76ers moving out; Camp Dina moving in

By The Jewish Star staff

Issue of August 13, 2010/ 3 Elul, 5770

Camp Dora Golding has had a sister camp for girls, Camp Dina, for 20 years, but this summer, like last, a third camp was quietly added to the mix.

Alexander Z. Gold, director of Camp Dora Golding and Camp Dina, has also been operating the Philadelphia 76ers summer basketball camp in Stroudsburg, PA under the terms of a multi-million dollar purchase agreement between the team and Camp Dora Golding that will see Camp Dina move to the site next summer.

The new Camp Dina is about 15 minutes away from Camp Dora Golding. That’s great news for parents of sons and daughters who currently spend visiting days shuttling between Dora Golding in East Stroudsburg and Dina in Dingman’s Ferry, NY. It’s a 30-minute trip with no traffic, which is something of a rarity, at least on recent visiting days.

Gold is excited about the new 100-acre girls campus.

“It’s very high class,” he said. “It has a 12-acre lake, an ‘L’ shaped pool and four indoor gymnasiums.”

New bunks are already under construction and the existing facilities and fields are to be updated.

The new campus, which sits at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, about 90-minutes from the Five Towns, will also include a miniature golf course and a batting cage.

“It’s a multi-million dollar facility, which is the reputation the boy’s camp has,” Gold said. He shuttles between camps in a mobile office built into a Winnebago camper, complete with a bathroom and a desktop computer.

In the world of Orthodox summer camps, both separate and co-ed, the 156-acre Camp Dora Golding has become somewhat famous for its amenities, including air-conditioned bunks, but local ordinances in Dingman’s Ferry have precluded renovating the girls’ camp in similar fashion, long dooming it to a decidedly more down-market appearance — if down-market can be taken to mean ‘more like what the campers’ parents recall summer camp being like.’

When the current Camp Dina campers took a field trip to the new site earlier this summer, Gold said, their “eyeballs popped.”

Dora Golding’s 7th and 8th grade boys’ bunks visited as well, to take some training from the 76ers’ basketball camp coaching staff.

Once known as Camp Deal, the non-profit Camp Dora Golding was founded in New Jersey in 1925 and is the oldest Orthodox camp in the United States. The girls’ division was created in 1990. Currently, there are 500 boys in Camp Dora Golding and 270 girls in Camp Dina, with anticipated growth to 300 over the next two years.

“We’re moving to the best location ever,” Gold said.