Camping Trip Turns Into Nightmare

By Toiby Hayes for COLlive

This past Shabbos Nachamu was meant to be an uplifting weekend for some 400 Jewish people who registered to make the trip to Jeffersonville, a charming older village nestled in the scenic foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

The Camping Trip, an annual Jewish music festival, promised to once again host singles, couples and families for 3 days of outdoor camping, davening, eating, learning and dancing.

This year’s lineup was set to include musicians such as the Moshav Band, Soulfarm, Gad Elbaz, G-Nome Project, Raphael Fulcher, Shmuly Lieberman, Esther Freeman, Zusha, Eli Beer and others, for what can be described as a Woodstock-style Shabbaton.

It ended up being a nightmare.

In the run-up to Shabbos, rumors began circulating that the weekend would not be taking place due to ongoing legal difficulties of Ian Leifer, founder of the Camping Trip and owner of the property it is held on.

The festival has been taking place since 2014 on Leifer’s property. In 2016, town officials advised Leifer that the festival violated zoning code and its prohibition against “dramatic performances or music” events in the area and required a use variance.

Leifer challenged the validity of the restriction by arguing, among other things, that “it excessively interferes with expressive conduct in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.”

On June 21, 2018, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that Leifer was allowed to host family and friends but not set up facilities for “an outdoor music festival where hundreds of paid ticket holders enter onto his or her land to take part in it.”

Following the ruling, Leifer insisted the festival was still going on and continued to promote the festival and sell tickets. As late as Friday, July 27 at 10:43 AM, the organizer wrote on Facebook: “The camping trip is still on. Please ignore the rumors, the issue was with parking and it’s being handled!”

At 11:20 AM, a second message from the organizer on Facebook said that Leifer received permission to host the festival from Jim McElroy, Building Inspector of the Town of Delaware.

They said the legal troubles were motivated by anti-semitism and said the Town of Delaware Supervisor Ed Sykes commented, “You must have thumbed your nose at the town because you are Jewish.”

“We ARE moving forward with the event,” organizers announced. “Additional alternative parking is being obtained – and we are asking all guests to come and take part in the event in protest of the injustice that has come upon us. If not now, when?… Three holy tzaddikim in our time have all urged us to go forward with this event.”

Despite the statement, when the festival-goers drove to the location at 40 Sickmiller Road and Route 52, they were met by deputies from the Sullivan County Sheriff Department.

The officers closed off the two roads leading into the event in Jeffersonville and stopped vehicles from entering the campsite. With just hours left to Shabbos, hundreds of people were left in the dark, scrambling to make alternative plans or trips.

When news began to spread, a source said, Leifer “grabbed his Tefillin bag and went deep into the forest where no one could find him, demanding that he only be contacted through his radio and a codename should be used in place of his real name.”

Chani Halberstam and Yehudis (Jude) Keller, both residents of Crown Heights, accuse Leifer of deceit and a lack of transparency. The two had been hired as volunteer coordinators of the event, 3 weeks prior.

They said that despite having the knowledge that a permit might not be issued for the festival, Leifer continued to sell tickets, not disclosing the possible interference that could potentially occur. This information was not disclosed to any of the parties involved including staff, vendors and attendees.

“The property owner chose not to tell us, the event organizers, or anyone else, that the event was illegal,” Halberstam and Keller wrote in a joint post on Facebook. “We promised you The Camping Trip Shabbat and music festival. We are so sorry this happened to you.”

“Had he not run off and left us to delegate and actually spoken to the cops, maybe all of this could have been avoided,” Keller told COLlive.com. “Had I known everything there was going on, I would not have encouraged people to come to this event, or even worked for this event,” Halberstam added.

Halberstam and Keller said they were left there to try to find solutions. At the last minute, Alter Deitsch, co-organizer of Sababa Music Festival, a similar event which took place earlier this summer, came to the rescue.

Deitsch arranged for approximately 200 of the remaining Camping Trip attendees to spent Shabbos at an alternative camping grounds. The refrigerated food truck from the Camping Trip was sent there to provide Shabbos meals.

At the new grounds, people needed to walk 15 minutes to the nearest gas station for using the bathroom. The line-up of performers wasn’t there, but participants did partake in music and a kumzitz on their own, making the best of what was supposed to be a musical experience.

“When everything went bad, staff volunteers and guests banded together to make the most of what we did have,” said John McKinney, Ground Operations Manager of the Camping Trip. “Despite the lack of scheduled activities, everyone came together and had an epic experience. We all gained new friends and experiences.”

Festival registrants are now demanding that Leifer refund them for the festival – if not also pay compensation for their troubles and disappointments. Tickets for the festival sold for $800 dollars for a 4-person camping pass.

People with knowledge of the organization say that Leifer carries significant debt from previous years and that “There is no money for refunds, or to pay artists, vendors, and staff who were lied to.”

“I feel awful for all of the people who bought tickets and ended up being stranded for Shabbos, getting nothing that they paid for, they don’t deserve this,” Keller said.

“It could be parts of what happened were anti-semitic, but regarding this year’s event, it doesn’t matter because he needed to have sorted it out, and he didn’t,” she said of Leifer.

Leifer declined to comment on this article or answer specific questions.