Our Story

We are a group of Jewish and interfaith parents who want to share the experience of Jewish summer camp with the next generation. Unable to find a camp that suited our values, we decided to build our own. Some of us attended Jewish summer camp as children and credit it with shaping who we are today. We agree that one of our essential roles as parents raising the next Jewish generation is to build a Judaism filled with joy and rooted in traditions that connect us to our ancestors. At the same time, we reject the idea that our Judaism must be tied to the modern state of Israel.

First and foremost we commit to building a space dedicated to fun and play, where curiosity and open conversations are celebrated. We commit to connection with the place and people where we live — the Midwest, for many of us — and to the belief that liberation is only achieved when all are free. We stand with the political struggles of our neighbors in the diaspora, including the Palestinian people, and aspire to live by the lessons of Jewish text and tradition.

A note from the founders

When we began dating in 2014, we agreed that if we one day had children, those children would go to a Jewish summer camp. Rachel had grown up attending Jewish summer camp, where she forged lifelong friendships and shaped her Jewish and personal identity. We wanted that for our kids too — the friendships, the songs, the sense of belonging to something larger than yourself.

In the summer of 2025, as our two children approached camp age, we visited a camp and ran into something we hadn't expected. Rachel and the kids arrived at the tail end of "Israel Day." On a wall was a mural quoting Torah: "צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף" — "Justice, justice shall you pursue." Nearby, campers had Israeli flags painted on their faces, and the national flag flew across the grounds. It was nearly two years after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which was followed by the ongoing devastation of Gaza. It became clear that the curriculum offered campers a single, uncritical narrative, with no room for the human toll or the region's full history. Watching that was hard to sit with. A country that claims to speak for and protect Jews everywhere was causing tremendous harm — and calling it uncomplicated. That is not the Judaism we learned in synagogue or at camp: not the tradition of tzedek tzedek tirdof, not a Judaism that asks us to see the humanity in everyone. We found ourselves asking: is this the only way to raise Jewish kids in community?

Rachel joined groups of parents and community members working to open up that conversation — to bring more dialogue about Israel-Palestine into camp curriculums and other mainstream Jewish spaces. They found little (mostly no) institutional appetite for the kind of change we were asking for.

The choices for Jewish families like ours felt limited: send your children to Jewish camps built around a single political narrative, or no Jewish camp experience at all. We didn't think that had to be the only option. So we built one.

We call it Camp Doikayt.

Our foundational belief is that Jewish tradition and ritual are transformative technologies — capable of enhancing and beautifying human life wherever we live. Our Jewish values help us live meaningfully, in connection with all of humanity, including all people who have known oppression, our Palestinian siblings among them. We work toward a future in which everyone in Israel-Palestine can live with equal rights, safety, and dignity, free from apartheid. We know that as individuals, there is only so much we can shape in the world. What we can shape here and now is how our children are raised — so we choose to give them more tools than we had: an understanding, early and often, that our own freedom is bound up with the freedom of all living beings. We look to the philosophy of Mariame Kaba, who teaches that anti-racism "does not only react against [white] supremacy, but [it is] an active, continuous project of building new, caring societal structures." We understand anti-Zionism is in conversation with this same idea — not only as opposition to a political project, but as a commitment to building something better for everyone in its place. None of us arrived here with all the answers — we're shaping this from the ground up, and we invite you to build and learn alongside us.

Given the space to dream, we choose to build a Jewish space that does everything a good camp should: a place where kids can be fully themselves, where silliness is sacred, and where being and doing Jewish is a joy — interwoven with a curriculum that uplifts and cares for all people. We do this in connection to the land where we camp.

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

Rachel Ellison and Dylan Maysick, co-founders