Newsletter of the Catskills Institute

IN THE MOUNTAINS

NEWSLETTER OF THE CATSKILLS INSTITUTE An Organization to Promote Research and Education on the Significance of the Catskill Mountains for American Jewish Life

NUMBER 20 JULY 2008

SELL OUT PREMIERE OF FOUR SEASONS LODGE DOCUMENTARY

By Andrew Jacobs me to stick around. I was immediately surrounded by an eager coterie “Four Seasons Lodge,” a documentary by New York Times journalist Andrew Jacobs, of dance partners whose ribald humor and giddy joie de vivre were includes cinematography by Albert Maysles, the renown documentarian behind such astounding. Later, when the music stopped, I was beset by eager classics as “Gimme Shelter” and “Grey Gardens.” Its world premiere in June 2008 at the story tellers, many of whom had never revealed the details of their SilverDocs film festival in Washington D.C., sold out its screenings and received en- harrowing pasts. There was Joseph Fox, a Warsaw ghetto escapee thusiastic press. In the coming year it will make the rounds of the film festival circuit; who joined a group of partisans that blew up Nazi supply trains, and once distribution is secured, the film will begin appearing in theaters across the coun- Helga Grunberg, a survivor of several death camps who explained try, and hopefully, on television. why so many refugees like herself were drawn to the company of They come together to cook, gamble, fight and flirt. On Saturday other survivors. “We can’t help but talk about the past” she said. nights, they dress in formal wear and tango late into the night. They “And American people don’t like to hear our stories because it’s too endured the worst of humanity, but every summer they return to a much for them.” bungalow colony in Ellenville to celebrate life, and confront the When I learned the next summer would be their last, I decided I had memories of their horrifying pasts. From the darkness of Europe's to do something more. Although I had never made a film before, I death camps to the lush mountains of the Catskill mountains comes realized only a documentary could capture their astonishing embrace the modern story of a band of survivors who trumped Hitler's Final for life and a haunting darkness that shadowed the residents even Solution. “This is our revenge on Hitler. To live this long, this well, is when they were doubled over in laughter. The summer of 2006 was a victory,” says Fran Lask, 82, a Lodger and survivor of Bergen- magical, heart-breaking but in the end eminently inspirational. We Belsen. planned to film over a few weekends but ended up spending nearly In 2005, I discovered and wrote about the Lodge for a New York three straight months among the lodgers. We came away with a valu- Times series on Catskills summer life. When I pulled up to the Four able lesson: that even people who had endured unspeakable atrocity Seasons Lodge that Saturday evening, I came upon astonishing scene: can find happiness, even if that joy is book-ended by sorrow. And There, dressed in crisp evening wear, where 100 men and women people in their 80s and 90s, we discovered, can flirt, find new ro- dancing to disco classics, old school fox trots and pre-war, Polish- mance and resolve 40-year-old rivalries. flavored tangos. “Four Seasons Lodge” is the story about Holocaust survivors who One of the first people I met was Hymie Abramowitz, the colony’s vice president, unpaid custodian and unofficial godfather, who invited (Continued on page 7)

SPECIAL CALL FOR FUNDS AFTER 13 GREAT YEARS, We are putting out a special call for monetary do- nations to the Catskills Institute. We are at the CATSKILLS CONFERENCE TAKES A BREAK point where our work requires a regular paid staff person, at least half-time, and our goal is to raise enough funds by September to support that posi- Given the large effort our archiving/website project takes (see accompa- tion. In addition to the many tasks of archiving and nying story this issue), we are suspending the Annual History of the Cats- updating our materials, we have considerable re- kills Conference for the time being. After 13 years in a row, this is a diffi- search needs that continue to crop up: conducting cult decision, but we hope those of you who would have attended will oral histories, acquiring new archival material, pho- understand. Our energy will be better served on the larger projects that tographing remnants and ruins in the Catskills, and will serve many more people than the number who attend the conference. conducting new research on a multitude of topics. The long run of conferences has brought together many people, generated We are a 501 (c) (3) organization, so all contribu- much research, spurred many reunions, and helped build our Catskills tions are tax-deductible. Institute. PAGE 2 IN THE MOUNTAINS

