Camp Kinderland's 100th Anniversary
Q&A Details
Wed Oct 4, 6:30pm: with filmmaker Katie Halper, Judee Rosenbaum, and Rachel Meeropol.
Judee Rosenbaum attended Kinderland as a child, worked there as a counselor, ran Kinderland’s Counselor-In-Training program, still works with the CIT program and teaches Yiddish at the Kinderland Kindershule. She was a New York City public school teacher for 37 years.
Rachel Meeropol is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Racial Justice Program of the ACLU. Prior to joining the ACLU, Rachel was the Associate Director of Legal Training and Education at the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”). Rachel’s work focuses on Indigenous Justice, Prisoners’ Rights and other issues. For over a decade, Rachel has represented California prisoners organizing against solitary confinement in Ashker v. Governor. Rachel was also lead counsel on Turkmen v. Ashcroft, a class action lawsuit against high-level federal officials for the post-911 detention and abuse of Muslim non-citizens, which she argued in the Supreme Court in 2016. Rachel has co- edited and written three editions of the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook, a do-it-yourself litigation manual for prisoners distributed free by CCR and the National Lawyers Guild, and was the contributing editor of “America’s Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the War on Terror,” published in 2005 by Seven Stories Press.
Rachel is the granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, attended and worked at Kinderland and sends her children there.
Wed Oct 4, 9:00pm: with filmmaker Katie Halper
Commie Camp tells the hilarious and touching story of Camp Kinderland, the legendary progressive summer camp founded by secular Jewish socialists in 1923, which against all odds still exists today. When right-wing media accuses the camp of “indoctrination,” journalist, comedian and third-generation Kinderlander Katie Halper returns to investigate. Over the course of one summer, Halper learns about the history of the camp and follows a group of adorable, inquisitive nine-year-olds as they play in the World Peace Olympics (Kinderland's answer to The Color Wars), organize a police brutality protest, grapple with how to make the world a better place and have the time of their lives.
Susan Sarandon calls the award-winning film "so much fun. Katie Halper did a great job. It's funny, inspiring and makes me want to raise my kids all over again with an appetite and excitement for justice."