Camp Boiberik


Camp Boiberik was a Yiddish cultural summer camp founded by Leibush Lehrer in 1913. In 1923 the camp purchased property in Rhinebeck, New York where it would remain until closing in 1979.
Affiliated with the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute, after Sholom Aleichem, Boiberik was a secular, apolitical institution which emphasized Yiddishkeit, or Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish folk culture, including songs, dance, food in the tradition of the Borscht belt, theater, and humor. Although non-religious, Boiberik observed shabbos and kept a kosher kitchen.
Boiberik had interactions with and was somewhat similar to Camp Kinder Ring.
The name 'Boiberik' appears as a village in which the Tevye stories by Aleichem are set, as a fictionalization of the resort town Boyarka.
In 1982, the former campgrounds were purchased by the Omega Institute which currently resides there. Omega hosted a reunion of former campers in 1998.