THE END OF AN ERA: LONGTIME CATSKILLS VETERAN JACK LANDMAN RETIRES

By Jack Landman with my father. And I worked there suc- that had nicer amenities. cessfully until 1941 when I went into the In 1923, when I was about 6 years old, The following summer, 1949, I left West service. When the war was over in 1946, we went on vacation to the Catskills for Shore and bought into another neighbor- I returned to the Catskills and was the the first time . My father sent my mother, ing hotel, Luxor Manor. Doris, my wife, head waiter at West Shore until 1948. my three brothers and I up for the sum- was in charge of the linens, and I did mer, and he joined us on weekends. When I returned to West Shore, it was at whatever else had to be done. That’s a time when most of the hotels were do- what happens when you are the owner. If Six summers of vacationing later, my ing only 3 weeks of capacity – the 3rd & 4th the chef got sick – I cooked. If the MC father decided to invest in the Catskills wk of July and 1st wk in August. They was hoarse – I announced. I was quite and bought The West Shore Country Club were the only three weeks the hotels literally the Jack of all trades. Although I in Kauneonga Lake. I was 12, and I was could count on to make money. was breaking my back trying to keep this no longer allowed to vacation – I was put hotel on its legs, the Catskill gods had to work. I became a caddy on the golf Now by this point I had a wife and child, another fate in mind for me. course that summer - a job I held proudly and I couldn’t understand how young men for several years before I was able to work back from the service with families As luck would have it, Kutsher’s Country in the dining room. wouldn’t want to spend the entire sum- Club, a resort in Monticello, had just fired mer away from the city. Not just 3 their maitre d’ and was looking for a re- Around the time I turned 16, I felt I was weeks, but full 8 week vacations. placement. I met Milton Kutsher at his old enough to get off of caddy duty and home in Monticello, and it was an instant waiter in the dining room. My brother So I sat down with my father and pro- kinship. With a mere handshake, I began Ben, however, refused to let me waiter posed an idea. “Suppose I could sell 8 a relationship with Kutsher’s Country because he was afraid that the clientele week vacation packages, Pa. How would Club that would last for 58 years – a Cats- wouldn’t tip a waiter who was the you price them?” “Give ‘em last week kills record I am told. owner’s son. And in those days we free,” he answered. So, at end of summer pooled our tips. So in an act of great defi- 1947 I took my pop’s mailing list and In the summer of 1950, I began work as ance, I left West Shore and took a job as a started making phone calls. I advertised 8 the maitre d’ of Kutsher’s main dining busboy at Hotel Glass in Fallsburg. week vacations where the kids could go to room. But I was an athlete and a teacher, a day camp right at the hotel. I guess I and I longed to use those skills. Fortu- One Memorial Day weekend after the was onto something because when my nately for me, in the summer of 1952, last meal, the waiters all walked out in father came back from Florida after the activity director Red Auerbach, also the protest. They refused to clear the tables winter, I handed him a bank book with coach of the Boston Celtics, decided to because they didn’t like the way they $11,000 in deposits from all the vacations write a book and needed time away from were being treated. I didn’t join their I had sold! the hotel to do that. I saw my open- protest. I didn’t feel I was being treated ing…and I grabbed it. I proudly held the unfairly. It was normal for me. We were That summer went well. People were job of activity director at Kutsher’s from being treated the same way my father happy with the vacations and the camp, 1952 – 2008. treated his staff. When they walked out, but people weren’t happy with the rooms only another young man and I were left. – they were old. So I asked my pop if he During my tenure at KCC, I wore many We stayed and cleaned up the entire din- would build new rooms so we could im- hats. As activity director I taught Line ing room. Mr. Glass was so happy, he prove business. He agreed. Unfortu- Dancing, and ran Simon Sez, “Can You called my father and said, “What a fine nately, when he built the rooms, he built Top This?” and current events lectures. young man you have here.” I think he even 6 room bungalows with toilets at the back As emcee in the night club I got to intro- gave me $5 extra. When I came home of the bungalows. All 6 families had to duce acts from Freddie Roman to Mal Z, that night my father said, “If you are such use the same facilities. Pop didn’t realize Duke Ellington to Jackie Mason. As an- a fine boy, you work here. I need you.” that with the birth of air conditioning, nouncer of the Maurice Stokes Game, I people no longer had to go away. If they had the pleasure of calling the plays of So, that was my entrée into the dining chose to go away, it would be to a place room. My brother Ben couldn’t argue (Continued on page 3) NUMBER 20 PAGE 3

