The Brandeis Effect

As on other mornings, the camp rises early, almost with the sun. But this is Friday, a special day. Children, young people, older adults set about their tasks with double vigor, scrubbing floors, changing linen, preparing food to take them through the next day. The recreation hall, a converted red barn, becomes a synagogue. There, at 7 in the evening, they gather: the girls in white dresses, the boys in white trousers and skullcaps. Two silver menorahs burn brightly on a velvet-covered table. A blue "eternal light" flickers above the wooden cabinet containing the Torah. The cantor, a bearded young man, sings the prayers, and the congregation responds in Hebrew. At the end, the worshipers link arms around one another's waists and sway in unison as they sing. Then, in an ecstatic rush, it is over. They break ranks, kiss warmly, wish one another a Shabbat shalom (a joyful Sabbath). The holy day has begun.

A kibbutz in Israel? The geography might hint so: golden hills, oak trees and cypresses, pepper trees and eucalyptus. In fact, the setting is half a world away from the Galilean landscape it resembles--in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains of California, just 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Many of the devoted Sabbath worshipers are in fact ordinary young Jewish Americans, thoroughly the children of their secular culture. They come from homes where Hebrew is virtually unknown, where the Sabbath is observed only perfunctorily if at all, where a kosher kitchen is only a half-remembered custom sometimes dusted off for Pass over. Precisely for that reason, these Jews come to the Brandeis Institute, a unique American institution dedicated to making secular Jews both better Jews and better citizens. This week the institute begins its 31st summer session with the first wave of about 500 youngsters who will get the Brandeis treatment over the next eight weeks.

Cooperative Living. Brandeis Institute is not associated with the university, although it does owe its name and some early encouragement to the late Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. The guiding genius of the institute for three decades has been a burly, white-haired, Ben-Gurion-like man named Shlomo Bardin, now 72 and still undisputed director. The institute reflects Bardin's own eclectic background. Born in the Ukraine, he emigrated to Palestine in 1919, founded a technical high school and the Haifa Nautical School, came to the U.S. for graduate study in education at Columbia University. On a visit to Denmark in 1930, Bardin learned how the Folk High Schools there in the 19th century effectively blocked Germanization by Bismarck's Prussia. They did so by emphasizing Danish folk culture and a love of working with the soil while maintaining a spirited intellectual atmosphere. Bardin appropriated the concept, reinforced it with the kibbutz ideal of cooperative living, and added the recreational aspects of the American summer camp.

Brandeis today serves three major age groups. College-age young people--still the main target group--attend Brandeis Camp Institute for either of two four-week summer sessions. Tuition is $275 --only a third of the actual cost--which is supplemented by donations. Youngsters from eight to 16 attend Camp Alonim (Hebrew for "young oaks"). Other high-schoolers, college students and older adults are invited to various weekend institutes throughout the year. The occasions often bring out show-business names, businessmen and such guest lecturers as Historian Arthur Hertzberg (on the survival of the American Jewish community), Philosopher Abraham Heschel (on God in search of man), and Author Elie Wiesel (on the Holocaust). Bardin himself tries to impart to the campers his own deep conviction that Judaism has survived "to improve the world in the image of the kingdom of the Almighty." His success can be startling. Even professional religionists, observes one Jewish educator, Rabbi Isaac Tobin, often leave Brandeis so enthusiastic that they "sound like witnesses at a Christian revival meeting."

Vitamin K. Emotion does play an important part in the Brandeis summers, though the regimen is highly disciplined, especially for the college group: a 6:30 a.m.-to-l 1:00 p.m. schedule crammed with classes and workshops (Hebrew, religious observance and ritual, drama, Jewish folk dancing and music), work in the garden, kitchen duty and other chores. Though the camp keeps a kosher kitchen and a strict Sabbath, it favors no particular branch of Judaism, and welcomes Jews from all persuasions--or none. "They tell you what to do but never what to think," says one of last year's graduates. "There is a total lack of dogma. People present their views and we are free to accept or reject them." The experience is heightened by the knowledge that the collegians are permitted to go through the four-week institute only once in a lifetime. Says a boy from the University of Chicago: "There is so much sweetness to be derived in such a short time."

Despite the demanding schedule. Bardin likes to point out that only seven of the 6,000 college-age students who have attended Brandeis have ever been sent home (for various disciplinary infractions). "He teaches with firm love and a lot of vitamin K, which is kisses," explains a Florida alumna. Indeed, Bardin treats his charges as if he were a fond Jewish grandfather, kissing or hugging them, laughing easily at himself, making the 'rounds of tables at meals. "Judaism is related to much joy in life," he explains, "but the young people come here unaware of it because their families, their temples, haven't given it to them. We are always giving them lectures instead. I want them to work here in the gardens so they will come to know the mystery of a leaf, of the earth, the power of a growing plant. Then you can bring in the lecturer."

Black Brandeis? Apart from providing instruction and pleasant memories, how well has the institute succeeded in inculcating "Jewishness" and good citizenship? Sociologist Gene N. Levine of U.C.L.A. surveyed some 1,500 alumni and found that the Brandeis effect actually seems to grow as the graduates acquire more responsibility as family heads and in the community. The most important benefit singled out by the alumni lies in what they teach their own children, many of whom are now getting formal Jewish schooling. But there seem to be other good results. Of the married graduates, only about 2% have been divorced or separated, and only 4% have married outside their faith.

Obviously, the institute cannot claim sole credit for this kind of record among the graduates. Still, the Brandeis experience is beginning to inspire similar projects elsewhere. At least four other U.S. cities are planning their own versions of Brandeis, according to Bardin. A similar setup for European Jews--possibly in Denmark--is also contemplated, and even one in Israel. In Los Angeles, the Rev. James Jones, black minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, is searching out land and backers for a black Brandeis. He and other Bardin admirers think that the idea could be useful as well for Mexican Americans, Indians and other U.S. ethnic groups.

Jewish Prep School. A few observers have suggested that the success of Brandeis depends on the charismatic presence of Bardin, but the sociological survey, Bardin happily points out, disputes this: alumni mentioned the Brandeis concept far more often than they mentioned him. Bardin is, however, not finished with his own contribution. This week, on the 2,200-acre Brandeis grounds, construction begins on a four-year Jewish prep school, the first of its kind in the U.S., which will open in the fall of 1972. Jew and non-Jew, black and white, rich and poor (subsidized by scholarships) will be accepted equally. But all will be required to study Hebrew and the humanities. Judaic culture will be stressed, for the school will emphasize, as the camp has, that cultural identity is the keystone for useful citizenship. Indeed, Bardin wants the school to be something of a Jewish Groton or Exeter, a training ground for national leaders. "To be better Americans," he likes to say, quoting Justice Brandeis, "we must first be better Jews."

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