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Borscht Belt
The Borscht Belt, or Yiddish Alps, is a region that had summer resorts catering to American Jewish vacationers, especially residents of New York City. The resorts, most later defunct, were located in the southern foothills of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, bordering the northern edges of the New York metropolitan area.
"In its heyday, as many as 500 resorts catered to guests of various incomes." These resorts, as well as the Borscht Belt bungalow colonies, were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s. By the late 1950s, many began closing, with most gone by the 1970s, but some major resorts continued to operate, a few into the 2010s.
The name comes from borscht, a soup of Ukrainian origin, made with beets as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color, that is popular in many Central and Eastern European countries and brought by Ashkenazi Jewish and Slavic immigrants to the United States. The alliterative name was coined by Abel Green, editor of Variety starting in 1933, and is a play on existing colloquial names for other American regions, such as the Bible Belt and Rust Belt. An alternate name, the Yiddish Alps, was used by Larry King and is satirical: a classic example of borscht belt humor.
After the expansion of the railway system including the tracks Ontario and Western as well as the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, the area of the Catskill Mountains became a tourist destination because of the beauty of the landscape, which impressed the painters of American Romanticism, and because of the rising popularity of fly fishing in its trout-rich rivers. As New York City streets would bake in the summer and air-conditioning was not yet available, people flocked to the Catskills.
In the early 1900s, some hotels' and resorts' advertisements refused to accept Jews and indicated "No Hebrews or Consumptives" in their ads. This discrimination led to a need for alternative lodging that would readily accept Jewish families as guests. Visits to the area by Jewish families were already underway "as early as the 1890s ... Tannersville ... was 'a great resort of our Israelite breathren [sic]' ... from the 1920s on [there were] hundreds of hotels." The larger hotels provided "Friday night and holiday services as well as kosher cooking", thus supporting religious families to take a vacation in accordance to their customs.
Borscht Belt hotels, bungalow colonies, summer camps, and kuchaleyns (kuch-alein, literally: "Cook it yourself", a Yiddish name for self-catered boarding houses) flourished. The bungalows usually included "a kitchen/living room/dinette, one bedroom, and a screened porch" with entertainment at the communal center, called the casino, being simple: bingo or a movie. The kuchaleyns were often visited by lower middle-class and working-class Jewish New Yorkers. Because of the many Jewish guests, this area was nicknamed the Yiddish Alps or Solomon County, a malapropism of Sullivan County, by many people who visited there.
A sufficient choice of Jewish cuisine was an important feature of the hotels in the Borscht Belt, and "too much was not enough" developed as a notion. Jonathan Sarna wrote: "To understand the emphasis on food, one has to understand hunger. Immigrants had memories of hunger, and in the Catskills, the food seemed limitless." The singles scene was also important; many hotels hired young male college students to attract single girls of a similar age. One book on the era contended that "the Catskills became one great marriage broker."
Borscht Belt resorts stood in towns such as Liberty, Fallsburg, Mamakating, Thompson, Bethel and Rockland in Sullivan County as well as Wawarsing and Rochester in Ulster County. Such resorts included Avon Lodge, Brickman's, Brown's, Butler Lodge, The Concord, Grossinger's, Granit, the Heiden Hotel, Irvington, Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club, the Nevele, Friar Tuck Inn, the Laurels Hotel and Country Club, the Pines Resort, Raleigh Hotel, the Overlook, the Tamarack Lodge, Shady Nook Hotel and Country Club, Stevensville, Stier's Hotel, and the Windsor. Some of these hotels originated from farms that Jewish immigrants had established in the early part of the 20th century.
Borscht Belt
The Borscht Belt, or Yiddish Alps, is a region that had summer resorts catering to American Jewish vacationers, especially residents of New York City. The resorts, most later defunct, were located in the southern foothills of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, bordering the northern edges of the New York metropolitan area.
"In its heyday, as many as 500 resorts catered to guests of various incomes." These resorts, as well as the Borscht Belt bungalow colonies, were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s. By the late 1950s, many began closing, with most gone by the 1970s, but some major resorts continued to operate, a few into the 2010s.
The name comes from borscht, a soup of Ukrainian origin, made with beets as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color, that is popular in many Central and Eastern European countries and brought by Ashkenazi Jewish and Slavic immigrants to the United States. The alliterative name was coined by Abel Green, editor of Variety starting in 1933, and is a play on existing colloquial names for other American regions, such as the Bible Belt and Rust Belt. An alternate name, the Yiddish Alps, was used by Larry King and is satirical: a classic example of borscht belt humor.
After the expansion of the railway system including the tracks Ontario and Western as well as the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, the area of the Catskill Mountains became a tourist destination because of the beauty of the landscape, which impressed the painters of American Romanticism, and because of the rising popularity of fly fishing in its trout-rich rivers. As New York City streets would bake in the summer and air-conditioning was not yet available, people flocked to the Catskills.
In the early 1900s, some hotels' and resorts' advertisements refused to accept Jews and indicated "No Hebrews or Consumptives" in their ads. This discrimination led to a need for alternative lodging that would readily accept Jewish families as guests. Visits to the area by Jewish families were already underway "as early as the 1890s ... Tannersville ... was 'a great resort of our Israelite breathren [sic]' ... from the 1920s on [there were] hundreds of hotels." The larger hotels provided "Friday night and holiday services as well as kosher cooking", thus supporting religious families to take a vacation in accordance to their customs.
Borscht Belt hotels, bungalow colonies, summer camps, and kuchaleyns (kuch-alein, literally: "Cook it yourself", a Yiddish name for self-catered boarding houses) flourished. The bungalows usually included "a kitchen/living room/dinette, one bedroom, and a screened porch" with entertainment at the communal center, called the casino, being simple: bingo or a movie. The kuchaleyns were often visited by lower middle-class and working-class Jewish New Yorkers. Because of the many Jewish guests, this area was nicknamed the Yiddish Alps or Solomon County, a malapropism of Sullivan County, by many people who visited there.
A sufficient choice of Jewish cuisine was an important feature of the hotels in the Borscht Belt, and "too much was not enough" developed as a notion. Jonathan Sarna wrote: "To understand the emphasis on food, one has to understand hunger. Immigrants had memories of hunger, and in the Catskills, the food seemed limitless." The singles scene was also important; many hotels hired young male college students to attract single girls of a similar age. One book on the era contended that "the Catskills became one great marriage broker."
Borscht Belt resorts stood in towns such as Liberty, Fallsburg, Mamakating, Thompson, Bethel and Rockland in Sullivan County as well as Wawarsing and Rochester in Ulster County. Such resorts included Avon Lodge, Brickman's, Brown's, Butler Lodge, The Concord, Grossinger's, Granit, the Heiden Hotel, Irvington, Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club, the Nevele, Friar Tuck Inn, the Laurels Hotel and Country Club, the Pines Resort, Raleigh Hotel, the Overlook, the Tamarack Lodge, Shady Nook Hotel and Country Club, Stevensville, Stier's Hotel, and the Windsor. Some of these hotels originated from farms that Jewish immigrants had established in the early part of the 20th century.
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