(Continued from page 2) seen in the musicals featuring members of the staff. (My tour de force performance was as Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls”.) In 1960, I began another partnership with the Kutsher family. This one involved the ownership of Camp Anawana. I remained a partner until the camp closed in the late ’90s. For over 58 years I have been a part of Kutsher’s Country Club; and for over 84

Jack Landman coaching the KCC basketball team future basketball legends Wilt Chamber- Jack Landman emceeing the Night Club at KCC lain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Larry Bird, among others. As athletic instructor years a part of the Catskills. This summer I enjoyed the opportunity of teaching ath- marks a new milestone for me – a sum- letic skills to women guaranteeing their mer without the Catskills. As Kutsher’s success in softball, basketball and golf has been sold and many of the surround- putting. I wrote the hotel newspaper ing resorts have closed their doors, it is “Kutsher’s Kapers” and even contributed truly the end of an era. This summer, like to a column in the Sullivan County Jewish so many of you, I will have only my Star. In the early days I could even be memories to keep me company. Jack Landman and Duke Ellington

NORTHEAST FLORIDA HOSTS THE FIRST DIGITIZING THE ARCHIVES CATSKILLS REUNION BUILDING A NEW WEBSITE By Isabel Balotin Connecting was easy as each name tag listed the name of the person and We are pleased to report great progress on digitizing the No matter where you go, there you his/her Catskills relationship. archive. Brown University's Scholarly Technology are. Group (STG) gave us a substantial grant to digitize the Abe Fraden told hilarious jokes with a Another interpretation of this adage by Catskills Institute archive and to build a very high-tech Borscht Belt shtick; Barry Zisser, a the 95 people who attended the North- website around that archive. waiter in many of the hotels, shared a east Florida Catskills Reunion on May 4 funny personal experience he had with The STG runs a joint program with the Brown Library’s might be: No matter where you live, the IRS and the Catskills; Kevin Mala- Center for Digital Initiatives (CDI) (see them at there is someone nearby who has a med, newcomer to Jacksonville and 3rd http://dl.lib.brown.edu/ and for an example of what Catskills connection. They came from generation-native of Loch Sheldrake, their projects look like, see the Yiddish Sheet Music Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Ponte shared his collection of Catskills memo- Collection at dl.lib. brown.edu/sheetmusic/yiddish/ Vedra, Palm Coast, Ormand Beach and rabilia. even Orlando. At this point we have approximately 1,500 items The afternoon ended, but the memories scanned in, and expect to do about 500-1,000 more. The Strathmore Bagel & Deli in Palm of the “mountains” will live on in our Then there will be a major task of coding them for easy Coast buzzed with laughter and excite- minds & hearts. Another event will be retrieval via keywords. The new website will give links ment as the Catskills alumni reminisced held in September, and there is talk of at each hotel or bungalow colony name, indicating all and nostalgically recalled the magical bringing films and book reviews with a items we have from that place. There will also be an time they spent in the Catskills. It was Catskills theme to Northeast Florida. If automated query list, making that task much easier. as if time stood still for the Loch Shel- you know of anyone who has a Catskills drake, Fallsburgh, Monticello, Liberty, As always, we ask you to search your attics, basements, connection, please contact Isabel Ba- Kiamesha Lake, Ellenville and Wood- and drawers for postcards, photos, menus, rate cards, lotin, 448-5000 ext 206 or jewish- ridge natives, hotel and bungalow vaca- brochures, and anything else from the Catskills past. [email protected]. tioners, workers and summer campers. PAGE 4 IN THE MOUNTAINS

