Journey back in time to discover the rise and fall of the Borscht Belt in this new feature-length documentary!
Registration is no longer open for this program.
You can watch the recording of the film talk in our Program Archives here.
Click to watch the trailer!
We extend a special thank you to Andrew R. Ammerman for sponsoring our Fall 2024 program lineup. He dedicates the semester’s learning in loving memory of Josephine and H. Max Ammerman and Stephen C.
At-Home Film Screening: September 6-11
Online Director Talk: September 11, 7:30 PM ET
Registration Fee: $18
The link to watch the film will be emailed to all registrants in early September.
With a trove of lost-and-found archival footage and a cast of characters endowed with the gift of gab, "The Catskills" journeys into the storied mountain getaway north of New York City that served as a refuge for Jewish immigrants fleeing poverty as well as a lavish playground for affluent Jewish families.
Stand-up comedians share their best shtick while former waiters, entertainers, and dance instructors recount tales of the family-run resorts and bungalows that inspired films like "Dirty Dancing."
Register to watch the film at home, then join us online for a talk with Lex Gillepsie, the film director, and Dr. Lauren Strauss, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Dir. of Undergraduate Studies for Jewish Studies, American University.
Barring technical issues, the September 11 talk will be posted on our Program Recording Archives.
Thank you to Bobbie and Mike Goldman for sponsoring this new program!
Lex Gillespie is a three time Peabody Award-winning public radio journalist-turned-filmmaker. "The Catskills" is his second film. His first, "The Mamboniks" (2019, 90 mins), explored the mambo craze of the 1950s. His features for public radio exposed dangerous jobs in garment factories on the US-Mexico border, chronicled the return of the sacred Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, and told the story of a hip hop opera set in a Korean mom-and-pop corner store.
Dr. Lauren B. Strauss is a professor of modern Jewish history, specializing in American Jewish cultural and political history. She has taught for twenty years at universities in the Washington, D.C. area. She holds a Ph.D. in Modern Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, a Master’s degree in International Relations from Yale University, and a B.A. from Brandeis University.
Dr. Strauss teaches courses at American Univeristy on American Jewish politics, popular culture, and women’s history, and on Yiddish culture, post-Emancipation Jewish history, and modern Jewish travel. She is a frequent community lecturer and has taught many adult education classes in the D.C. area.