"Some people really, really enjoy camp. I wish I could tell you that these people grow up to be really, really normal, but they don't. You know who I'm talking about. These are the ones who wept uncontrollably when the paper-mache numbers spelling out 1967 were set ablaze on a little raft that a camp counselor, under cover of darkness, towed stealthily to the middle of Lake Weecheewachee on the evening of the last group sing."Group sing? Every Jewish camp -even the uber-Haredim- does something just like that right after Eicha is read. To be honest, I never understood the point, and the discovery that this ritual was copied from the WASP camps doesn't shed any light on it.
PS - At my camp, the numbers (letters actually: This was the hebrew year) were gasoline soaked tampons-- not paper mache.
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