INTERVIEW WITH TANIA GROSSINGER

Interview conducted by Martha Mendelsohn. [Note: Portions of this interview have been omitted due to space restrictions. For the complete interview, please visit the Catskills Institute website ] Tania Grossinger and I met at a Starbuck’s near her Greenwich Village apartment, which is quite a distance, literally and figuratively, from the famed Catskills resort owned by her relatives, where she lived as a child. She was director of broadcast promotion for Playboy Magazine, and later became a freelance consultant and travel writer. Her articles have appeared in over 100 local and national publications, and she has been interviewed on the Today show, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She is currently a travel/lifestyle correspondent-at-large for Sally Jessy Raphael’s TalkNet. On the eve of the reissue in June 2008 of her1975 memoir, Growing up at Grossinger’s, by Skyhorse Publishing, she reflects on the great and the not-so- great, her status as a “not very important Grossinger,” her mother Karla, who was the hotel’s hostess and social director, and the Catskills’ enduring resonance. Martha Mendelsohn: How are you related to the Grossinger family? Tania Grossinger: Jennie Grossinger, who was the “face” of Grossinger’s, and Harry Grossinger, her husband, were cousins. When Harry’s seven brothers and sisters emigrated to America in the early 1900’s, half of them, including Harry, settled in New York City, the other half in Chicago. My father, Max, a cousin, met my mother, Karla, in Vienna, where she was studying at the university. After they married in 1924, they came to America and settled with the Chicago cousins. How did you come to live at Grossinger’s? In 1938, when I was six months old, my father had a heart attack and died. There had been no other children. Shortly thereafter, my mother and I moved to Beverly Hills, CA, where she created a new life for herself as “Mme Savonier.” Jennie came to California and visited my mother in early 1945. Because of food rationing during World War II, I complained of not having enough food at the boarding school where my mother had sent me at the tender age of 5. When Jennie offered my mother a job as social hostess at G., it was the proverbial offer she couldn’t refuse. Why reissue a book about Grossinger’s in 2008, more than 30 years after the hotel’s demise? Who in this generation has even heard of the late, great resort? I can’t begin to tell you how many younger people ask me what life at a Catskills resort hotel was like. The Jewish experience in the Catskills is part of Americana; the Jews are assimilated now. Phil Brown taught an undergraduate course on “Catskills Culture” at Brown University, and I was surprised that even one of the students was Asian. The generation immediately after the heyday of the Catskills in the '40s, '50s and 60's was too involved with themselves, but now their children want to know, “What was it like, Grandma?” There’s nostalgia for a seemingly sim- pler time. Guests didn’t have BlackBerries, they had blueberries. The only time they got on line was to wait for the dining room to open. How did you come to write Growing Up….. in the first place? In 1974, I wrote an article for the New York Times Sunday Travel section about what it was like for me to grow up at Grossinger's. By the end of the week, I had received eight offers to expand it into a book. David McKay published it the year after. Unfortunately for me, shortly after its publication, McKay was sold to an English conglomerate. My editor, the publicity director, the advertising director and subsidiary rights director all left. There was no one to take up the cudgel and make the book the success they all originally believed it would have become. What are some of the life lessons you learned at Grossinger’s? I learned never to envy money. I saw the way some of the rich people I met there conducted themselves. I never bought into the myth that you had to be rich to be happy. I disliked those who were condescending and treated the staff as servants. I always understood that money, in and of itself, did not seem to make the rich any happier than were many of the people I knew on staff. I also grew up with a working mother. I saw how hard she had to work. Many of the people on staff at Grossinger's were women and it never occurred to me that there was something nega- tive about women having careers. You and your mother, Karla, were the “poor relatives” and treated as such. Jennie’s pitch to get the two of you to move to the hotel had been, “Tania will have a family. She will be surrounded by people who love her.” She didn’t exactly treat you like family, did she? Guests came first. Most of the time, Jennie didn’t know I was alive. And I can tell you that she never even had a cup of coffee with my mother. Her attitude was that she had been kind enough to us by offering my mother a job and a place for the two of us to live so wasn’t she a wonderful person? \ PAGE 5 IN THE MOUNTAINS

