D'var Torah

Hamvaser Sivan 5768

Camp Greenburgh

So how are you going to spend your summer vacation? What memories of the summer will you carry with you? Some of our fondest memories from childhood are those of days spend outdoors, with camp friends, enjoying nature, and, from time to time, getting on a bus to go on a trip away from the camp grounds. Many of the children in our congregation will be spending their summer at day camps or sleep-away camps. We wish them a pleasant and enjoyable summer. For their families, homes will operate at a slightly slower pace. Meals will be more low-key, as families experience some of the quiet associated only with empty-nesters.

What many of us would relish is a chance to go back to camp, to hang out with friends, and to spend time away (even for a few hours). This summer, we are offering to our congregational family the chance to attend Camp Greenburgh, a summer experience that will include visits to the City (and surrounding countryside). I am very pleased to announce that one of our first outings for Camp Greenburgh will be a visit to the Gomez Mill House in Marlboro New York. An “American Treasure,” The Mill House, located just off 9W, five miles north of Newburgh, NY, on the Hudson River, is the oldest house on the National Register of Historic Places in Orange County and the earliest surviving Jewish residence in North America. It has been continuously inhabited for more than 280 years. In 1714 Luis Moses Gomez , who had fled from the Spanish inquisition, purchased 6,000 acres of land along the Hudson Highlands where several Indian trails converged. Here he built a fieldstone block house into the side of a hill and by a stream that became known as “Jews Creek.” For some thirty years Luis Gomez and his sons conducted a thriving fur trade from the fortress like house. Luis Moses Gomez became the first parnas (president) when the synagogue of New York’s Spanish and Portuguese congregation was built. Among the family connections were poetess Emma Lazarus and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. It would indeed be difficult to find a landmark more richly intertwined with our complex history, or complex fate: site of an ancient Indian ceremonial ground; frontier trading post; earliest extant Jewish residence in North America; center of patriot activity in the American Revolution; home of writers and artists and men of affairs; the Mill House symbolizes and sums up our regional and national history. It is a most dramatic and absolutely irreplaceable incarnation of American history.

We will leave GHC on Sunday, July 27 about 10 in the morning and then travel to the Mill House for a private tour at 11:30 a.m. Having brought along our own picnic baskets [please bring a dairy lunch, we’ll provide drinks and dessert], we will have a picnic, attend a lecture by Andree Brooks on Doña Gracia Nasi, The Woman Who Defied Kings at 2:00, and then proceed up the road a bit to the Kedem Winery for a tour and tasting. To make this as affordable as possible, we will carpool from GHC, sharing gasoline and toll costs. $18/person. To guarantee a spot on this fantastic adventure call the Camp Director (me) or Vivian Milefsky. And add your name to the rabbi’s list serve to hear about other wonderful summer camp activities!

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