Helen Kutsher, the face of her family-owned resort in the Catskill Mountains for decades, has died. Kutsher, who came to be known as the matriach of what was called the Borscht Belt, died Saturday in Philadelphia. She was 89 and spent much of her life in Monticello, N.Y., in a house on the grounds of…
When it comes to Catskills tourism, it seems that everything old is news again. The mountainous region of upstate New York is trying to unbuckle itself from its “borscht belt” pigeonhole as a destination for Jewish city families by girding itself with new amenities to attract a hip and with-it tourist of today. The story’s…
Old Borscht Belt hotels never die…they just get boarded up until a new buyer comes along to save them. At least that’s the story when it comes to the Nevele, which closed its doors in the Catskills back in 2009. The Nevele may indeed have a new lease on life if a sale to the…
The film “Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort,” which will have its world premiere as the closing event of the New York Jewish Film Festival, lovingly lays out the history of the Borscht Belt vacation with a grand smorgasbord of history, photos and film footage, and an appropriate dollop of nostalgic schmaltz. The Borscht…
A Jewish-themed Tribeca eatery that riffs on Kutsher’s, the 100-year old Catskills staple, is set to open in late October, according to reports yesterday. Kutsher’s Tribeca, described by resort-family scion Zach Kutsher as a “modern-Jewish-food-inspired bistro”, will occupy a former bakery space, said the Tribeca Citizen, which also posted a draft of Kutsher’s gargantuan menu….
Before Beaver Cleaver introduced television watchers to his suburban boyhood, before Lucy and Desi’s domestic misadventures became ingrained in the consciousness of the American household, and before the world had even heard of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Gertrude Berg was the queen of the American sitcom. As the head writer, producer and leading actress of…
Dear Rabbi: Thanks for the double-bar-mitzvah Saturdays, the two-shift High Holy Day services, the grief counseling, Hebrew school teaching, Torah study leading, hospital visiting, song leading and sermon writing, but seriously now — do us both a favor: Take a vacation. An article in the New York Times reports that recent research has shown the…
For anyone who stood on line, week after week, for the Saturday midnight screenings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the 1970s, the West Village theater now known as the IFC Center will forever be branded the Waverly. For a time during my teens, going down to that theater with friends to watch the…
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