December 2022
Mention the Catskills to any Jewish person from eastern New York State, 40-years-old or older, you will likely inspire a flood of memories for them; of summers spent in the mountains with family and friends, either at a hotel or a bungalow colony, relaxing by a pool, participating in recreational sports, endless plates of food, music & comedians, summer romances, all while enjoying the fresh country air.
It was where a lot of the great American comedy originated, as evidenced by the large number of Jewish comedians who got their start on the stages at the hotels and bungalow colonies.
For anyone who has seen the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, the Amazon Prime TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or even better, the lesser-known 1987 movie Sweet Lorraine, you have an idea of the cultural institution that was the Catskills, also known as the Borscht Belt, or the Jewish Alps.
Despite having watched Dirty Dancing when it first came out, I didn’t really get the cultural significance of the Borscht Belt and what it meant to New York City (and some Canadian) Jewish life. Not being Jewish, and living a considerable distance from the area, I didn’t have any connections to the culture or the area that may have drawn me there.
I finally “discovered” the Borscht Belt in 2017, due to my involvement in the hobby of urban exploration. The hobby is multifaceted, but it’s essentially going into places where you aren’t supposed to go, which for me, is abandoned buildings and properties. I always bring my camera for the purpose of documenting the deterioration of man-made structures once they are abandoned and no longer maintained.
Toronto resident Jen Stewart is the creator and host of The Borscht Belt Tattler, “…a podcast dedicated to preserving the memories and sharing them with new and multi-generational audiences.” Jen interviews a variety of guests who have a personal connection to the resorts and bungalow colonies that once made up the Catskills, including former hotel owners, those who worked at the hotels, entertainers who performed in the area, and those seeking to preserve the memory of the Catskills.
Amongst other questions, Jen usually asks her guests one or two questions every episode: describe the Borscht Belt in one word, and is the Borscht Belt really over or can the “classic” Catskills-era rise again?
My answers would be “Memories” and “No.” It was such a perfect convergence of so many elements, that it can never be completely re-created. It was a product of its time and that time is gone. The reasons why it can never be re-created are the same reasons why it declined in the first place: Jewish integration into the mainstream of society, the emergence of cheaper airfare and increasing family incomes, that enabled to travel to far-off places previously unaffordable or impractical.
Further factors included a desire of the younger generation to go to other exotic locations instead of accompanying their parents to the Catskills each summer, the increased availability of air-conditioning in homes, reducing the desire to escape to the cool mountains in the summer, and the predominance of two-income families. In its hey-day, most married women didn’t work, so they would spend the summer in the Catskills with the children. Their husbands stayed behind in the city to work during the week, only coming up on weekends. The best that most families could do these days is to book a week or two off work for a family vacation, but with many other places to go, most families don’t want to spend every summer at the same hotel or bungalow colony. Even those who could do their jobs remotely with a laptop computer and an internet connection, would rather travel to other exotic and exciting places.
It’s kind of like the post-World War I-era song, “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)”
Some of the old hotels and bungalow colonies remain in business, although most of them have been bought up by Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish sects for religious schools and camps, turned into ashrams or privately-owned residential co-op communities.
I think the best that anyone can hope for is to preserve and enjoy what little is left of the Borscht Belt, so that at least the spirit of it can live on. There are plans in the works for a Catskill Resort Museum and a Borscht Belt Historical Marker project, which may prove to be valuable tourist attractions for the area.
Since the decline of the Borscht Belt, there have been two new hotels built in the area: one a Yoga wellness retreat on a portion of the former Kutsher’s property, and the other, a casino operation on a portion of the former Concord property. Neither have much in common to the old Borscht Belt hotels, other than being located in the Catskills.
There have been plans in the works for years to build new hotels on both the former Grossinger’s and Nevele properties, but nothing has yet come to fruition.
So, why is a non-Jew, with no connection to the Catskills so fascinated with the Borscht Belt? I can only think that I’m interested in some of the things that it represented: it was a sense of community and shared experiences with friends, year after year, which is something that is rapidly disappearing from our fast-paced society, where few people know their neighbours anymore, and of course, the great comedy that came out of it. I grew up enjoying the comedy of many of the comedians who got their start in the Catskills.
It was a culturally significant element of American life in the 20th Century, and I regret that I didn’t get to experience it in its hey-day. I can at least document what’s left, stay at some of the remaining original hotels and imagine what it must have been like back then.
Three of the original Borscht Belt hotels that remain in operation and could give you a version of a Catskills vacation include: Honor’s Haven Resort & Spa, formerly the Fallsview Hotel and Country Club, Villa Roma Resort and Conference Center and Vacation Valley Resort & Spa, formerly The Granit.
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Sources: https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/what-happened-to-the-borscht-belt, https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/borscht-belt#:~:text=During%20summers%20and%20holidays%2C%20Jews,d%20be%20welcomed%20as%20Jews.
