Israel in the Poconos: simulating the nation in a Zionistsummer camp

Dan Lainer-Vos

Published online: 16 November 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This article develops a theory of simulation as a nation building mechanismby exploring the production of national belonging in Massad, a Jewish-Americansummer camp that operated in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, between 1941and 1981. Trying to inspire campers to Zionism, the camp organizers shaped Massad asa “mini Israel.” This simulation engendered national attachments by lending credenceto the belief that others, in Israel, experience more authentic national belonging. Ratherthan tempting campers to imagine the nation as a “horizontal camaraderie” (Anderson1991), national simulations allow members to account for their distinct and oftenambivalent position from within the nation. From this perspective, nation building isnot simply a matter of relativizing internal differences and dramatizing differencesbetween the groups that make up the nation and “outsiders.” Instead, nation buildingalso is centrally a matter of creating institutional routines and practices that allowmembers to account for their differential position from within the nation.

Keywords Nation-building . Ethnicity as cognition . Diaspora . Simulation as a socialprocess . Vicarious belonging . Zionism

In “Ethnicity as Cognition,” Rogers Brubaker and his colleagues argue that ethnicityand nationalism “are not things in the world, but perspectives on the world” (Brubakeret al. 2004, p. 45; see also Brubaker 2004, 2009). Instead of treating ethnic groups andnations as substantial entities, this perspective suggests that ethnicity and nationalismshould be studied as ways of understanding and identifying oneself, and of identifying,classifying, and making sense of others. This shift in orientation provides researcherswith analytical resources for studying group-making while avoiding the stubbornproblem of groupism—i.e., the tendency to treat ethnic, national, or racial groups asbounded entities to which interests and agency can be attributed.

Theor Soc (2014) 43:91–116DOI 10.1007/s11186-013-9210-3

D. Lainer-Vos (*)Department of Sociology, University of Southern California, 851 Downey Way, Los Angeles, CA90089-1059, USAe-mail: lainer-vos@usc.edu

Of central importance to this perspective is the question of how actors make sense oftheir particular position vis-à-vis the nation, given the deep differences that exist betweenthemselves and other national members. That is, nations are not homogeneous but arerather stratified along lines of class, gender, place of residence, religion, etc. (Chatterjee1993). These divisions, and the inequalities that accompany them, create social distanceand sometimes sharp conflicts between members. Yet somehow, members of the nationtypically think about their nation as a relatively unified grouping with clear boundariesbetween insiders and outsiders. What, then, are the interpretive schemas that allowmembers to see themselves as belonging to the same nation as others with whom theyshare sometimes remarkably little?1 Furthermore, where do these interpretive schemascome from? In other words, what are the institutional practices and routines that allowdifferentially positioned members to make sense of their place within the nation?

Scholars typically address these questions by examining the processes that generate arepresentation of the nation as a unifiedwhole. Benedict Anderson, for example, shows howthe development of print technology changed the experience of time and space in a way thatallowed people to imagine the nation as a “deep, horizontal comradeship” (1991, p. 6). Printtechnology, in other words, gave rise to an interpretive schema that rendered the nationimaginable. Others examine how various practices—narration (Bhabha 1990), mapping(Anderson 1991), archeology (Abu El-Haj 2001), commemoration ceremonies (Spillman1997), boundary making (Sahlins 1989; Judson 2006), and the issuing of variousidentification documents (Jenkins 1997)—allow persons to divide the world into “us” and“them” and think about themselves in nationally meaningful ways (Brubaker et al. 2004;Brubaker 2009). From these various vantage points, nation building is a process of creatingan imagined “we”; and the differences that exist among members are simply obstacles thatnational movements must somehow overcome.

While the construction of an imagined “we” is obviously important, this article examinesthe productive role that internal differences can sometime play in nation building (see Surak2012; Espiritu 2003). It suggests that when properly handled, internal differences betweenvarious groups can serve as an interpretive resource that allowsmembers to account for theirparticular place within the nation. Specifically, it suggests that the experience of nationalsimulation allows participants not somuch to ignore the differences between themselves andother nationals but, instead, to use these differences as they make sense of their unique placewithin the nation.

Simulations are sets of institutional routines and practices that participants define as anapproximation of some other scenario or activity that is defined asmore real (Hoffman 2006;Baudrillard 1988). National simulations are specific sets of practices that encourageparticipants to experience the nation as a tangible reality, even if only briefly and in highlyartificial settings. Such simulations turn the nation from a lofty abstraction into concrete

1 Building on the work of cognitive psychologists, Brubaker explains that schemas are not simply mentalrepresentations but a type of interpretive processors that guide perception, interpret experience, generateexpectations, and organize action (2004, pp. 74–78). Interpretive schemas have cognitive and affectivedimensions—they organize perceptual and emotive experience. Importantly, schemas allow actors to makesense of events even with only incomplete input. They allow actors to go beyond the information presented ata given case and imagine complete situations before they actually take place. Specifically, the schemagenerated by the experience of simulation allows actors to interpret a given situation as a sign of some otherevents. It allows actors to move from their immediate experience of a particular event in a summer camptoward the imagined community of the nation.

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experiences that participants relate to on a personal level. Instead of creating a sense ofundifferentiated membership, the simulation of the nation allows participants to believe thatothers, perhapsmore centrally locatedmembers, experience amore intense sense of nationalbelonging than themselves. In so doing, national simulations generate an interpretive schemathat allows participants to treat potentially alienating internal differences (for example,between American and Israeli Jews) as an inessential matter, and to think of themselvesas occupying a distinct and attenuated position within the same nation.

In order to understand how participants make sense of their differential positionswithin the nation, this article examines the production of national belonging atMassad,a Zionist Jewish American summer camp that operated in the Pocono Mountains ofPennsylvania between 1941 and 1981. The analytical value of this site is related to theuncertain and ambivalent position of diaspora communities. It is never entirely clearwhether members of particular diaspora community belong to their putative homelandor to their country of residence, or both. Regardless of their subjective orientation, byliving away from the putative homeland, members of diaspora communities betrayambivalence toward the national project (Brah 1996; Clifford 1997).2 The ambiguitiessurrounding diasporic belonging force actors to articulate explicitly what membershipmeans for them, and, importantly, render particularly visible the efforts to incorporatetheir members (Lainer-Vos 2010). Camp Massad, which operated in partial isolationfrom the American Jewish establishment and was intensely committed to Zionism,intensified these contradictions and makes for a particularly interesting research site.

Massad leaders, like many other Zionists, believed that life in the diaspora inevitablydistorts and generates a sense of marginality among Jews. Only in Israel, they argued, couldJews live an authentic and wholesome Jewish life (Raz-Krakotzkin 1993). To demonstratethe redemptive potential of Zionism, they shapedMassad like a “mini Israel,” and attemptedto engineer an experience of Jewishness as a wholesome totality, a type of nationalcommunitas where the differences between members disappear.3 The camp was Hebrew-speaking; its geography was modeled after Israel; and campers engaged in such communalZionist practices as agricultural work, singing, and hiking. To give campers first-handexperience with Zionism, Massad leaders also imported Israeli counselors to the camp.Camp leaders and campers alike routinely described Massad as a Yisrael B’zeir Anpin,literally, a “mini Israel” in the Poconos.4 Thus, in their efforts to create a transformativeexperience for campers,Massad leader created a simulation of Israel. They hoped that evena glimpse of this totality would inspire campers to embrace Zionism.5

2 In his essay on “long distance nationalism” (1992), Anderson cautions against the extremist andunaccountable politics of diaspora communities (members of diaspora communities, in general, do not facethe consequences of their actions). While diaspora politics betrays little explicit ambivalence, Anderson notesthat these struggles are typically waged by émigrés who have no intension to return to their putative homeland.3 Victor Turner describes communitas as an intense but fleeting sense of togetherness wherein internaldifferences dissolve (1966).4 The question of whether a simulation is authentic or, in this case, of whether Massad provided an idealizedor a realistic portrait of Israel is beside the point for the purpose of this article. Of key importance is the factthat campers and counselors related to the camp as a model of Israel and argued about this questionthemselves.5 Zionism comes in different flavors. The version of Zionism that was enacted at Massad reflected theideological leanings of its leaders and clientele. It combined elements of labor Zionism with an emphasison religious observance. In the first decades,Massadmaintained a non-denominational character and attractedcampers from diverse backgrounds. During the 1960s and 1970s, the camp became more strictly observantand attracted mostly orthodox campers.

