Camp Kinderland

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Camp Kinderland is a summer camp located in Tolland, Massachusetts, for youngsters aged eight through sixteen. The camp's motto is summer camp with a conscience since 1923. The main topics of the curriculum are: equality, peace, community, social justice, activism, civil rights, Yiddishkeit, and friendship. Campers may stay for four weeks in July, three weeks in August, or all seven of the offered weeks. There is also a two-week session available for first-time campers in the youngest group.

Kinderland was founded by members of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, a leftist Jewish fraternal organization, in 1923 in Hopewell Junction, New York. As a result of internecine conflicts between organizers of the camp who were closer to the Socialist Party and others who were closer to the Communist Party, there was a serious breach within the Yiddish-speaking Jewish left, one side pro-Communist, one side anti-Communist. As a result, there were starting in 1927, two different camps, Camp Kinderland, in the pro-Communist sector, which was run by a pro-Communist Yiddishist Jewish organization, and Camp Kinder Ring, which continued as the camp of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring. As of 2026, both camps still exist. ^{[1] [2]}

In the 1940s and 1950s Pete Seeger visited the camp.^[3] Paul Robeson also visited the camp in 1949.^[4] Both singers have structures named for them in the current camp.

The camp's left-wing politics led it to be the place many red diaper babies were sent growing up,^[5] which caused it to be investigated during the McCarthy era. Attendee and counselor Katie Halper directed and produced Commie Camp, a light-hearted 2013 documentary on the camp.^[6]

• Spencer Ackerman, progressive blogger
• Chesa Boudin, lawyer and activist; San Francisco District Attorney.
• Lawrence Bush, editor, Jewish Currents
• Jules Dassin, film director
• Delia Graff Fara, philosopher of language
• Ted Gold, a member of Weatherman Underground
• Katie Halper, comedian and writer
• Max Kellerman, sports commentator
• Michael Klonsky, education policy expert
• Harvey Kurtzman, cartoonist and founder of Mad Magazine
• Ivy Meeropol, documentary filmmaker, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
• Marky Ramone, drummer, The Ramones, Misfits
• Suze Rotolo, artist and teacher^[7]
• Ben Shuldiner, 2006 Democratic candidate for New York's 19th Congressional District
• Paul Stanley, singer and guitarist, Kiss
• Sol Stern, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute
• Marisa Tomei, actress
• Merritt Wever, actress

• Itche Goldberg (brief mention of shules)
• Camp Boiberik

• Katie Halper and Michael Lerner, "Commie Camp: A Documentary about Camp Kinderland," Tikkun Daily, Aug. 8, 2013.
• Dina Kraft, "Canoes, Campfires, Yiddish, and Communist Roots," Haaretz, Aug. 13, 2012.
• Ivy Meeropol, "CITY LORE: The Little Red Summer Camp, New York Times, Aug, 19, 2001.

• Official camp website
• Camp Kinderland Alumni Association
• Camp Kinderland Records, online finding aid, Tamiment Library, New York University.