Sad ending for Swig — and campers won’t forget it

Friday, April 11, 2008 | by

Bittersweet. This is a word that came up frequently as the children who grew up at Camp Swig led their own children through the Saratoga camp on Sunday.

This spectacular scrap of land tucked away in the wooded hills of the South Bay was the repository of their fondest memories — and, in many cases, the tangible connection to their inspiration to become and remain actively Jewish.

And yet, in its present state, Camp Swig is a carcass. Peering into its rotting, dilapidated cabins, one feels as if he returned to his childhood home only to be greeted by seedy men warming themselves over a flaming trash can.

It was largely this decaying infrastructure that spurred the Union of Reform Judaism to sell the aging camp. While a corps of local Jews obtained pledges for $5 million to buy Swig and convert it into a retreat center, the URJ made clear from the beginning that this was to be a strictly bottom-line decision. The URJ is currently in negotiations with a Methodist group that ponied up $6 million.

The URJ can come up with a million reasons why it went after that extra million dollars; most notably, the money goes directly into West Coast Jewish camping.

But while economic arguments can be won or lost, emotional ones cannot. And in the end, the bottom-line argument might not add up, either: Rabbi Ryan Bauer of Congregation Emanu-El (Swig counselor-in-training, 1995), said he’s spoken with a number of URJ donors who, angered over Swig’s sale, will no longer give URJ a dime. 

No matter how much the URJ protests that it has been ethical and logical, former campers and staffers are angry — and many complain that they’ve been jerked around.

Also worth mentioning is the loss of Swig’s Jo Naymark Holocaust Memorial, the notion of which upsets the camp alumni most of all.

In 1998, a $3.9 million deal to sell Swig to a private organization fell through at the last minute. Camp alums are praying the same will happen now.

If this were to occur, let us hope the estranged sides can sit and hammer out a deal that allows this beautiful land to inspire future generations of Jews.

As for the idea of a Jewish organization abandoning a Holocaust memorial, let us close with the words Rabbi Alexander Schindler spoke at the memorial’s dedication 25 years ago: “Future generations of Jews beholding the beauty and, above all, worthy substance of these stones will say our fathers and our mothers built this for us.”