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In practice, while being in Massad was enjoyable, campers experienced intensenational belonging only rarely and fleetingly and their relationships with the Israelisthat were imported to impress them were often uneasy. Nevertheless, many camperswere deeply inspired by Massad. This had to do with simulation. The brief momentswhen campers felt belonging to the Jewish nation as an engrossing reality, I argue, lentcredence to the belief that others, in Israel perhaps, experienced their membership in adeeper and more lasting manner. Thus, the simulation of the nation at Massad createdan interpretive schema that encouraged campers to sense national belongingvicariously, through the eyes of others.

The simulation at Massad permitted Jewish American campers to account for theirmembership without dismissing or relativizing the difference between themselves andother Jews (especially Israelis). Given their ambivalent experience, and the tensionsbetween Israelis and Americans that surfaced in the camp, campers could haveconcluded that Zionism was not relevant to themselves. But the simulation that wasplayed out in Massad offered an alternative to this conclusion. By suggesting that inIsrael the promise of Zionism was experienced more fully or more permanently, thesimulation transformed a potentially alienating sense of difference into an experience ofdifference that could be accounted for within the national framework. Campers couldtell themselves that had they lived in Israel, their sense of belonging would have beenmore intense. The spatial distance between Massad and the “real” Israel, in otherwords, served as a resource to explain the gap between campers’ actual experiencesand the promise of Zionism.

There is good reason to believe that simulated and vicarious national belonging are nota strictly diasporic phenomenon. While the existence of a state bureaucracy, a nationaleducation system, and mandatory military service makes an obvious difference in terms ofthe process of nation building and the everyday experience of citizens, even in the nation-state, in Israel for example, citizens experience an intense feeling of national belongingonly rarely and at carefully orchestrated events such as national ceremonies and heritagemuseums. Like Massad campers, thus, Israelis often experience a gap between theireveryday experiences and the ideological proclamations regarding what nationalbelonging is supposed to feel like. Whereas in diasporic settings spatial distance helpssubjects account for this gap, within the nation-state, I suggest, citizens often use temporaldistance to account for the same discrepancy and to make sense of their disenchantedexperience. The construction of temporal simulations (a model of a 1930s kibbutz, forexample) allows Israeli Jews to believe that once upon a time the founders of the nation,the halutzim, experienced belonging in amore intense and authentic way. AswithMassad,distance (this time temporal) from the “real Israel” enables members to account for theirown position in the nation. In both cases, simulations allow members to tell themselves astory about their difference within the nation.

In exploring the productive role that internal differences sometime play in theprocess of nation building, this article joins a small but growing literature.6 Studyingthe production of Japanese nationhood in tea ceremonies, Kristin Surak’s shows how

6 Scholars observe that return migration of co-ethnics sometimes prompts a reworking of the definition ofmembership, which results in a decidedly unequal “hierarchical nationhood.” Some members are consideredmore authentically national than others and this is reflected both in legal status and informal discrimination(Seol and Skrentny 2009; see also Triandafyllidou and Veikou 2002). Hierarchical nationhood, however, istreated in these works as a byproduct of return migration, not as a constitutive element of nation building.

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internal differentiation, especially the distinction between competent and incompetentperformers of the tea ceremony, provides a foil through which the nation is establishedand become meaningful (2012). In a diasporic setting, Yen Le Espiritu’s study of theconstruction of Filipino identity in the United States points in a similar direction. Sheshows how the distinction between allegedly more and less “Westernized” Filipino girlsserves to constitute the image of a homogeneous and distinct ethnic community (2003).The bottom line of these explorations is simple: the fundamental question of who weare can be explored and worked through not only through the “us vs. them” distinctionbut also, crucially, in relation to other members of the same category and especiallythrough the differentiation between better and less illustrious members of the nation.Studying the mechanisms that turn a potentially alienating sense of difference into aconstitutive element in nation building offers a promising frontier for scholars ofnationalism and ethnicity.

Benedict Anderson’s influential work suggests that the nation is imagined as anegalitarian and horizontal entity (1991, p. 6). Anderson and his followers are, of course,aware of the vast disparities that exist between members but these are linked to otherprocesses (stratification, gender relations, etc.), which in and of themselves are thoughtto have little to do with nation building per se. This conceptualization suggests that inprinciple, the nation is imagined as an egalitarian community in which members aremore-or-less functionally equivalent. Appreciation of the productive role of internaldifferences, however, suggests a more onion-like imagery of the nation. In this model,the nation is still an imagined community but it is imagined as a hierarchically stratifiedcommunity. Some members are imagined as more centrally located in the nation thanothers and these differences are not an aberration of the national ideal but a constitutivepart of the moral order of the nation.

This article is divided into four sections. The first section below develops a theory ofsimulation as a nation building mechanism. Then the next section explains the use ofMassad as a strategic research site to study nation building and introduces the data. Wethen move to a section that follows the camp from its inception and explores thepractices that were introduced in an effort to turn Massad into a captivating simulationof Zionism. The following section explores the reception of this simulation andexamines the interpretive schema that Massad created. The discussion examines howthe mechanism of simulation applies to nation building in other settings, and exploresthe implications of the analysis for our understanding of national membership.

Simulating the nation

Jean Baudrillard’s writings provide a useful entry point for a sociological understandingof simulations. Baudrillard examines Disneyland as a simulation of America. Visitors,Baudrillard argues, easily identify that the amusement park is artificial, but rather thanmaking it irrelevant, the explicit spuriousness of Disneyland helps people overlay akind of unity on the complex reality outside it (1988, p. 172). Disneyland as asimulation produces the belief that a reality different from Disneyland, one lesschildish, actually exists beyond the amusement parks gates. Explicitly acknowledgedas unreal, simulations generate an interpretive schema that invites actors to imagine the“real” America.

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Baudrillard’s analysis is relevant for studying nation building. Ever since thepublication of Anderson’s Imagined Communities, researchers in this field focus onpractices that generate a representation of the nation as a unified whole (Eley and Suny1996). The works of Richard Handler (1988) and Homi Bhabha (1990), in particular,examine how the difficulties and ambiguities involved in representing the nation as anunchanging, unified whole turn the nation into a taken-for-granted category. Morerecently, scholars began exploring “nation-work,” i.e., the social labor of objectifyingand turning the nation from an abstract concept into tangible experience (Surak 2012;Edensor 2002; Brubaker et al. 2006; Jenkins 2011). Key to this endeavor is identifyingand analyzing the various institutional routines and practices that partake in making thenation meaningful to potential members. Baudrillard’s work suggests an original way tothink about this process. After all, his analysis of Disneyland shows how actors makesense of an abstract national entity—“America.” Treating certain sites as a simulationof the nation may entice participants to imagine the “real” nation existing somewhereelse. The experience of a simulation of the nation, in other words, may give rise tointerpretive schemas that generate expectations, organize perception, and guideinterpretations in a manner that increases the salience of the nation. Yet, the conceptof simulation is rarely used to study nationalism.7 Baudrillard himself is preoccupiedwith the ontological status of the sign and treats simulation as a grand epochalphenomenon. His analysis of Disneyland is more a metaphor for the postmoderncondition than an analysis of simulation as a concrete social mechanism.

Anne Irwin’s work on simulations in military training (2005) and Steve Hoffman’swork on simulation in a boxing gym (2006, see also 2007) provide useful guidelines forsuch a project. On the one hand, simulations require members to associate concretepractices, such as military training in Irwin’s study, with other situations (e.g., combat)that are considered to be more real. In Irwin’s work, soldiers are asked to suspend theirdisbelief and take training seriously despite the explicit artificiality of exercises. Butsimulations are not simply make-believe. To be effective, simulations must be seen asdistinct from, but derivative of, some reality (Hoffman 2006). Soldiers must be able toidentify certain drills as approximations of real battle situations (which, more often thannot, they have never experienced). At the same time, simulations always take place inearthly settings and are therefore subject to practical constraints. These constraints tendto draw attention to the artificial nature of the simulation.

