This year’s camp is open to families. We don’t have counselors yet, so kids need their grownup(s) to camp with them! We imagine elementary school to middle school aged children would likely enjoy the programming most.

The short answer: it costs what you’re able to pay.

The longer answer: the actual cost per attendee is approximately $262. With that said, we do not want anyone to be left out due to financial constraints, so we are offering a sliding scale model. Please note that sliding scale models work when those who are able to pay beyond the cost do so.

We do not have a permanent physical site at this time. For this summer’s family camp, we will be renting an established camp on Lake Geneva in southern Wisconsin. If you would like more specific information please reach out. You will get details on the location upon registering for camp. 

When and if other cities/regions start chapters of Camp Doikayt, we will provide updates!

Our first camp experience will be held on Labor Day weekend of 2026! You can view more details and reserve a spot by clicking on the Family Camp program option on our events page.

If this summer’s session goes well, we will be looking to expand the offering to additional dates and eventually offer additional non-family camp sessions for youth, as well as year-round community events. We plan to continue to host family camp each summer over Labor Day as well.

A couple of weeks before camp families will receive a detailed packing list that includes clothing,
bedding, toiletries, and optional comfort items to help families feel prepared and comfortable.

We have created a newsletter, which you can subscribe to by scrolling to the bottom of any page on this website where you can sign up.

We will be posting periodic updates on our website too.

We do not have any social media accounts because we want to focus our energies on building camp, not responding to comments on social media posts. We are a small volunteer-run group at this point and do not have the bandwidth at the moment, in short. This is also in the interest of protecting the privacy of families associated with camp.

No.

We use this term in honor of the great civil rights and feminist activist Audre Lorde who said that it is not enough to be non-racist. We must stand directly in opposition to the wrongs we see played out before us. This was relayed to us by Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago when we asked the same question of him. There is no getting around it. 

At this moment, it seems to us that if you’re going to hold a Jewish summer camp in the US there are options something like this: 

-be a Zionist identifying camp

-be a “don’t talk about politics” or perhaps a no-ideology camp (the same as silence = complicity, to us)

-have an agenda or ideology but don’t be outward about it

-be an Anti-Zionist camp and say what you mean 

The last one seemed the obvious choice for us.

We also borrow from the philosophy of Mariame Kaba: that Anti-Racism “does not only react against [white] supremacy, but [it is] an active, continuous project of building new, caring societal structures.” We see Anti-Zionism in dialogue with all of these ideas.

In short, we use this term because we are not interested in sharing Nationalism with the next generation. 

We are building something from the ground up here and we have a long way to go. Even in these early days of planning we have been so grateful to friends of Camp Doikayt who have volunteered their talents and expertise. Whether you’re an attorney, a designer, an accountant, a photographer, a teacher, a fundraiser, or feel you have something else to offer, we’d be happy to have your help!

It literally means “hereness”, which is a sentiment we borrow from the Bundists of the past. We aim to do our part of Tikkun Olam by way of mutual aid and genuinely connecting with the people and places where we reside here and now.

While the history of the Ashkenazi Jewish Left (as connected to Eastern European Jewish heritage) receives far more attention than its Sephardi or Mizrahi counterparts, particularly relating to recent years’ expanding coverage of historic Jewish anti-nationalist movements, the truth is that our Jewish history is not only one spanning geographic diversity — it has always been a history rich in multicultural depth wherever here was. The Sephardic-derived framework of poly-enracinement (French for “multi-rootedness”) speaks to this reality— “we” have never been a people of either/or (“safe vs not,” “diaspora or Eretz Yisrael,” etc.) as zero-sum colonial, ethno-nationalist frameworks would have us believe. We have remained a people of both / and, of building and bridging within the complexity of our here-ness all along, the world-over. If doikayt as a name is intended to affirm place and presentness, poly-enracinement is a parallel framework that evokes the beautiful complexity of our ever-evolving relationship to we.

We at Camp Doikayt are proud of the multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-and-interfaith present that is the Jewish community. Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi Jews, family to Jews, Jews by Choice, identitfy as Just Jews — all us are proudly and joyfully here in this place called camp!