Hello Muddah, hello Faddah, here I am at Camp Grenada, camp is very entertaining, and they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining — Camp Grenada, Allan Sherman
I have personally never heard of a survivalist, anti-vaxxer summer camp for Orthodox Jews, much less one where they teach conspiracy theory, but by golly, there’s one planned to open in upstate New York this summer — if only people will sign up. Camp Hikon is trying to get rolling and the founders need you to know first and foremost that if you have been vaccinated, stay away, kids and counselors alike. Times Of Israel:
Advertisements for Camp Hikon, planned for upstate New York, appeared on email listservs popular in the Orthodox Jewish community just days after a private school in Miami made news for discouraging teachers from getting the vaccine and telling children they were not to have contact with vaccinated people.
The camp is being launched by one Naftali Schwartz, a Brooklyn-based, self-proclaimed “health coach” with no formal training in health or medicine. Seriously. But he would have you know that people who are not vaccinated can get COVID-19 from people who are vaccinated, because the “particles” will get you. Or something.
Drawing on a debunked theory spread by the anti-vaccination movement, the camp’s website cites the “experimental nature” of the COVID-19 vaccines. According to the false theory, living in close quarters with vaccinated people could “enhance” the spread of the coronavirus. The website refers readers to a site called NutriTruth which claims vaccines are a “biological weapon,” and to a livestreamed discussion between several notable anti-vaxxers.
“We regret that we will be unable to accept campers or counselors who have already received any of these injections,” according to the website.
Schwartz said he made the rule because of “suspicious symptoms that occur to unvaccinated people who have spent a lot of time in the company of vaccinated people.”
“It’s also been reported to me from parents of my to-be campers that this is a real thing and it’s worrisome,” Schwartz said.
The idea that unvaccinated people can be harmed by spending time with people who have received the COVID vaccines is not true. Vaccinated people cannot shed particles from the vaccine that would affect someone in their vicinity.
Wow, shedding particles as a biological weapon. Maybe we could wipe out the world’s population with dandruff, ya spose? We put nano bots on the dandruff flakes and they surf your scalp and send signals from outer space to your brain. The muzak from Delta Gamma XXIII is so bad that people start screaming and unscrewing their heads when they hear it and that’s how whole populations of planets can be taken over instantly — or at least that’s what we hear.
But listen, nutso conspiracy theory about the coronavirus is only the beginning. The rest of the camp “experience” is centered around preparation for the end of the world. Isn’t that cheerful? Just the stuff that boyhood memories of camp are made of.
The camp appears to combine survivalist training with Torah study. The primary goal of the camp, Schwartz said, is to prepare campers for a future in which political instability, economic instability and unusual weather events could create supply chain issues that would interfere with everyday life. Campers will build their own shelters, according to the website, and the camp plans to provide special footwear intended for survival settings.
“We’re catering to a demographic of families that are awake, who understand that the years in the future will not be similar to years in the past,” Schwartz said. […]
Whether Camp Hikon actually gets off the ground remains to be seen. So far, no children are signed up and Schwartz has yet to obtain a permit to operate the camp.
And you’ll love this, if you’re an Orthodox Jew MAGA. Do such people exist? Evidently so. Here’s a pitch for Donald Trump’s favorite remedy, hydroxychloroquine.
“Many, many Rabbonim who have thoroughly researched the COVID vaccine are urgently saying NOT to take it [the vaccine],” one flyer read, using the Yiddish word for rabbis.
The flyer included a link to an online pamphlet with the names of rabbis who have allegedly come out against the coronavirus vaccines. It also promoted medications for the treatment of COVID such as hydroxychloroquine that studies have shown to be ineffective. The medication had been promoted by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, an Orthodox physician who, until last summer, worked in the Hasidic enclave of Kiryas Joel and whose treatment protocol was promoted by Donald Trump when he was US president.
The online pamphlet claimed that people did not die because of the coronavirus. “They died either from lack of proper treatment of corona, or from other neglect or improper treatment at the hospital,” the pamphlet said.
I knew that the ranks of the evangelicals was fully of anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists and end times whackos, but I had no idea that there were any Jewish sects involved in the madness. Apparently there are, but on the other hand, there’s not a land rush going on to sign up for this camp, so maybe things are not so dire as they would have appeared at first blush.
We live in interesting times. Or maybe interesting end times, who knows?
Sounds like the Jewish version of the Hitler Youth.
I wonder if Stephen Miller is somehow involved??? Sounds like the kind of thing that would come out of his chrome dome.
Just a nitpick, Ursula, but the song you quoted at the beginning of the piece is called “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.”
I’m also astonished that a group whose strict interpretation of Biblical laws won’t allow them the use of electricity on the Sabbath would be involved with email listserves.
But this part had me almost laughing if it weren’t so tragic: “The online pamphlet claimed that people did not die because of the coronavirus. “They died either from lack of proper treatment of corona, or from other neglect or improper treatment at the hospital,” the pamphlet said.” That’s almost like saying, “The patient didn’t die from his cancer; he died because he didn’t get adequate treatment for cancer or from other neglect at the hospital.”
If only stupidity hurt like a burn, then at least everyone would be able to identify the neuroatypical people of that particular end of the spectrum by their screams. The neuroatypical at the other end of the spectrum, a “silent majority” of another caliber, and the neurotypical would be able to keep their distance and get on with their lives.