Irwin discusses these predicaments as twin problems of realism and reality. Theproblem of realism relates to actors’ evaluation of how closely a particular simulationaccords with what they imagine as real (combat) conditions, both in terms of the flowof events and the emotions they supposedly evoke. Importantly, the problem of realismcenters not on any objective correspondence between the simulation and the originalbut on actors’ evaluation of these relations. Solving the problem of realism requireseliminating differences between the simulation and participants’ imagination of the“real” scenario. This process is always selective. The organizers must select aspects ofthe real scenario that they see as essential and reproduce them in the simulation whiletreating other features as inessential. In military training, for example, soldiers often useblanks instead of real bullets. The noise of shooting is considered essential for thesimulation of combat situation; other elements are treated as inessential.

7 For exceptions, see Pemberton (1994), Srivastava (1996), and Wells (2007).

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The problem of reality refers to the actual physical, historical, and contextual factorsthat impinge on the simulation. In military trainings, budgetary and safety restrictions,as well as physical conditions like weather, or real injury, can “interfere” with anddetract from the perceived realism of a simulation. Typically, organizers handle thisproblem by constructing real and symbolic boundaries that protect the integrity of thesimulation from external intrusions.8 In military training, for example, the space andtime within which an exercise takes place are carefully demarcated and soldiers useagreed-upon code words to distinguish between real events and events that are part ofthe simulation. Regardless of these boundaries, however, countless factors related to thereality of the context within which a simulation is located may diminish the perceivedrealism of a simulation.

The construction of effective simulations requires balancing the demands of realismand reality. To increase realism, organizers typically include more features from the“real” scenario in the simulation. But this increase in realism is oftentimes costly andrestricted by various environmental, political, or economic constraints associated withthe reality surrounding the simulation. We can think about this balancing act in terms ofdistance. Effective simulations do not deceive participants into believing that theyexperience the real event (e.g., combat) but establish accurate distance between whatmembers imagine as the “real” event and the experience of the simulation. If thisdistance is too small, the simulation will be experienced as the real. If the distance isperceived as too big, the simulation will become irrelevant.

Simulations are used in the most diverse institutional contexts for various purposes(see Hoffman 2007), and they may also be used in national settings. Whereas inmilitary training solving the problem of realism consists of creating correspondencebetween imaginary battle and concrete training conditions, in a national setting solvingthis problem consists of establishing correspondence between the immediateexperience of the simulation and how actors imagine the experience of nationalbelonging. Since nationalists often describe membership in the nation as a deepcamaraderie, the construction of national simulations requires engineering this kindof emotional experience. 9 National entrepreneurs—in this case, Massadeducators—who wish to share their vision with others have to select certain practicesthat they see as essential and create situations wherein national belonging would beexperienced and affirmed. While in military simulations the problem of reality consistsof the blurry boundaries between training and everyday life, in a national setting thisproblem relates to the myriad historical and contextual factors that cut into theexperience of national belonging. Successful national simulations may offerparticipants—in our case, diasporic campers—a sense of what unencumbered nationalbelonging feels like without forcing them to overlook obvious differences betweenthemselves and other members of the nation.

8 This is very similar to the “rules of irrelevance” that Erving Goffman discusses in his analysis of games.Such rules allow participants to ignore those elements that are irrelevant to the interaction and immerse in agame (1961).9 Arlie Hochschild (1979) argues that political ideologies often include “feeling rules,” i.e., a set ofconventions with regard to the emotions that particular events should evoke. National entrepreneurs that seekto simulate the nation work toward creating a fit between these feeling rules and the actual experience ofparticipants.

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Method and data

In order to understand the production of national belonging, this article examines theencounter between national entrepreneurs and potential supporters. It treats nationbuilding as an organizational accomplishment by paying close attention to thedifficulties that camp leaders faced while trying to convert young Jewish Americancampers into committed Zionists, and to the solutions the leaders devised to accomplishthis task. A relatively isolated place where attempts to inspire campers to Zionism wereparticularly intense, Camp Massad provides a strategic research site for examining thisprocess. Like laboratory scientists,Massad leaders experimented with the production ofnational belonging.10 By tracing these experiments—the difficulties encountered, thereforms introduced, and the campers’ experiences—we can better understand theprocesses involved in producing a sense of national belonging.

Data for this study come from extensive self-documentation. Massad leaders placedcopious minutes of meetings, interviews, educational material, and copies of the camp’smagazines in the Central Zionist Archives (CZA) in Jerusalem. In addition, theypublished three large compilations of writings on and from the camp (S. Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1978, 1989b; Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv and Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv1991), and more recently issued three volumes of interviews with Massad alumni (R.Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1996a, b, 2000b). These documents allow me to reconstructthe practices that camp leaders developed and to catch glimpses of the campers’reactions. Reliance on self-documentation presents an issue of selection bias—theselected writings probably come from those who formed close relationships with thecamp’s leadership. For this study, however, such bias is not a drawback. My intention isnot to quantify accurately the camp’s effectiveness but rather to explore themechanisms developed there and to understand how this simulation affected thecampers’ sense of belonging to the nation.

Constructing “mini Israel” in the United States

The first Jewish summer camps in the United States were founded in the 1880s. Jewisheducators used the informal camp atmosphere to transmit diverse ideological messages(Frost 1989; Sarna 2006; Prell 2007; Krasner 2011). The Union of Hebrew Youth(UHY), a small non-denominational Jewish organization dedicated to revitalizingHebrew culture in America, joined this trend when, in 1941, it opened a ZionistHebrew-speaking camp called Massad (literally, “foundation”). The founder ofMassad was Shlomo Shulsinger. Shulsinger grew up in Jerusalem but during the1930s, when he was still a teenager, he moved with his family to the United States.Like other Zionists, Shulsinger questioned the vitality of Jewish life in the UnitedStates. American Jewish children, even those who go to excellent Jewish schools, heexplained,

10 The methodological inspiration for this study comes from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Callon 1999;Latour 2005). By paying close attention to the practical activities of laboratory scientists, ANT researcherslearn about the production of scientific facts. Similarly, following the practical activities of Massad leadersenables a better understanding of the production of national belonging.

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do not live a natural Jewish life as do Palestinian [Jewish] children…. IntensiveJewish education [in the US] … finds no expression in the life of the child in orout of school. His experiences are derived from an environment which does nothave any Hebrew character whatever. Radio, movies, newspapers, books,games—all the factors which go towards developing the child’s character andmode of living are far removed from Jewish realities…. This division between thetwo worlds tends to grow wider and in most cases becomes impossible ofbridging (S. Shulsinger 1946; see also S. Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1978, p. 274).

In Shulsinger’s perspective, the realities of Jewish existence in the United Statesprevented children from experiencing Judaism as an integrated and wholesome way of life.

Influenced by progressive educational philosophy (Krasner 2011), Shulsinger andhis wife and co-worker, Rivka, were committed to informal learning and stressed theimportance of surrounding campers with live Hebrew culture. Massad, they believed,needed

to consolidate the spiritual possessions that do not find full expression in theHebrew school, to heal the fractures in the heart of the child, and to give him,instead of marginality and artificiality, a world of cultural wholeness andharmony.11

By presenting Jewish life in America as deficient and suggesting an alternative,Massad educators invited campers to reflect on their existence and imagine anotherreality, where, allegedly, authentic and wholesome Jewish experience was possible.

To demonstrate the vitality of the Zionist alternative, the Shulsingers shapedMassadas a “mini Israel,” a place that would serve as “melting pot for the Jewish soul” (E. Z.Bernstein 1989:300).

The plan [of Massad] is designed so that the moral concept [of Zionism] … willfind expression in the camp’s everyday life. The camp’s institutions and activities… are tools in the hand of the counselor to develop the desire, as well as therecognition, of obligation (S. Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1989a, p. 230; see alsoEliach 1996, p. 19).

Coming mostly from Zionist families, Massad campers probably had heard aboutZionism before. The goal of creating the “mini Israel” was therefore not to introduceZionist ideology, neither was it to brainwash campers or force them into migrating toIsrael, but rather to give them a firsthand experience of what authentic Jewish life inIsrael may feel like.12 Such an experience, the Shulsingers’ believed, would impresscampers and generate strong ties of obligation toward Israel.

Massad and the problem of realism

Creating in the United States a “mini Israel” where campers would experience the“cultural wholeness and harmony” that Zionism purportedly offered was an enormous

11 “Instructions for Counselors,” CZA/F51/37.12 Like other Jewish American institutions (see Kelner 2010), Massad camps endorsed Zionism withoutchallenging or endorsing the principle of the negation of exile. Shulsinger saw Jewish migration to Israel as avirtue, but he refrained from urging campers to do aliyah.