AUTHOR OF GROWING UP AT GROSSINGER’S

Besides, my mother and Jennie had little in common. My mother was educated, spoke 13 languages, and had pursued a doctorate in philosophy at Northwestern when she first came from Vienna to Chicago. My mother never tried to compete with Jennie even when reporters wanted to interview her. She knew it would not be appreciated. There was a group of kids your own age, children of family members as well as people on staff, whom you were close to… One of these was my cousin Mary Ann. She was a Grossinger Grossinger—Jennie’s brother’s daughter. Another, Pat Kreindler, was the daughter of the manager of the hotel. The Kreindlers went way back to when the Grossinger and Kreindler families lived on the Lower East Side. These were very important people, and their children, Pat and Mary Ann, were treated as very important kids. They could invite outsiders to the hotel. I couldn't. They could charge ice cream cones and malteds at the canteen. I couldn't. They could call for the house car to pick them up if they stayed late for an after school activity. I couldn't. They were my best friends, but they had certain privileges and I had none. We are dear friends to this day. We just celebrated my last birthday together. As an adult, you became a public relations specialist. Did you learn a lesson or two about promotion and marketing from Milton Blackstone, Grossinger’s once-legendary PR maven? I learned what not to do from watching how he operated! That’s not to say his tactics weren’t effective. He was the power behind the throne. He made Grossinger’s what it was. I saw that you didn’t always have to tell the press the truth and that everything that one read in the press wasn’t true. He created fictions, such as Eddie Cantor’s “discovery” of Eddie Fisher on the Playhouse stage in 1949. That was a total fabrication. The deal had already been made by Blackstone to have Eddie Cantor 'adopt' Fisher and take him on tour. Cantor's offer was not dependent on how much the Grossinger audience loved the younger Eddie even though Milton had us kids clap and squeal wildly when Eddie made his “debut.” Were you ever used to promote the hotel? I don't think Blackstone even knew I existed unless something came up where he felt I could. For example, Neil, my husband-to-be, flew into the Grossinger Airport from Detroit in 1958, Milton made up a story for a book someone was ghostwriting for Jennie that “Grossinger Airport Fosters Grossinger Romance.” I had in fact met Neil in Detroit and Grossinger’s had nothing to do with it. I also relate in Growing Up...... ” Milton’s anger when my marriage broke up because he would have to take that paragraph out of the book. No problem. The book was never finished anyway. So you didn’t use Blackstone’s strategies when you went into the PR field… Absolutely not. I worked for “Playboy,” doing broadcast promotion, and did freelance PR for Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique—at the same time. I handled accounts, ranging from the Village Gate to the Israel Ministry of Tourism. With every client, I was a stickler for the truth. What were you impressions of the true glitterati, the celebrities? Many entertainers and athletes—Jackie Robinson, Jan Peerce, Rocky Marciano, Joel Grey and Henny Youngman--were wonderful people and great to be with. Milton Berle was always “on,” very pleasant with anyone who came over to greet him. Eddie Fisher had started at Grossinger's on staff as a boat boy at the lake, and when he came back as a star, he was still just “Eddie”—he never acted stuck-up with us. He was three years older than me. We were close enough that I could ask him if he was sure he was not making a mistake the day before he married Debbie Reynolds, at Grossinger’s and he asked me the same before I married. (Neither of those marriages lasted!) Some celebrities, like Zero Mostel, preferred to keep their own company and not mix with the guests, which now, looking back, I can understand. They were entitled to their privacy as was anyone else, but then again some of them were guests of the Grossinger family… Speaking of privacy, it was in short supply for you and your mother. You not only shared your room, you had to share the bathroom with whoever stayed across the hall. That can’t have been much fun. And we lived in 5 different rooms before we settled into Pop’s Cottage, our last stop. I would lay out my clothes for school the night before on the toilet seat so as not to put on the light early in the morning and awaken my mother. For a long time, we didn't even have a phone because my mother didn’t want guests calling her at all hours. And you sometimes had a guest crashing with you if the hotel was overbooked. Yes. It wasn’t until later that I realized my mother didn’t have any privacy either. Over the years, I came to understand a lot. She didn’t stand up for me, but she didn’t stand up for herself either. She was afraid. I’m not trying to turn her into “Saint Karla,” but she was a woman of a certain age (48 in 1944 and a widow and single parent, when we came to the hotel), and she didn’t want to have to face the possibility of being

