Pathological Nostalgia
Postscript No. 14 | Aitan Avgar and Milo Tasman on socialist Zionist summer camp
THE NEW CRITIC — POSTSCRIPT
*Israeli Jews have the army. American Jews have summer camp.
Last Saturday, April 25, The New Critic published my essay “Notes on Camp.” In it, I wrote about my friends Milo and Aitan, comrades of mine for many years, who deemed my view of the socialist Zionist summer camp we attended too jaded. Milo and Aitan stuck around Tavor longer than I:
“I could have delayed leaving camp. Most of my friends now attend Tavor as counselors who create the kesem (magic) of camp for a new generation. My old camp pal Milo is dating someone he met at Tavor. Their life is like an endless summer camp; as I sat beside them and another Tavor friend in Chicago’s Millennium Park three weeks ago while listening to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, it was as if no time had passed at all. But time had passed — after 12th grade, I stopped attending camp altogether, and while I maintained my friendships with Milo, Eli, and Aitan, I slipped away from the community I once had with everyone else…
And what is Aitan doing with his first year after college — his first real time unbounded from the expectations of suburban American Jewish life? He is doing protective presence in the West Bank, working as a human shield…
The promise of Camp Tavor was the promise of pure love for a community of peers and for Israel. This world is too impure for such a thing. To leave that idyll was to open a wound incapable of being healed.”
Writing about Tavor was like sending a little piece of my soul out into the world, and so Sunday evening, seated on Dartmouth’s wide open space — aptly called “The Green” — I called my old camp pals to reminisce. We spoke about the state of socialist Zionism in America today, the questions of my essay, and, of course, camp romance.
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.*
*You can access the entirety of Postscript — this conversation in full, new weekly installments, and the complete archive of our gen z interview series — for only $30 a year.*
MILO I just want to say, Elan, that in your piece, the transition you portray, from Tavor being a deeply Zionist camp to something else, is incorrect.
I remember reading your piece and thinking that your view on the shifting Israel-related stuff was very different from mine. It could be because I stuck around camp longer than you did, but I was also ready to see Jewish day school as one part of my life and camp as another — and that, together, they made a more complete picture of the conflict. I got a very Israeli, much more Zionist perspective at my day school, and then at camp I got a nuanced view of the occupation. I don’t think we laid the anti-Zionism on too thick. We are more anti-war.
AITAN Milo, I think you’re right. We didn’t lay on too much anti-Zionism. It was about sticking to anti-war ideas. But I don’t think we’ve come out of this moment with a clear idea of how to move forward, either. We’ve been able to hold our ground, but now that it’s been some time since October 7th, Tavor needs a real direction. And I’m not sure we have one — or a sustainable one, at least.
ELAN When you think about the most positive parts of camp, what comes to mind?
MILO My most positive memories are the moments where collective decision-making actually works, and we actually do something at least a little bit interesting. The best example I can give is the whole “This Land Is Your Land” situation.
ELAN Tell that story. I mention the removal of “This Land Is Your Land” in the essay but only briefly. I had already left camp by the time you tried to bring it back.
MILO “This Land Is Your Land” was a song we used to sing to bring in the Sabbath. It eventually got phased out due to concerns about disrespect toward indigenous peoples, this idea of claiming land as anyone’s — “this land is your land, this land is my land” — coming from white people, or at least non-indigenous people. I think that’s a huge misinterpretation of the song.
The song is really anti-private property. It’s actually a beautiful representation of communal beliefs. So, as counselors, Aitan and I brought the song to Asefa Klalit — a weekly decision-making gathering, where all the staff members come together, so that decisions reflect everyone’s opinions and are not just authoritarian — and said we had stopped singing it due to a misinterpretation but that it was worth bringing back. We talked for a long time about how it could be done and how to include others in the process. We decided that the campers should have a role in the decision. And in the end, the kids decided not to bring the song back.
ELAN Why?
AITAN The generational gap was really interesting. When the song was originally taken away, we were the campers who’d had enough time to be attached to the tradition, so we were genuinely upset when it was removed. But the kids who wanted to keep it gone were the ones who had been the youngest at camp when it had been taken away.
We also made a mistake in how we framed the decision. We gave the campers an article about the history of the song, and in that article, an indigenous person had refused to sing it. The kids skimmed the article, found that passage, and said, “This is why we shouldn’t sing it.” The rest of the article was actually fairly critical of that position and tried to analyze the real history of the song.
ELAN And Milo, that’s your example of a positive memory at camp?