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practical organizational challenge. Massad educators had to construct their camp insuch a way that campers would identify it as a model of Israel despite some obviousdifferences. In addition, they had to make sure that campers would associate the campwith something essential and exciting that they lacked. The construction of realism inMassad relied on three pillars: (a) using Hebrew in everyday life; (b) modeling thecamp after Israeli geography; and (c) fusing seemingly religious and national practices.

Like the Zionists in Palestine, Shulsinger believed that “… the Hebrew language isnot a costume or a means to the acquisition of knowledge alone but the interior and thesoul of the Hebrew culture.”13 Therefore, he insisted that all the activities in the camp,from organized sports and theatrical plays to conversations in the dining room andelsewhere, would be conducted in Hebrew.

Shulsinger accepted only campers with basic command of the language but eventhen, integrating Hebrew into Massad was not easy. Attempting to use Hebrew insports, Shulsinger realized that Hebrew lacked basic terms for activities such asbaseball. Therefore,Massad educators had to invent new terms. “Using the dictionariesthat we had and our intuition, [we created] new terms (which we use even today) inmany fields,” Shulsinger reported (1978, p. 267). Prior to the 1947 season, the camp’seducators composed a practical English-Hebrew dictionary that included more than3,000 entries (1989, pp. 274–275). In practice, the dictionary included many linguisticinnovations that were understood only at Massad. The word “hitchhiking,” forexample, was translated into “le’bahen.” This term is related to the Hebrew word forthumb, bohen, but it has no obvious meaning for native Hebrew speakers (Bloc 1989).

Hoping to entice campers to speak Hebrew, Massad educators turned every activityinto an informal lesson. The menus in the dining room were written in Hebrew. Incampaigns for the improvement of Hebrew, Massad leaders redesigned Americanpopular advertisements, replacing the English with Hebrew words. Hebrew lyrics wereinserted to popular English songs. The tunes of “Old Gray Bonnet,” “Yankee Doodle,”and even “This Land Is Your Land” served as basis for cheer songs in the camp’s allimportant sport contest, the Makabiah (Kabakov 1978, pp. 277–278). To securecampers’ cooperation, Shulsinger developed a special motivational scheme.Subtracting points or calling technical fouls for using English helped insert Hebrewinto the playing fields. Daily and weekly awards further encouraged campers to speakHebrew extensively (Spodeck 1974). As these examples illustrate, the importation ofHebrew to the camp was selective. The use of Hebrew-sounding words (in the case ofthe dictionary) and actual Hebrew (in commercials and songs), was considered essentialfor the creation of an authentic Israeli atmosphere, the content of the ads and songs (atleast in these cases), less so (see Fig. 1).

Israel was also brought to the American clientele by naming locations in the campafter places in Israel. The boys’ section, for example, was called Emek (valley), thegirls’ section was Galil (Galilee), and the pond was named Kinneret, after the originalSea of Galilee. Bunks, paths, halls, and even the surrounding hills were given namesborrowed from Israeli geography and history. These names were the basis for diverseeducational activities. In arts and crafts, campers prepared signs that illustrated thegeographical location or historical significance of their bunkhouse (typically namedafter early kibbutzim). Those more inclined to drama created short plays that revolved

13 Instructions for counselors, CZA/F51/37.

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around events and public figures in Israel. This elaborate naming scheme, obviouslyselective and partial, was designed to create an Israeli atmosphere in the camp.

Following the footsteps of the pioneers in Palestine (see Don-Yehiya and Liebman1981), Massad educators also fused seemingly religious rituals with Zionist Israelipractices. The Kabalat Shabbat and the Havdalah (religious rituals that mark thebeginning and end of the Sabbath) were celebrated in the outdoors, augmented withmodern Israeli dancing and singing. After the Holocaust, Tisha B’Av, in addition to itsmeaning as a holiday commemorating the destruction of the temples, was transformedinto a day of mourning for the victims of the holocaust (Spodeck 1974, p. 292). Each ofthese ceremonies was designed to instill appropriate “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1979)and help campers experience these emotions. The singing and dancing of kabalatShabbat was designed to generate jubilation. In contrast, the Tisha B’Av ceremony,when the Book of Lamentations was quietly recited to the light of candles, was designedto provoke solemn reflection on the sufferings of the Jewish people (see Meshulman1948). To complete the educational experience, the camp’s educators also imitated moremundane Zionist practices like hiking, cookouts, and agricultural work, effectivelyenacting the ideals of return to the land and productivization, in Pennsylvania.

To create the realism of their “mini Israel,” the Shulsingers selectively importedpractices from Israel and embedded them in the camp’s life. They treated somepractices, like Hebrew-speaking, as essential and made heroic efforts at inserting themto the camp. Other practices, such as playing Israeli sports, were deemed inessential andthe campers continued to play baseball (in Hebrew). The educational curriculumprogram in Massad created a unique atmosphere that campers and staff alike regularlyreferred to as “Yisrael Bi’Zeir Anpin,” literally “mini Israel” or “a miniature of Israel”(E. Z. Bernstein 1989, p. 300).

The problem of reality in Massad

The creative curriculum and endless energies of Massad’s educational stuff combinedto create a unique atmosphere. Campers and staff members often treated Massad as a

Fig. 1 A baseball game atMassad (the list in the background helps campers incorporate Hebrew in the courseof the game) (Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv and Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1991, p. 69)

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strange yet enticing model of Israel. Camper Riba Friedman, for example, explainedthat “In camp ‘Massad’ we live in a small Eretz Yisrael because the Hebrew languageand the holy atmosphere of the Sabbath are present with us. But we are not really there[i.e., in Israel]” (Alim 1952, CZA/F51/89). Tamar Jacoby, a visitor from Israel,described arriving to the camp as a dreamlike experience: ““Massad” is like seeingfamiliar scenes and looking at a well-known picture of a small Israel, abbreviated. Atfirst glance, it is the same thing and yet so different.” (1966) Friedman and Jacobyrealized that Massad was not really Israel, but, at the same time, they could not bringthemselves to label it inauthentic.

Although it is difficult to make broad assertions about the thousands of campers whopassed through Massad, some campers clearly were deeply inspired by activities in thecamp.Massad’s ceremonies, in particular, left a deep impression onmany campers. CarmiTsharni, for example, described themorning prayer inMassad as a captivating experience:

We put on tefillin and prayed by the lake. Tall trees moved in the wind and bowedas if bending their heads and saying “amen” to our blessings. I was reminded that“by the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we rememberedZion.” But here we were not by the river in exile. Hebrew filled the air; the lakebecame sacred by our prayers (1978, p. 338).

Campers also described the Tisha B’Av, Joseph Trumpeldor (famous Zionist martyr)commemoration ceremony, or Massad’s Sabbath routine as moments of “wholesome,enriching and edifying spirit” (Meshulman 1948; see also interviews with Jack Bloom,Chanoch Shudafsky, Rafael Arzt, and Gilda and Zvi Abramowitz, in R. Shulsinger-ShearYashuv 2000a).

Other practices, however, provoked more ambivalent reactions. Hillel Halkin, forinstance, recalled the activity of gardening, in which campers reenacted the Zionistideals of productivization and return to the land, as follows:

In reply to our constant complaints… the agricultural guide—a small, sad lookinglimping man with a heavy Russian accent that often played harmonica as wepointlessly scratched the soil with our rakes—used to mumble a fewincomprehensible sentences about the sacredness of labor and the need to go backto the land. Many years later I bumped into these exact phrases in the writings ofA. D. Gordon [a spiritual leader of labor Zionism] (1989, pp. 277–278).

While gardening was supposed to feel like a sacred duty, in practice it invoked mostlyboredom.

The use of Hebrew in the camp provoked particularly strong reactions. In general,campers were ready to speak Hebrew, but the practical difficulties of adopting a secondlanguage combined with the Shulsingers’ zeal sometimes provoked resistance.Recalling his days in Massad Halkin explained:

the English language—once outlawed—was given a new taste, that until then I havenoticed only in cursing. Even better, more joyous, was the comradeship shared by allthose who spoke English secretively. In a society in which the simplest speech-act,in one’s mother tongue, was a sign of revolt that could have great consequences ifheard by the wrong person, friendship was, it must have been, a gesture of completefaith (1989, pp. 274–275; see also Sperber 1996, p. 54).

