Some Jewish youngsters go to summer camp. Others go to work camps and spend six weeks of their summer vacation repairing houses on Indian reservations — and for fun, they catch a sun dance or a pow wow.
The American Jewish Society for Service (AJSS) recruits and sponsors the teenagers who attend this unusual summer camp. This summer, one group of 14 and another of 15 high school juniors and seniors are spending six weeks working on a Yankton Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota and in low-income neighborhoods in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Wherever the AJSS work camps take the teenagers, they become involved with the surrounding culture. “Our program calls for complete immersion in the area in which they are located,” said AJSS Chairman Henry Kohn.
On the Yankton Sioux Indian reservation, the volunteers prepared the pow wow grounds, fixed a fence and repaired grandstands for the annual Yankton Sioux pow wow held the first weekend of August.
Another project involved repairing the individual homes on the reservation, painting, roofing and renovating.
The group lives in the Marty Indian school on the reservation and has also undertaken to paint one of the dormitories in that complex. In their spare time, Kohn said, the teenagers attended pow wow and traditional Indian ceremonies including a sun dance and piercing ritual.
The volunteers hear talks about the alcohol and drug problems of the Indians and even had the opportunity to visit the Yankton Sioux spiritual leader’s sweathouse. The program has Jewish content with Friday night services, Kohn said.
The second group of volunteers this year lives in a Chabad House run by Lubavitchersin Cincinatti.
The local hosts supply the building materials, tools and technical supervision and the AJSS supplies the manpower and food to feed them.
In 36 years, the AJSS has sponsored 85 summer work camps and volunteers assisted disadvantaged groups including blacks, whites, migrant workers, minority groups and the elderly.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
