Borscht Belt memories lessons for today

I recently returned from the Borscht Belt Festival in Ellenville, N.Y., wearing a Nevele Country Club tee shirt that Roberta Rabin bought 25 years ago.

The festival included panel discussions on life in the Catskills, including how sports that the hotels sponsored broke down racial barriers. For example, Kutsher’s and others hosted integrated basketball tournaments with professionals years before the NBA integrated the league. And the Borscht Belt Museum includes photos and artifacts of the dozens of hotels and bungalow colonies inhabiting the landscape of Sullivan and Ulster Counties over a six-decade span. Topping off the experience were numerous comics — not all Jewish — who worked in the Borscht Belt style of humor that has infused our popular culture.

For me, it was a trip down memory lane. When I was a child and through my early teens, I went to bungalow colonies in Ellenville and South Fallsburg with my parents, my brother, Abe, and my sister, Lillian. Many of the fathers languished in the city on weekdays, working, and reveled in spending the weekends in the fresh air of the Catskills. They enjoyed swimming, sports and makeshift shuls that converted to entertainment centers after Shabbat.

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In my late teens, I worked as a busboy and waiter at many hotels during Thanksgiving, Passover, and the summer months. The Tanzville and Waldemere hotels and Pioneer Country Club come to mind. Serving a Jewish clientele, with their reasonable requests and occasional unconventional ones, no doubt prepared me for later Jewish communal leadership.

The hours were long and working conditions not glamorous, to put it mildly, but the pay, mostly tips, helped pay for college and other expenses. And the food served to us reminded me of what the guests had for their previous meals. But it was an enriching experience and we all shared a common esprit de corps.

Years later, my parents and 25 other families, mostly Holocaust survivors, using the moshav as their model, purchased Garden Cottages in Monticello; each family owned its own bungalow and all shared common expenses. For more than 25 years, they enjoyed life to the fullest, enjoying family, attending Shabbat services, where my father read the Torah portion every week, and feasted on a wonderful kiddush. In the evenings they played cards, danced, and laughed at the numerous bands and entertainers they could afford to engage. We were always invited to visit and treated like royalty, particularly by our mom.

My father was the president, which was not an honorific title. He was on call for any problems with the pool, plumbing, and sundry other difficulties that might arise, including resolving disputes. He was beloved by this extended family of peers, who substituted for the family he lost during the Holocaust.

When he turned 80 and needed dialysis, he resigned his position. Shortly thereafter, Garden Cottages Incorporated decided to sell the property; each unit owner sold their own bungalows for handsome profits.

At lunch at the festival, I coincidentally happened to be seated next to the daughter-in-law of the family that lived next to my parents’ bungalow.

It was this sense of community, whether at the bungalow colonies or hotels, with guests sharing the same Jewish cuisine, laughing at the comics who infused their jokes with Yiddish, exemplifying the Jewish condition of that time. That is what made the Borscht Belt such a treasured part of the American Jewish experience.

With the social acceptance of Jews, assimilation, greater affluence, and cheaper airline flights, the Borscht Belt began its steady decline to become, unfortunately, only a subject of nostalgia and memory.

The Borscht Belt Festival seeks to evoke this golden past, and does so successfully. However, when I was asked how many more years the festival could continue to run, I answered: “What’s the life expectancy of Baby Boomers? Our children may view this period only as a curiosity. They don’t have the vivid memories that it stirs in us.”

But in the aftermath of October 7, the sense of isolation prompting so many of us to feel the need to connect to Jewish experiences has led to a surge of engagement among Jews on the sidelines.

A recent survey conducted by the Jewish Federations of North America and written by Mimi Kravitz, Sarah Eiseman, and David Manchester has shown the need for Jewish belonging that “is nothing short of historic.”

Forty percent of survey respondents who had been involved only marginally, if not at all, are now showing up for Jewish events. This constitutes a large cohort, supplementing  those already involved. The authors conclude that this need has created an unparalleled “opportunity for a sector-wide focus on driving engagement and membership.”

While the Borscht Belt experience resonated for me and my contemporaries, we need to be welcoming, inventive, and open to new ideas to those who seek more “doing Jewish.”

Meanwhile, I still hear, in the distant recesses of my mind, “Young man, please bring more pickled lox for the table.”

Max Kleinman of Fairfield was the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest from 1995 to 2014. He is the president of the Fifth Commandment Foundation and consultant for the Jewish Community Legacy Project.