Borscht Belt and Beyond: The Lasting Legacy of the Jewish Catskills
Tuesdays at 6 p.m. ET
Aug. 20 - Sept. 10
All classes will be recorded and sent to registrants.
The Borscht Belt era, set in the Jewish vacationland in New York’s Catskill Mountains, was short-lived, but it has left an indelible cultural footprint.
The lavish resorts, modest hotels and homely bungalow colonies not only produced a generation of comedians, actors and writers — it also defined a secular Jewish identity that is still celebrated today.
In this course, we will look at the Catskills in their time, and how the era has entered Jewish memory — through films like “Dirty Dancing” and “A Walk on the Moon”; TV shows like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; literary accounts; Broadway revivals; and scholarly projects like The Catskills Institute.
The course will also include live interviews with guests who are keeping the cultural legacy of “the Mountains” alive: Andrew Jacobs, president of the brand-new Borscht Belt Museum; Aaron Bendich, who heads Borscht Beat, an independent Jewish cultural project focused on vintage and contemporary Jewish music; and Marisa Scheinfeld, a photographer who is spearheading the Borscht Belt Historical Markers Project.
Don't miss this one-of-a-kind offering, taught by New York Jewish Week editor Andrew Silow-Carroll!
Each class is approximately 1 hour long. There are no refunds for this course.