(Continued on page 7)

PAGE 6 IN THE MOUNTAINS

oped a brutal work ethic that was evident in any Catskill hotel kitchen, CATSKILLS COOKING even to a small child like me. “We hardly ever had a break,” acknowl- edges my cousin, 68-year-old Arnie Rosenblum, a retired electronics By Janet Foreman engineer who worked as a busboy at Forman’s Manor from age 14. (“Your grandparents hid me when the inspectors came,” he confides.) Reprinted with permission from The Toronto Globe and Mail “Between meals we were lifeguards at the pool, served milk and cookies March 15, 2008—My first experience with gastronomic pairing was to the children, and in the evening we were the entertainment,” he re- matzo ball soup and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda in the sprawling prep calls, “putting on skits in the casino.” kitchen of my grandparents’ Catskills Mountains hotel. While this ca- But to me the hotel kitchen was a thrill ride, a place where silverware cophonous staging area for a 140-seat dining room may not seem condu- thundered from sink to drying bin, where the industrial sized mixer cive to a contemplative tasting experience, every flavor and aroma I ex- churned a mountain of strudel dough, and where waiters hoisted trays perienced during those years is etched into my memory. As in many heavily laden with delicacies like gefilte fish, jelly omelets, or the unex- cultures, food was the emotional lynchpin of the ‘Jewish Alps,’ and a pectedly flavorsome boiled meat known as ‘flanken’ precariously over the hunk of sweet noodle pudding or raisin-crammed rugelach was the cur- cooks’ heads. With my privileged status as the owner’s granddaughter, I rency with which to express love. roamed this hectic workplace as self-importantly as if I’d been granted an The commanding presence of my grandmother, Ida Forman, was syn- All Access pass to a Rolling Stones concert. And while I’m sure my help onymous with that legendary Borscht Belt cuisine, for me as well as for laying forks in the dining room was invaluable, I was better known as a three generations of guests at Harry Forman’s Manor. In her paprika three-foot high traffic hazard, once causing the entire kitchen staff to skip smeared chef’s apron, straps gathered in an enormous safety pin to ac- a collective heartbeat as I raced between the legs of a waiter carrying a commodate her 4’9” 80 lb frame, Ida ran her kitchen with the panache of tray loaded with scalding soup. a Barnum and Bailey ringmaster. But even while folding dough for While the service at Forman’s Manor was swift and accommodating, a blintzes and barking at some hapless waiter to pick up another few plates room full of self-made businessmen who had scrapped their way to a of lox, she could always find a moment to dispatch an extra pile of comfortable clearing in the garment business or the pickle business or to a ‘lukshen’ – Yiddish for noodles - for my soup or send over a chewy Toll rarified oasis pedaling furs, was a demanding crowd. I recall the car sales- House cookie studded with hunks of chocolate. man who claimed he could spot substandard smoked salmon from across My grandparents were renowned in the Catskills for setting a bountiful the room, and every rag trade entrepreneur considered himself a chicken table. Ida’s opulent spin on Eastern European dishes plumped up by soup sommelier. Still, my grandparents managed to create an atmosphere America’s abundant agriculture - roast chicken shimmering with paprika that was part extended family table, part boot camp - “One of my jobs gravy or the cold sorrel scented potato soup known as shav – kept For- was to play records over the loudspeaker at 6 AM to wake people up,” man’s Manor packed