[Rerelease] Great American Jewish Cities #17: The Catskills (replay)

August 8, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Catskills: More Than Just a Summer Getaway

The Catskills region of upstate New York—known variously as the Borscht Belt, the mountains, Sullivan County, or simply "the country"—was never just a vacation destination. It was a complete Jewish ecosystem with four distinct layers: year-round communities, summer camps, bungalow colonies, and the grand resort hotels. Each layer tells a different story about how American Jews built, sustained, and eventually transformed Jewish life outside the crowded cities.

The Year-Round Communities That Stayed Behind

Most people think of the Catskills as a summer phenomenon, but Jewish life there began with permanent settlers at the turn of the century. Jews escaping the crowded Lower East Side moved upstate to rural hamlets like Monticello, Liberty, Fallsburg, Woodridge, and South Fallsburg, where Route 17 was still a dirt road. These were real communities with shuls, schools, and Jewish farms—the Gibber family's egg farm in Monticello was so central that they helped found the region's first Hebrew day school and ran it for decades.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Jewish History Soundbites

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:14) **Sponsor Segment: Legacy Judaica Auction** - Host Yehuda Geber reads a sponsorship message for an upcoming auction, highlighting several historically valuable items.
2 (05:22) **Introduction: The Catskills as a "Great American Jewish City"** - The episode pivots to the main topic, framing the Catskills region as the next installment in the city series.
3 (06:00) **Listener Mailbag: Corrections & Additions from Previous Episodes** - Two letters are read regarding the Five Towns and Los Angeles episodes.
4 (09:13) **Part 1: Year-Round Jewish Communities** - The host begins the main content by discussing the permanent Jewish settlements in the Catskills, starting with Monticello.
5 (18:08) **More Year-Round Communities: Fallsburg, Mountain Dale, and Woodstock** - The narrative moves to other towns with significant year-round Jewish populations and institutions.
6 (25:30) **Part 2: Summer Camps** - The focus shifts to the summer experience, beginning with the history of Jewish summer camps in the Catskills.
7 (37:27) **Part 3: Bungalow Colonies & the Borscht Belt Hotels** - The final topical section covers the bungalow colonies and the grand resort hotels.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

The Mountains, the Catskills, the Borscht Belt, upstate, the country. Monticello, Liberty, Woodridge, Swan Lake, Woodbourne, Fallsburg. A place of many names with one thing in common: a place rich in Jewish history and lore. As a summer destination, the Catskills would be home to countless bungalow colonies as city Jews organized their communities for a mountain air getaway. Generations of children attended the many summer camps that dotted Sullivan County. Camps included Mesivta, Agudah, Munk, HILI, Kol Rinah, Torah Vodaath, Ohr Shraga, Sternberg and many more including the Betar Jewish self defense camp where Vladimir Jabotinsky died in 1940. It was also famously known as the Borscht Belt, and the legendary hotels/resorts/country clubs like Grossinger's, Kutscher's and the Concord made their mark as vacation sites. Most Jewish comedians of the time commenced their careers there. In addition to the summer crowd, the Catskills were home to many year round Jewish communities over the years. These towns built shuls, mikvas, hired Rabbis and even Jewish owned farms burgeoned for a time. This included Yeshivas as well such as the Mountaindale Yeshiva of Rav Yehuda Davis and the famous Yeshiva of South Fallsburg.

Subscribe to Jewish History Soundbites Podcast on: PodBean: https://jsoundbites.podbean.com/ or your favorite podcast platform

For sponsorship opportunities about your favorite topics of Jewish history or feedback contact Yehuda at: [email protected]