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In other cases, the emphasis on Hebrew forced campers into silence. MiriamHarberg, a camper of the 1952 season, explained that, “In the first days I felt veryalienated. Everyone spoke Hebrew and I was afraid that I would not understand whatthey said. Every time Shlomo [Shulsinger] stood nearby I stopped talking altogetherbecause I was afraid” (Alim 1952, CZA/F51/89; see also Colodner 1996, p. 41).Halkin’s sarcasm and Harberg’s anxiety, of course, should not be taken as a sign thatMassadwas a site of cruel indoctrination. Despite his mockery, Halkin, like many othercampers, writes with deep affection and nostalgia. Rather, these memories testify to thecomplexities involved in creating a place where “the fractures in the heart of the[Jewish] child”14 actually heal.

Massad leaders were deeply aware of these difficulties. Typically, Shulsingerattributed these difficulties to environmental factors—factors pertaining to the realitywithin which Massad was nestled. Every summer, year after year, Shlomo Shulsingeridentified interferences that, in his understanding, diminished the realism of his “miniIsrael” and lessened the educational impact of the camp. To eliminate theseinterferences, he attempted successively to isolate the camp.

In 1941, in the first season, Massad operated as a day camp at Far Rockaway,Queens. Shulsinger described the summer as a success but members of the UHY, whilesupportive of the plan, felt that Massad had failed to realize its potential due tointerruptions from the campers’ everyday life (1978, p. 262). Apparently, themembers of the UHY believed that english-speaking or Yiddish-speaking familiesand the secular non-Jewish atmosphere of the city – the realities of everyday life inthe United States – diluted the transformative effect of Massad’s Hebrew culture. Thecamp’s goal of giving campers a taste of Jewish cultural harmony, they resolved,required a 24/7 full-board camp, away from the city.

Lacking funds to purchase his own camp, in the summer of 1942, Shulsinger usedthe facilities of Machanaim, an orthodox Jewish camp in the Catskill Mountains inNew York. However, there too, Shulsinger found the surrounding environmentdisruptive:

Our position in the midst of a camp that held cultural values and an atmospherethat are opposed to all our aspirations hampered our efforts to create a Hebrewenvironment.... Therefore we forced on ourselves segregation and isolation in allour activities; a type of voluntary ghetto. We saw that our campers and counselorswould not be involved and refrained from contact with the campers ofMachanaim in games and amusement (S. Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 1978, p. 266).

Shulsinger was not anti-religious, and Massad embraced many orthodox practices.Nevertheless, he believed that the presence of non-Zionist orthodox campers disruptedMassad’s Hebrew culture. The proximity of orthodox campers—the realities of Jewishlife in the United States—rendered the environment of Massad somehow lessenchanting. Therefore, during the winter of 1942, Shulsinger looked for an appropriatesite and eventually purchased a camp in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

But even in a completely separate camp, Shulsinger continued to identify problemsthat diluted the experience of “mini Israel.” Staffing the counselors’ ranks was anongoing challenge. American-Jewish counselors were not always proficient in Hebrew.

14 “Instructions for Counselors” (CZA/F51/37).

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Israeli emigrants, in contrast, were suspected of lacking ideological commitment toZionism. Searching for a solution, in 1951, the camp’s leaders launched a specialprogram named Machon Ma’ale (i.e., “Ascendance Institute”) for the preparation ofHebrew-speaking counselors. The program took Massad’s 16- to 18-year-old campersand introduced them to Zionist teachings and counseling techniques. In this way,Shulsinger hoped, Massad would eliminate its dependence on external staff(Moskowitz 1978).

AlthoughMassad employed only Hebrew-speaking counselors, the non-educationalstaff was mostly non-Jewish and English speaking. Gradually, Shulsinger identified thisnon-Hebrew presence as a hindrance. The waiters, he suspected, prevented Hebrewfrom penetrating the dining room. Eventually, he restructured the camp’s curriculum toalleviate the problem. From 1960 on, the 15-year-old campers entered a new divisioncalled Prozdor (literally “hallway”). This age group, which already showed signs ofdisaffection, was given more independence and free time. In return, Prozdor campersshared withMachon campers the responsibility of serving meals. During the late 1960s,Yeshiva University students replaced even the kitchen staff. In the end, the camp wasentirely Jewish and Hebrew-speaking (1978, p. 292).

Despite these reforms, creating an authentic Israeli atmosphere continued to beproblematic. Rivka Shulsinger maintained that American counselors

… lack the freshness of the counselor who comes directly from reserve duty inthe IDF [Israeli Defense Force], from the life in the Kibbutz or from the benchesof the university and everything in him is sparkling; and this sparkling overflowsand influences the youth that comes in contact with him (1978, p. 292).

Somehow even Massad’s homegrown staff failed to create the Israeli atmosphereRivka Shulsinger was looking for. Therefore, from 1968 onward, Massad importedshlichim (literally, emissaries) from Israel to work as counselors during the summermonths. The Israelis, Rivka Shulsinger argued, provided more than a solution to astaffing problem. Unlike other counselors, the shlichim, she claimed, treated theirmission as a sacred duty and their presence added

a Jewish-Israeli atmosphere that is original and authentic. This environment—thatis the result of cooperation between the founders, the educational staff and thecounselors from Israel—penetrates the campers’ bones and he needs it like air forbreathing as he grows (1978, p. 291).

Despite their alleged devotion, incorporating the shlichim into the camp wasdifficult. For many of them, working in Massad provided the first opportunity to visitthe United States. As a result, Rivka Shulsinger complained, a “significant portion ofthe working time [was] waste[d]… in planning the after-work tour, or in overexploitingthe vacation days…” (1978, p. 295). Some shlichim, it seems, were more interested inseeing America than in representing Israel.

Even when they were present, the shlichim had difficulty in relating to the campersand the American staff. Campers repeatedly complained that the Israelis were rigid andmilitaristic and that they were not good in sports (Bernstein 1996, p. 29).15 On their

15 Baseball, the most popular sport in Massad, was not played in Israel (see Alim 1968, CZA/F51/8; minutesof campers’ evaluation committee, August 4, 1975, CZA/F51/13).

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side, the shlichim claimed that the American children were spoiled, selfish, andexcessively individualistic, and complained that they spent most of their time policingthe campers. Instead of mingling together, the Israeli shlichim tended to create a cliquewithin the camp.16 Tensions between campers and counselors are, of course, quitecommon in summer camps. But the point here is that these tensions were interpretedalong the Israeli-Jewish American axis. Instead of demonstrating the essential unity ofthe Jewish nation, the presence of the shlichimmay have proved the opposite. Trying toprevent cliques, Massad leaders spread the shlichim across different positions andrefrained from assigning them as counselors to the younger cohorts (R. Shulsinger1978, pp. 294–295).17

Some of the difficulties with the shlichim were related to the attitude they broughtfrom Israel. Some shlichim, perhaps informed by tensions between religious andsecular Jews in Israel, avoided morning prayers and refused to wear yarmulke in thedining room, two practices that were quite central at Massad (R. Shulsinger 1978, p.294; see also Korbin 1996). Rivka Shulsinger also complained that the “member of the[Israeli] delegation [did] … not always understand the principle of ‘live Hebrew’ thatgovernsMassad. He is prepared, too quickly, to avoid the obstacles this principle posesin order to establish a connection with the camper” (1978, p. 296; Winner 2000). Someshlichim used language as merely a tool of communication and had to be informed ofthe spiritual significance of speaking Hebrew.

As it turned out, the shlichim brought with them problems relating to their ownreality—curiosity about “America,” hostility toward religion, a pragmatic use ofHebrew, and even sometimes negative attitude toward American Jews—that frustratedthe Shulsingers’ attempt to create an enchanting “mini Israel.” Paradoxically, the “realIsraelis” disrupted the “mini Israel” that was enacted at Massad. In search ofappropriate shlichim, Shulsinger became increasingly involved in the selection of thedelegation, eventually flying to Israel and selecting the shlichim himself (Spodeck1974:97).