for almost forty years. We were a family of pio- my cousin Arnie recalls – that produced a return rate any Four Seasons neers, I’d always been told, as my grandparents were among the first would envy. Jewish immigrants to open a hotel in the Catskills. Arriving in America at th Still, even the most trying guests agreed that my grandmother was the the dawn of the 20 century, they were hungry to own land, a privilege keystone of the hotel’s delicate chemistry. With the stamina of an Olym- that had been denied to Jews in Russia. So around 1920, with a little cash pian, she rose at 3 AM to stoke the ovens and pack coffee into the indus- and even less experience, but possessed of a fearsome will to succeed in trial size percolator, along with a few raw eggs to clarify the brew. And this new world, they bought a chicken farm 100 miles north of New by the time I arrived at breakfast she was already behind the long metal York’s Lower East Side. work counter basting a battalion of chickens for dinner and reminding A few years later, they snatched a better opportunity: hosting the rush of every perspiring waiter and butterfingered busboy that while they might city dwellers that came to Sullivan Country seeking a breath of country be esteemed scholars for nine months of the year, right now they’d better air. While other farmers ran ‘kuchalayns’ - sparse rooms with kitchen focus on the pickled herring. privileges - my grandmother knew her way around a boiled brisket and The staff must have managed a few free hours a week, however, as I was one of the first to offer three copious feeds a day; dishes like hefty remember endless boasts of “Dirty Dancing” style capers such as grabbing mounds of roughly cut chicken liver studded with globules of ‘schmaltz’ late night trysts behind the old chicken coops that served as waiters’ bar- (rendered chicken fat) and the rosy beet soup that gave the ‘Borscht Belt’ racks, or gnawing a 3 AM pastrami sandwich at Kaplan’s deli in Monti- its name. So even as their guests demanded American style amenities like cello. The good news was that if hauling trays at 6 AM after a night of tennis courts and an “Olympic Sized” swimming pool, whose cumber- carousing was tough, it probably made a medical intern’s 100-hour work- some filtration system anointed bathers in a summer-long eau de chlo- week feel like a nap. rine, it was food like Ida’s tzimmes – an almost medieval-style sweet beef stew which might include sweet potatoes, prunes, carrots and cinnamon - By the mid 50’s, however, the vicious pace took its toll on my grandfa- that provided the sentimental touchstone they craved. ther’s health and Ida and Harry retired. On the surface, they had accom- plished everything they sought: My father’s dental practice was flourish- The 1950’s was the Borscht Belt’s heyday, a time when the immigrants ing and he was a founding father of the split-level suburbs. By the time I who fled the Russian pogroms as children finally secured a toehold in came of age in the 60’s I was no different from every other affluent America’s middle class. And it was my grandmother’s culinary largess – American teenager, ready to throw off the yolk of ‘bourgeois middle class the way she blanketed plump chunks of pickled herring with cupfuls of values’ my grandparents had struggled to achieve. silken cream and crowded soup plates with so many meat-filled kreplach it was hard to find the liquid – that was a symbol of just how far they had But Ida never could find her place in this new order. The concept of come. This generation was ferociously determined to make their mark on America, and in place of formal education or family pedigree, they devel- (Continued on page 7)

