page_title: Pinemere Camp
section_title: 1930s–1957
hierarchical_section_title: Pinemere Camp / History / 1930s–1957
caption_attribution_description: English: Pinemere Camp grounds
context_page_description: Pinemere Camp is a Jewish overnight summer camp for children in grades 2–9. Its 300 campers are primarily drawn from the United States.
  Pinemere is located in a mountain setting, with cabins and a lake. It is on Bartonsville Woods Road, Stroudsburg, on Stoney Run in the Pocono Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The camp is 2 miles from the Camelback Mountain Resort, and about 45 miles north of Allentown, Pennsylvania. The camp grounds are 180 acres.
  Pinemere's name refers to the reflection of its pine trees upon its lake. The camp was officially established in 1942.
context_section_description: Pinemere Camp began operations in the 1930s.  A lake for swimming and boating was built.  Originally, it was a girls-only camp.
  Mrs. Cohen then purchased the property from the McCluskey family and Joseph Nye.  Shortly after the official establishment in 1939 of the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), the organized youth movement of Reform Judaism in North America, Rabbi Sam Cook organized what may have been the first regional Labor Day Conclave for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) Pennsylvania State Federation at Pinemere.
  Subsequently, the Philadelphia Jewish Welfare Board purchased the camp.  Pinemere Camp was officially established in 1942 by the Jewish Welfare Board (which subsequently became the Jewish Community Center Association (JCCA)) to provide a resident camp experience for Jewish children in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It focused especially on providing a camp experience to children from smaller communities that did not have a synagogue.  At that point, it became co-ed.  In the late 1940s, John Bernheimer, a prominent Philadelphia attorney, served on its board of directors.  American interior designer and former daytime television host Nate Berkus's grandparents met at the camp, where his grandfather was the water sports director.
caption: Pinemere Camp
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