As the previous pages illustrate, the attempt to create a “mini Israel,” a place wherecampers would experience national belonging at first hand, was a complex practicalchallenge. To increase the realism of their mini Israel, Shulsinger and his staffselectively imported Israeli practices that they deemed essential to the creation ofwholesome Jewish-Israeli atmosphere while constantly striving to eliminate what theysaw as external interruptions, which reduced the transformative potential of the camp.The challenge, it must be emphasized, was not one of eliminating differences betweenMassad and the real Israel but of balancing between realism and reality and creating acredible model of Israel. Massad’s creative use of Hebrew provides a vivid illustrationof this point. Recall that Shulsinger introduced a significant number of Hebrew-sounding neologisms. The use of Hebrew increased the realism of the camp. Theneologisms, on the other hand, were forced by the realities of life in the United States.Without these amusing neologisms, it would have been probably impossible to playbaseball in the camp. Over-proliferation of these Hebrew-sounding words, however,could have led to the development of unique “Massad culture” that had little to do with

16 See minutes of meetings with camp directors, July 24, 1968; August 4, 1969; August 5, 1970, August 1,1972; July 31, 1975; July 29, 1976 (CZA/F51/16); see also report by Roni Lifshitz (CZA/F51/2).17 The records are unclear but, apparently, the Israelis did better with the older children.

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Israel. To produce the “mini Israel” in Massad, Shulsinger and his associates had toimport enough practices so as to keep Israel in the picture and quickly adapt thepractices to the realities of Jewish life in the United States.

The rise and fall of Massad

The camp’s historical trajectory provides another indication of the difficultiesassociated with engineering the “world of cultural wholeness and harmony” thatZionism purportedly offered. During the 1940s, Massad’s enrollment grew steadilyas it attracted campers from various Jewish denominations. To meet the growingdemand, in 1948, the Shulsingers opened a second camp, Massad Bet (literallyMassad B), in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania; in 1968, a third camp, Massad Gimel(Massad C) opened nearby. During the late 1960s, Massad camps hosted more than athousand campers and counselors for nine intense weeks of activities. But sustainingthis environment over the long run proved difficult. During the late 1940s and 1950s,the conservative and reform movements established their own summer camps (Prell2007; Sarna 2006). Once the reform and conservative campers left, campers fromsecular families felt increasingly out of place and eventually, during the 1960s and1970s, Massad’s population became almost exclusively orthodox but the numbers ofthese dropped too (Frost 1989; Stareshefsky 1996; Shulsinger-Shear Yashuv 2000a).

Some of the difficulties thatMassad experienced were directly related to the attemptto create a “mini Israel” in the camp. To create an Israeli atmosphere,Massad educatorsinsisted that campers engage in practices like farming and Israeli communal singingand folk dancing. During the 1960s, however, these pioneer-era practices were deemedout of touch with the “real” Israel. David Bernstein, for example, recalled that “nobodywanted to do it [Israeli dancing] anymore… it had become passé…. We were willing tosing all the songs of Six-Day war … but we knew that in the streets of Jerusalem,people are not dancing like that anymore” (1996, p. 27). Instead of Israeli dancing,campers now demanded ballroom dancing and insisted on carrying their own radioplayers. Responding to campers’ demands, Shulsinger dropped farming from thecurriculum and agreed to organize dancing nights, but he insisted on playing onlyclassical music, which contained no lyrics, not rock-n-roll.18

When the first signs of trouble appeared, the Shulsingers believed that a renewedemphasis on Hebrew-speaking and Zionism—in other words, intensifying thesimulation of Israel—would stem the losses, but in the following years the crisisdeepened. In 1972, facing declining registration, the Shulsingers sold Massad Gimel.Later, the Shulsingers agreed to accept campers for only half a season. After theShulsingers’ retired in 1977, their successors faced internecine struggles between thosewho wanted to preserve Massad’s original “Israeli” character (increasing realism) andthose that sought stricter religious observance in effort to address the changing realitiesof Jewish life in the United States and attract more orthodox campers. However, evenwith stricter observance Massad’s enrollment continued to decline and eventually, in1981, the camp closed for good (Frost 1989).

18 For some reason, perhaps because it was not considered authenthic enough, Israeli pop music was notwelcomed either. See minutes of meetings of camp directors, August 5, 1968, August 4, 1969, June 30, 1971(CZA/F51/14, 16, 13).

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While the camp provided moments of unforgettable excitement, the constantreforms, the difficulties involved in the absorption of the Israeli schlichim, and theeventual decline of Massad suggest that Shulsinger’s attempt to create a place whereincampers would experience the wholesome promise of Zionism 24/7 was less than fullysuccessful. The camp leaders sensed that something was missing and that their clientelefailed to experience the sense of belonging they had in mind. In response, they engagedin never-ending attempts to import more “genuine” elements from the “real” Israelwhile increasingly isolating the camp from external interruptions so as to makeMassadinto a truly transformative space.19 The Shulsingers tried to fashion an intense andlasting Zionist communitas (Turner 1966) but, in practice, they probably created a funsummer camp, and the moments of true enchantment in the camp remained rare andfleeting.

Simulating national belonging in Massad

Massad’s ambivalent reception and constant reforms should not be taken as a sign thatthe camp failed to inspire campers. Retrospective testimonies suggest that the camp hada lasting influence on at least on some campers. Camper Jack Bloom, for example,recalled that “[those] years at Massad formed my [Jewish] identity, more than my dayschool education, more than my becoming a conservative Rabbi, [and] surprisinglyeven more than numerous visits to Israel.” (2000, pp. 12–13.) Many Massad alumnialso stress the specifically Zionist influences of the camp. Lawrence Korbin explainedthat “the use of Hebrew… and the Zionist themes combined to create what we wouldcall today a subliminal feeling for Israel and for the Zionist ideal (1996, p. 22; see alsoKreiser 1996, p. 31; Moskowitz 1996, p. 29; Meshulman 1948). The “mini Israel” thatwas enacted in Massad was new and exciting for Israelis as well. Some schlichimtestified that only in Massad did they fathom the true meaning of Zionism. “Readingthe ‘Scroll of Lamentations’ in exile, when you listen to the Tikva [the Israeli anthem],”Jacoby recalled, “you feel closely things that you just … thought or imagined, or whatyou did not understand.” (HaDoar 1966).20 To be sure, campers did not come to thecamp as a blank slate. Massad attracted families that identified with Zionism and it isprobably safe to say that most campers (and counselors) were predisposed to Zionismeven before setting foot in the camp. Nevertheless, through the camp’s mediation,abstract ideas became real and moving.

This appreciation of the true meaning of Zionism, I suggest, was in part a product ofthe simulation that was enacted atMassad. The “mini Israel” that was played out at thecamp provided campers with a sense of familiarity with Israel. This point can bediscerned in the extracts above but a more striking illustration of this effect comes

19 In many settings, the presence of “outsiders” such asMassad’s English-speaking staff does not pose specialdifficulties. Participants, in such settings, usually erect symbolic boundaries and exclude outsiders using whatErving Goffman described as “rules of irrelevance” (1961). The presence of waiters in a romantic restaurant,for instance, does not necessarily ruin intimacy (although a particularly bad waiter can accomplish that). InMassad, however, this presence was repeatedly interpreted as interruption that calls for isolation. Thisresponse, I suggest, is related to the difficulties in creating the experience that the camp’s leaders tried tocreate. The English-speaking staff, from this perspective, was a useful scapegoat that helped accounting for thefailure to create a sense of wholesome belonging.20 For similar accounts see folders F51/27, F51/31, F51/32, F51/86-8 in the Central Zionist Archive.

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from letters of Massad alumni that travelled to Israel (featured in the camp’smagazines). Ziva Meyzlish, for example, wrote:

I have only one complaint and that is that Massad is too much like the country.Things got to the point that for some time I did not feel as being in the country butrather [back] in Massad, and I am not the only one that thinks this way, practicallyevery Massadnik here agrees with me” (Hedim, undated, CZA/F51/94).