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GROWING UP AT GROSSINGER’S: INTERVIEW WITH TANIA GROSSINGER

(Continued from page 5) dance teachers, Tony and Lucille, gave group dance lessons—one, two, cha cha cha—and still hadn’t seen my mother. We ate in the let go for being confrontational, and having to start all over again at Dining Room at separate times at separate tables. The first time my that stage in her life. mother and I actually had a meal together was in New York after I graduated college...but I wouldn’t be the person I am today if she Is it safe to say that Karla wasn’t a typical Jewish mother? hadn’t made the sacrifices in her own life in order to bring me to That’s an understatement! My mother wasn’t what I would call ma- Grossinger’s. ternal. She thought “Tania’s smart, she has friends, she can take care You’re in the middle of writing another memoir, aren’t of herself.” All of this was true, but Tania still needed a mother. you? In the book, and even now as we talk, you always refer to It’s titled Letters to the Child I Never Had. As I write it, I realize, among your mother as “my mother.” What did you call her to her other things, that I wouldn’t want to be the kind of mother I had. face? In the last chapter of Growing Up….., you write, “I’ve never Mother, Mom—or to get her upset in front of guests, Maaaaa! quite agreed with those who say you can’t go home again. Forgive me for harping on “Ma,” but I found myself getting On the contrary, I spend more time wondering, if you can angry. In the book, you give an example of a typical day in ever really leave.” Did you ever leave the “G?” the life of Tania Grossinger, and it doesn’t include a single I’ve lived in the same apartment in Greenwich Village for over 40 second with your mother. years, but when I think of home, it was and will always be Gross- I must have had my own anger—I released my frustrations by blow- inger’s. ing my brains out into a trumpet and banging away with a Ping-Pong For more information log on to: www.taniagrossinger.com paddle! After school, I did my homework in the Tap Room where the

HEIDEN HOTEL BURNS CATSKILLS COOKING

We are sad that the Heiden Hotel burned to the ground on (Continued from page 6) Sunday May 18, 2008. It was used to film “Sweet Lorraine,” which remains so dear to all of us as a beautiful film on the gardening or leafing through a magazine or taking in a movie for pleasure Catskills. Screenwriter Shelly Altman and director Steve alone seemed quite mad to someone who had run a good-sized business all her Gomer both spoke at our conferences. One year the bus tour life. Ida never understood how to cook for a family of four, only for a dining visited the hotel, where Herb and Natalin Heiden told us about room of more than a hundred; and while she couldn’t balance a checkbook, its history and showed us around. she appeared to have kept the hotel’s entire accounting system in her head. So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when in her later years Ida’s mind bobbed back to the time she inspired awe by turning out a thousand plates of food a day. For years after my grandfather died and the grandchildren went off to college, Ida could still be found in front of her stove churning out stuffed chickens, boiling cauldrons of soup and filling blintzes for the ghostly cadres still hungry for a piece of the shtetl.

FOUR SEASONS LODGE (Continued from page 1)

refuse to be victims, who chase after life with passion and zeal, and who have learned that there is little distinction between friendship and family. It is a rare glimpse into the vanishing Borscht Belt, with its kitschy entertainment and those long summer days spent on the lawn, kibitzing in the shade of a giant oak. It is a story about the challenges of aging and the comfort of old friends. It is also about the power of memory. “No matter how many times we share our tragedies, it doesn’t get any easier,” says Regina Grysman, 92, who was the only survivor from her family. “We live with the past but even now, we hope for a better future.” CATSKILL INSTITUTE OFFICERS

President Phil Brown JOIN THE CATSKILLS INSTITUTE Vice President Deborah Dash Moore Treasurer Irwin Richman As a member you will be helping to keep alive Secretary Alan Barrish the Jewish Catskills legacy. You will receive our newsletter, complimentary reprints of articles by people on the Executive Board and Ad- ADVISORY BOARD visory Board, discounts on Catskill books, and other benefits. Cynthia Arenson Michael Feldberg Member $25/year Ted Arenson Henry Foner Sustainer $50/year Lauren Bass David Gold John Conway Donor $100/year Shira Dicker Ari Goldman Patron $500/year Elaine Grossinger Etess Tania Grossinger Lifetime Founding Member $1000+ Catskills Institute c/o Phil Brown Dept of Sociology NEWSLETTER STAFF Brown University; Box 1916 Providence, RI 02912 Design: Lauren Bass Editor: Phil Brown phone (401) 863-2633 fax (401) 863-3213 email [email protected]

The Catskills Institute c/o Phil Brown Dept. of Sociology Brown University PO Box 1916 Providence, RI 02912-1916