Sex, Drugs & Israeli Nationalism: Zionist Indoctrination at Jewish Summer Camp w/ Aaron Kreuter

In this episode of The Thin Veil, host Ezra Lipp speaks with Canadian anti-Zionist Jewish writer, activist and academic Aaron Kreuter, author of Lake Burntshore, a novel set at a Jewish summer camp that explores Zionism, settler colonialism, Jewish identity, and the complicated relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel.

The conversation explores the strange and powerful world of North American Jewish sleep-away camp: the sense of living in an alternative society, the wealth and privilege that make that communal utopia possible, and the ways Zionism and Israeli nationalism can become embedded in the fabric of camp life.

Kreuter discusses Israeli soldiers serving as staff at North American Jewish summer camps, Israel programs and Birthright, military training programs for Jewish youth, and the broader project of shaping Jewish identity around the State of Israel.

This conversation also explores the connections Kreuter draws between settler colonialism in Canada and Palestine, and what it means for Jews living in Canada and the United States to reckon with the land beneath their own communities.

Finally, the episode examines the growing divide between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews after October 7th, the role of anti-Zionist Jewish writers and artists, and whether internal Jewish conversations about Zionism risk becoming a distraction from the urgent reality facing Palestinians.

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