Recalling her visit to Israel in 1949, camper Peggy Frost explained: I felt very muchat home. I remember writing a letter … and quoting: ‘Is it real or is it just a dream’[from] Rachel’s poem” (2000, p. 21; see also Artz 2000, p. 43; Kleinhaus 2000, p. 30;Abramowitz 2000, p. 47).21

Other campers, however, identified a mismatch between Massad and what they sawin Israel. The Israelis she met, Hannah Domler reported, refused to sing pioneer-erasongs and many of them had a “demeaning attitude toward religion.” Domler was alsodisheartened to discover that “‘American’ materialism was very developed amongIsraelis.” Importantly, however, Domler was not disillusioned. Her letter describeshow, eventually, she found the “Israeli spirit” in a visit to kibbutz Lavi (a religiouskibbutz that was probably quite similar to Massad). In “these places one can still findthe idealism of the Israelis” she confided with the campers (Hedim 1960, CZA/F51/94).The tour in Israel confronted Domler with diverse experiences, some of them entirelyout of sync with her experiences in the camp or with her expectations from Israel. Insome respects, it seems, the original failed to live up to the model. But Domler comes toIsrael already equipped with interpretive schemas that allow her to handle thismismatch in a way that did not question the existence of the original. Her priorexposure to the “mini Israel” allowed her to identify the true essence of Israel in aremote kibbutz. Thus, the simulation atMassad provided campers with interpretive lensto discover the “true Israel” even in Israel.

ThatMassad failed to engender lasting enchantment is easy to understand. As VictorTurner points out, communitas is always a fleeting moment (1966). But how can oneexplainMassad’s lasting influence (without glossing over the fact that the campers hada rather mundane experience)? Thinking about Massad as a simulation helpsunderstanding why the failure to create an enduring enchantment did not result indisillusionment. The simulation inMassad always pointed to another place, which wasconsidered to be more real and authentic. The brief moments of enchantment thatMassad successfully engineered suggested that somewhere else, not in the Poconos butin Israel, people experienced national belonging in a more intense fashion.

The shlichim were instrumental in highlighting the differences between thesimulated and the original, between Massad and Israel. For example, YaffaBinyamini, a shlicha from Israel, explained:

Here in the camp it is excellent, but when the summer months end they [thecampers] must leave it and then they are again thrown into the gentile world,which is not our world. [This world] causes dual-personality; [it] causes “bi-nationalism.” If there is a place in the world where we can be only Jews [and]

21 Curiously, this excerpt is taken from Perhaps, in which pioneer-era most noted poetess Rachel Bluwsteinwonders aloud whether her own wholesome experiences in Palestine were real or just a dream.

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raise only the Israeli flag, to speak only Hebrew, to live a wholesome and freeJewish life all the time, it is in the land of Israel! (Central Zionist Archive/F51/17,emphasis in original).

Comparisons of this sort were a common practice in Massad (see Jacoby 1966;Tzachor 1978). They suggested that the cultural wholeness of Zionism that was onlypartially and temporarily fulfilled at Massad could be or in fact was more fullyactualized in the “real” Israel. In that sense, belonging to the nation in Massad wasto a large extent a vicarious phenomenon. Massad, I suggest, did not actually provide“a world of cultural harmony” but it sustained the belief that the “fractures in the Jewishsoul” could be healed, in Israel.

Importantly, the gap between the model and the real, as well as the differencebetween the camp experiences and what Zionism was supposed to feel like, was notan obstacle for the Zionization of the campers. Rather, it was the condition that enabledZionism to make sense in the United States. First, this difference allowed the shlichimto present themselves as authentic representatives of Zionism. Second, this gap alsoaccounted for the difficulties in absorbing the Israelis into the camp. The shlichim weredifferent, but their difference was attributed to their distance from America, not to someessential fissure separating Israeli and American Jews. Accounted for in this way, theIsraeli difference no longer threatened the perception of the Jewish nation as anintegrated whole. Most importantly, the promise of wholesome Jewish existenceremained elusive at the camp, but the brief moments of enchantment sustained thebelief that in Israel the Zionist utopia was closer to a reality. 22 The rarity of thisexperience did not discredit the Shulsingers’ Zionist vision because, after all, thePocono Mountains were not in Israel. As long asMassad maintained a certain accuratedistance from Israel, the camp’s Zionist vision remained credible.

Conclusions: simulation beyond Massad

The discussion above suggests that campMassad served as a simulation of Israel. Thissimulation did not lead campers to think that they were in Israel or that they wereIsraelis. Instead, it provided campers with a sense of what Zionism is all about andsuggested that others, in Israel, actually experience a more all-absorbing belonging. Thesimulation at Massad generated an interpretive schema that helped campers to accountfor their diasporic position and develop a sense of unequal national belonging.

The idea of vicarious belonging is relevant beyond Massad. In Tours that Bind(2010), Shaul Kelner explores the complex identity work performed in “Israelexperience” tours. 23 The organizers of these tours, like Massad educators, hope tostrengthen participants’ sense of Jewish unity and belonging through an emotionallyintense first-hand encounter with Israel. In practice, however, the dynamics of

22 Theoretically speaking, had the promise of wholesome Jewish existence fulfilled in the camp, Israel wouldhave become unnecessary. If Massad could provide a solution to the fragmentation of the Jewish soul thatallegedly happens in the diaspora, why bother with Israel?23 Kelner’s ethnography focuses on Birthright Israel, a program that offers Jewish students from all over theworld a free 10 days tour in Israel. Since 1999 Birthright brought almost 350,000 thousand young Jews toIsrael.

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tourism—both the infrastructure that encapsulates tourists and the interpretive schemaof tourists—combine to reinforce boundaries between tourists and locals and brings tothe fore questions regarding the authenticity of the Israel that was presented in the tour.24

Even the Israeli soldiers (the equivalent ofMassad’s schlichim), who joined the tour fora couple of days in order to create unmediated contact with “real Israelis,” failed to breakthese boundaries and are instead treated as an exotic other within (Kelner 2010, p. 140).Importantly, for our purpose, the ongoing sense of difference of participants was not anobstacle for identification. As visitors for a brief moment, participants of Birthright tourswere able make sense of their foreignness and relate the national narrative to their ownbiography. An interpretive scheme accounting for difference, not identical to the oneused in Massad but not entirely unlike it, seems to play a productive role in sustainingparticipants’ sense of belonging.25

While the difference of diaspora communities is particularly pronounced, simulatedor vicarious belonging is not necessarily unique to diasporic settings. Although thereare significant differences in the articulation of Zionism in Massad and in Israel, thereare also important similarities. First, the attempt to build a national community in whichfractured souls would be healed through the revitalization of the Hebrew culture iscommon to both sites (Eyal 2008). Second, just likeMassad campers, Israeli Jews—thesoldiers that join Birthright tours, for example—do not experience intense andenchanting group belonging all the time. Even in Israel, speaking Hebrew and engagingin other Zionist practices only rarely produce a sense of cultural harmony and unity.Thus, like Massad campers, many Israelis experience a gap between what Zionism issupposed to be, and their mundane everyday experiences. Third, Israeli Jews too, likeMassad campers, experience deep belonging only through carefully orchestratedcommemoration ceremonies (Handelman 2004), visits to heritage museums (Katriel1994), or through organized tours to Poland (Feldman 2002), when the nation becomes,for a few important moments, tangible (this is why the shlichim reacted so strongly tothe simulation in Massad).

Focusing on Israeli pioneering settlement museums would help clarify this point. AsTamar Katriel and Aliza Shenhar note, pioneering settlement museums (more than fiftysuch museums dot the country) celebrate the heritage of the kibbutzim in an effort tounearth experientially a spirit of camaraderie and a sense of mission that is long gone.These efforts, however, generate interesting dynamics. While the celebration of the

24 The tourist’s interpretive schema, the “tourist gaze,” provokes tourists to see sites as symbols that conveymeaning beyond themselves. Graffiti on the wall in Safed, for example, is interpreted as sign of the town’smystical character, rather than a sign of urban decay (Kelner 2010, pp. 96–97). The particular encounter istreated as an illustration of a deep essence of the whole. Participants in heritage tours also engage in what Kelnercalls a semiotic of difference. They make sense of Israel by engaging in constant comparisons between theiractual home (Cleveland, Los Angeles, etc.) and their putative homeland. Understanding of Israel emerges frominspecting these contrasts and identifying differences. Szilard-Istvan Pap’s examination of nation building toursin a Hungarian context reveals a similar dynamic, although his work examines tours of homeland nationals todiaspora communities rather than the other way around (2013). Importantly, like the participants of Birthrighttours (and Massad campers), Pap’s students maintain a sense of difference and yet identify with these “other”Hungarians, whom they believe to be more authentically “national” than themselves.25 To capture this dialectic process of identification through difference, Kelner describes the work performedin the tours as “diaspora building.”While I agree completely with Kelner’s analysis, I find the term “diasporabuilding” too narrow. It implies that, unlike diaspora Jews, Israeli Jews experience a qualitatively differentsense of belonging, one that is more authentic. But, as I argue below, there is a good reason to suspect thatvicarious belonging is relevant also within the homeland.

