Daily Podcasts Video Research

My summer plans prove it: The Jewish Catskills are alive and kicking

JL;DR SUMMARY Alyssa Katz reflects on the enduring allure of the Jewish Catskills, particularly the Borscht Belt, through her personal experiences and connections with Sunny Oaks, a small family-operated retreat in Woodridge, NY. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Jewish CultureTraditionCommunityBorscht BeltModernityOrthodox Jewish LifeCatskillsJewish LegacyBorscht Belt MuseumSunny Oaks

Places mentioned

Woodridge, New York, United States
"The card room at Sunny Oaks in Woodridge, N.Y. Courtesy of the Arenson family"
Ellenville, New York, United States
"the Tamarack Lodge near Ellenville, New York"
Brooklyn, New York, United States
"after retiring from running a candy store in Brooklyn"
New York, United States
"in the Jewish Catskills is thriving alongside a few towns on the old train line that have gone the route of bourgeois gentrification"

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 84768
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2026-06-13 05:31:35 UTC
Curated 2026-06-13 08:30:36 UTC