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Borscht Belt Bungalows Irwin Richman

Borscht Belt Bungalows By Irwin Richman

Borscht Belt Bungalows by Irwin Richman


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Summary

Every year between 1920 and 1970, almost one million of New York City's Jewish population summered in the Catskills. This title brings to life the attitudes of the renters and the owners, the differences between the social activities and swimming pools advertised and what people actually received.

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Borscht Belt Bungalows Summary

Borscht Belt Bungalows by Irwin Richman

Every year between 1920 and 1970, almost one million of New York City's Jewish population summered in the Catskills. Hundreds of thousands still do. While much has been written about grand hotels like Grossinger's and the Concord, little has appeared about the more modest bungalow colonies and kuchaleins (\\u0022cook for yourself\\u0022 places) where more than 80 percent of Catskill visitors stayed. These were not glamorous places, and middle-class Jews today remember the colonies with either aversion or fondness. Irwin Richman's narrative, anecdotes, and photos recapture everything from the traffic jams leaving the city to the strategies for sneaking into the casinos of the big hotels. He brings to life the attitudes of the renters and the owners, the differences between the social activities and swimming pools advertised and what people actually received. He reminisces about the changing fashion of the guests and owners-everything that made summers memorable. The author remembers his boyhood: what it was like to spend summers outside the city, swimming in the Neversink, \\u0022noodling around,\\u0022 and helping with the bungalow operation, while Grandpa charged the tenants and acted as president of Congregation B'nai Israel of Woodbourne, N.Y. He also traces the changes in the Catskills, including the influx of Hasidic families. Richman talks about what it's like to go back and to see the ghosts of resorts along the roads he once traveled.

Borscht Belt Bungalows Reviews

There are very few people who could do such a fine job of recapturing for us the remarkable world of the Catskill bungalow colonies.-Phil Brown, Brown University Richman delights the reader, not only with portraits of the people who rented the bungalows, but with the activities that occupied their time. He tells us of the small time entertainers who often began their careers in the mountain hotels and casinos and more often than not, ended their entertainment careers there too...well worth reading and, for some of us, evok[ing] long forgotten, pleasant memories.-Jewish Journal Richman's style is simple and direct...A pleasant Borscht Belt memoir, much like a Borscht Belt meal: excessive beyond nourishment, but hey, why not try a little?-Kirkus Reviews A Jewish-American pastoral? Thoreau in the Catskills? Irwin Richman's marvelous Borscht Belt Bungalows is as much a literary work-a retrospect of country summers, now history-as a scholarly study...Let no reader of this lively first-person narrative be deceived that this is just a reminiscence, without scholarly depth. Richman collected an amazing range of information on Borscht Belt life and gracefully folds it into his memories. -Anne C. Rose, Pennsylvania History Richman is particularly suited to give us this historical overview, as a professor of American studies and history and as one who has made the pilgrimage to the mountains nearly every summer of his life, first to the bungalow colony of his grandparents and later as an employee at similar establishments. ...Richman is nostalgically superb in his recall of the importance of these annual gatherings in the communal context of an immigrant people, liberally quoting from fiction and nonfiction writings on this era and this place.-Publishers Weekly

About Irwin Richman

Irwin Richman, Professor of American Studies and History at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg and author of Catskills, NY, has spent at least part of every summer of his life in the Catskills. Richman grew up in the bungalow colony business. His parents Alexander and Bertha owned a small colony, and his grandfather Abraham was in the mortgage business. From an early age Irwin went along on the detailed site visits to other colonies that were made prior to granting loans. He also worked as a counselor and as a camp director at their large colonies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. A. Richman, Woodbourne, New York 3. Farmer's Life 4. Unzereh Menschen (Our People) 5. The River and the Woods 6. Noodling Around: Kids at Large 7. To Town: The Escape 8. Daily Life: Mostly Adults 9. The Quest for Entertainment 10. Religion 11. Summer Emergencies and Other Unforgetable Events 12. The Day Camp 13. Crime and Punishment 14. An Age of Change 15. Ghosts Along the Road Notes Bibliography Index Photographs

Additional information

CIN1566395852G
9781566395854
1566395852
Borscht Belt Bungalows by Irwin Richman
Used - Good
Hardback
Temple University Press,U.S.
19980122
207
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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