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Chautauqua Institution

Lure Of Learning

Gatherings such as these at various places in Chautauqua are commonplace.

Chautauqua’s
“summer camp for
the adult brain” draws
local couple as hosts.

Joe and Bobbie Lewis
at Chautauqua

HOW TO GO

The best accommodations, including
the Everett Jewish Life Center, get
booked up months ahead of time, so
start planning now for summer 2017.
For details about the Chautauqua
Institution or to order tickets, visit
ciweb.org. The website includes
information about accommodations.
For details about the Everett Center,
visit www.jewishcenterchautauqua.
org, where you can download a
room request form.

L

ooking for an alternative summer
activity that not only is beautiful,
but also stimulates your brain? It’s
not too early to look at Chautauqua, a popu-
lar cultural and educational summer-long
program in the southwest corner of New
York, a 5.5-hour drive from Detroit.
Chautauqua started in 1874 as an outdoor
summer training program for Methodist
Sunday School teachers. It has developed
into what one regular attendee called “sum-
mer camp for the adult brain,” with a nine-
week season that includes themed lectures,
concerts, author visits, performing and visual
arts programs for high school and college
students, and more.
About 150,000 people visit Chautauqua
every summer, with 7,500 living on the
grounds during any given week.
Among the housing options at
Chautauqua, which include private homes,
apartments, condos and hotels, are 16
“denominational houses” started by vari-
ous religious groups to provide inexpensive
rooms for their adherents.
One of the newest of these is the Everett
Jewish Life Center, built with the help of
businesswoman and philanthropist Edith
Everett of New York in memory of her hus-
band, Henry, and dedicated in 2009.
The Everett house has five guest rooms
and provides films, speakers and other
programs open to everyone at Chautauqua.
The house has a kosher kitchen, and weekly
bookings run from Sunday to Sunday, rather
than the Saturday-to-Saturday rentals for
most Chautauqua accommodations.
Bobbie and Joe Lewis of Oak Park have
been named the host couple of the Everett
Jewish Life Center at the Chautauqua
Institution for 2017.

(CLSC) developed a correspondence course
for those who couldn’t attend college. The
CLSC still exists, publishing a reading list
every year and sponsoring authors who visit
during the summer season.
As the Everett Center was about to be
dedicated in 2009, Lewis read a Moment
magazine article about Jews at Chautauqua.
The Lewises decided to give Chautauqua a
try in 2014 and returned for a week the fol-
lowing two years.
“We observe Shabbat and, without the
Everett house, we wouldn’t have been able
to spend a whole week at Chautauqua,
where most of the rentals start and end on
Saturday,” Joe said.
“We’re so excited about this new job,”
Bobbie added. “A week at Chautauqua can be
pretty pricey. This way, we’ll get to be there
the entire summer!”
As hosts at the house, the Lewises will
welcome guests and provide
a kosher breakfast for them
every morning.
David Gad-Harf of West
Bloomfield has been visit-
ing Chautauqua since he was
young. His parents, Joan and
Walter Harf of Erie, Pa., started
spending the summers there
in 1971; a few years later, they
decided to build a second
home there.
While Jews had rented at
Chautauqua for years and a
Continuing a tradition, few had bought homes, the
Walter Harf measures
Harfs faced some resistance
his great-grandson,
to the idea of Jews building
Jonah Gadharf, 4,
a house. They persisted, and
on the wall of his
since then the number of
Chautauqua home.
Jewish homeowners has grown

Although Chautauqua still has a WASP-y
vibe, ecumenism is an important institution-
al value. Jews have been part of the commu-
nity for decades. The Chautauqua Hebrew
Congregation, founded in 1960, invites
visiting Conservative and Reform rabbis and
cantors to lead services by the lake on Friday
nights and in a Methodist church (with the
Christian symbols covered) on Saturday
morning, followed by a Kiddush lunch. The
congregation also holds several Shabbat din-
ners every summer at the Everett house.
The Chabad movement has been at
Chautauqua since the 1980s and is recog-
nized as a denomination by the Chautauqua
Institution. Chabad has had its own house
since 2013. Resident rabbi, Zalman Vilenkin,
and his wife, Esther, of Brooklyn, lead ser-
vices and educational programs (including
weekly challah baking) and host Shabbat
meals, but the house does not offer guest
rooms.
Some estimate that Jews make
up at least 20 percent of the
Chautauqua population.

A SPECIAL PLACE
FOR LEARNING
“I first learned about
Chautauqua in high school,”
said Bobbie Lewis, a retired
organizational communicator.
“It expanded as small traveling
groups brought the Chautauqua
program to small towns on the
frontier.”
Chautauqua’s emphasis has
always been on education and
culture, rather than religion.
In 1878, the Chautauqua
Literary and Scientific Circle

continued on page 16

14 November 17 • 2016