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halutzim’s heroic sacrifices evokes awe, it also engenders self-doubt and a sense ofinadequacy (Katriel and Shenhar 1990, p. 368). Modern day visitors to the museum donot confront the same harsh conditions, and most of them do not experience the samesense of camaraderie and mission in their everyday life. Like the campers in Massad,they experience the intense belonging that allegedly inspired the halutzim onlyvicariously, from a safe distance. But whereas American Jews use spatial dislocationto explain their disenchanted and ambivalent condition, Israelis sometimes usetemporal dislocation for the same end. Arguably, Israeli Jews can reason that earlier,once upon a time, the halutzim—the legendary founders of the nation—experiencednational belonging in a different and more authentic way. From this vantage point, inboth the homeland and the diaspora, the experience of belonging is premised on thecreation of interpretive schemas that sustain the belief that others (in the putativehomeland or in the past) experience a more authentic and wholesome belonging.26

The concept of simulation offers a different interpretation of the role of ceremoniesand commemorations in the process of nation building. Anthony Smith (1999), LynSpillman (1997), Don Handelman (2004), and others suggest that national ceremoniespromote a sense of unity among members. National ceremonies, from this perspective,focus on the common (which is sometimes located in the past or in the imagination ofthe past), and render present differences and inequalities somehow less relevant. Acritical difficulty, for these scholars, is to explain how members fail to be disillusionedby the gap between their everyday experiences and the idealizations that are celebratedin ceremonies.27 Thinking about the same ceremonies with the concept of simulationprovides an interesting answer to this question. From this vantage point, nationalceremonies, regardless of the intention of their organizers, typically create only briefmoments of excitement and fail to create a lasting sense of unity, but this does notrender them unimportant. When such ceremonies are successful, they generate anexperience that is powerful and tangible enough to suggest that others, elsewhere orin a different time perhaps, experience an all absorbing membership. The image thatemerges from this investigation is of a national community in which no oneexperiences full belonging but everyone accounts for her or his ambivalence in away that preserves the idea of the nation. Instead of emphasizing peak moments ofcommunal excitement and downplaying more mundane experiences, thinking aboutnational ceremonies using the concept of simulation helps one understand how actorsmake sense of their experiences, taking into accounts both extraordinary and everydayexperiences. This framework, in other words, provides a bridge between scholars thatfocus on the nation as an ongoing practical accomplishment and scholars that focus onnational ceremonies and commemorations.

26 Sanjay Strivastava’s work on the Doon school, the hotbed of India’s secular elite, demonstrates theusefulness of the concept of national simulation beyond the Jewish case (1996). The postcolonial nation-state in India, he argues, is based not just on imagination and coercive powers but also upon the enactment ofthe idea of the nation state in multiple simulations wherein ideas of merit, secularity, and rationality, seem, fora brief moment, real (1996, p. 177). While the problematic of Indian nationalism is different, the Doon school,like camp Massad, provides students with a glimpse of what the Indian nation-state is all about, at least as anideal.27 Adding to this problem, as Brubaker and Feischmidt point out, scholars of commemoration tend to overstatethe salience of the past and exaggerate the emotional effect of ceremonies (Brubaker 2004, pp. 162–163).

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More generally, scholars often treat nation building as a process through which thenation is represented as a cultural whole (Anderson 1991). Internal heterogeneity, fromthis perspective, is simply an obstacle to this process. Thinking about nation buildingwith the concept of simulation suggests an alternative to this truism. It suggests that thedifferences between the various groups that make up the nation can sometimes be usedproductively to account for particular experiences (see also Surak 2012). InMassad, theprocess of making sense of one’s belonging to the nation was not predicated only onimagined homogeneity. Campers did not lose sight of the differences betweenthemselves and other members of the nation. To the contrary, they used their difference(being American Jews rather than simply Jews) to account for their ambivalent positionin the Jewish collective.28 The difference between campers and Israeli shlichim allowedcampers to avoid disenchantment and experience national belonging vicariously, assomething that happens to others.

National simulations, as the one enacted at Massad, can be understood as amechanism that turns potentially alienating feelings of difference into a sense ofpotentially bridgeable distance. Were Massad campers not able to make sense of thestrange and sometimes unfriendly Israeli shlichim, some of them would have probablyreached the conclusion that American and Israeli Jews have little in common. But thesimulation in the camp helped them interpret the difference between Israeli andAmerican Jews as something inessential. As long as Massad managed to maintain acertain accurate distance from Israel, it allowed campers to make sense of theirdifferential and ambivalent position in the Jewish nation. Similarly, nationalsimulations in Israel allow Israelis to tell themselves that had they been born earlier,in a more heroic era, they too would have experienced a more engrossing nationalbelonging. The temporal distance of the past enables Israeli Jews to make sense of thegeneral absence of national enchantment in their lives.

The point is not only that simulations permits members to treat their differentialpositions as something relative, but that it allows them to use their difference as aresource when they account for their position in the nation. Had the campers seen nodifference between themselves and the Israelis, which they considered as more centrallypositioned members, the rarity and flimsiness of the Zionist utopia would have,perhaps, led some of them to question the attempt to “heal the fractures in the heartof the [Jewish] child.” But in Massad, campers did perceive a difference betweenthemselves and others, and they used this knowledge to account for their ambivalentexperience. The process of making sense of one’s place in the nation, therefore, is notnecessarily one in which people imagine themselves to be a part of a homogenousbody, nor do they experience “deep, horizontal comradeship” firsthand, as Andersonsuggests (1991, p. 6). Rather, the fragments of the nation make sense of their positionwith reference to their own unique situation. Spatial and temporal distances are used toaccount for palpable differences between the fragments of the nation.

28 It is useful to think about this point with a counterfactual example. Had campers in Massad, for example,become somehow unaware of the differences between themselves and other members of the nation, any signof disaffection (incompetent staff, delays, technical glitches) would have resulted in a questioning of theviability of the Zionist ideals (the Zionist revival is not supposed to be boring). The ability to reflect on thedifferences between “mini Israel” (where everything is contrived) and the “real” Israel (where everything isassumed to flow authentically) allows campers to treat less-than-perfect events as somehow irrelevant to thequestion of the nation.

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This article treats Massad as a strategic research site. The argument is not that suchsimulations replicate themselves everywhere or that this is the most importantmechanism involved in nation building, but that Massad, with all its peculiarity,provides a useful prism for understanding the process of making sense of nationalbelonging. The degree to which similar practices operate outside this particular contextis an open question. Some national movements may be less preoccupied with questionsof authenticity and the creation of new and wholesome subjects. Nevertheless, since allnational movements are confronted with the organizational challenge of weavingtogether diverse groups, and since all members in the nation must find ways to accountfor their membership, simulation provides one possible way through which the processmay be accomplished.

Acknowledgments This article benefited from the readings of many friends and colleagues. I amparticularly indebted to Gil Eyal, Peter Bearman, William McAllister, Robert Zussman, Don Tomaskovic-Devey, Paul Lichterman, Nina Eliasoph, Bruce Zuckerman, Yuval Feinstein, and the reviewers of Theory andSociety for their support and their helpful comments on previous drafts of this article.

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Dan Lainer-Vos is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. His researchexamines nation building as a practical organizational accomplishment. His first book, Sinews of the Nation:Constructing Irish and Zionist Bonds in the United States (Polity 2013) explores the mechanisms devised tosecure a flow of money from the Irish-American and Jewish-American diasporas to their respectivehomelands. It argues that fundraising mechanisms are not merely ways of maximizing resources but,fundamentally, organizational tools that can maintain and create national attachments. Lainer-Vos is currentlystudying the formation of the Israel lobby in Washington during the 1950s and 1960s. His previouspublications appear in Mobilization, Sociology Compass, Organization Studies, Sociological Theory, andTheory and Society.

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