to be either: go to a place that promotes nationalism and neglects to share the realities of the Palestinian experience OR don’t go to Jewish summer camp. It became clear that a third way had to be built. We call it Camp Doikayt.

The foundational belief is that we oppose Zionism. As “Anti-Zionists” we follow in the footsteps of Audre Lorde, who insisted on the importance of acting as an "Anti-Racist" as opposed to a “Non-Racist”. The difference is that both “Anti-Racism” and “Anti-Zionism” are movements that call for active, deliberate resistance that names oppression and demands societal transformation.

We believe that people, and not states, have the right to exist. We believe in the abilities of Jewish tradition and ritual as transformative technologies that can enhance and beautify human lives. From there, we dream and we build. We carry our rage and our heartbreak about the world with us, but given the space to dream, what will we try to make and who will join us? 

Early on, it was easy to relate with the concept of “doikayt”, Yiddish for “hereness”. Instead of centering a longing for the “thereness” of a faraway state, we believe in and have faith in Jewish diasporism. 

We believe that our home is where we live. We aim to belong to wherever we are, and to work to make that place as good as it can be with those who arrived before us. 

Wherever we camp is Camp Doikayt. 
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here. 

Rachel Ellison and Dylan Maysick, co-founders