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The first-ever Borscht Belt Festival celebrates a bygone Jewish era
(New York Jewish Week) — After a dozen-plus years in the making, the Catskills Borscht Belt museum is set to open in 2025. But for those who can’t wait another two years, the museum is launching a festival to honor the history and culture of the “Jewish Alps” this summer.
The first-ever Borscht Belt Fest will debut on July 29 in Ellenville, New York, about 90 miles from Manhattan.
The one-day festival will pay tribute to the legacy of the Borscht Belt — the colloquial name for the once-ubiquitous resorts and bungalow colonies in parts of Sullivan, Ulster and Orange counties that catered to Jewish families — and its influence on modern American culture. On the lineup are comedy shows, workshops, lectures, exhibits, film screenings and a street fair with plenty of entertainment and Jewish food.
With a few years before the museum opens, the festival is “a way for us to start cultivating a really broad audience for this new cultural institution,” Andrew Jacobs, president of Catskills Borscht Belt Museum’s board of directors and a reporter for The New York Times, told the New York Jewish Week.
The museum will be located in an old bank, pictured above, at 90 Canal Street in Ellenville, New York. (Catskills Borscht Belt Museum)
The timing for the festival and subsequent museum opening, noted Jacobs, is ideal: “We’re tapping into this zeitgeist moment,” he said, pointing to the Amazon Prime hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and how it revived interest in the Catskills and its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s.
“Also there’s a sense that this time in history has been unacknowledged, underappreciated nd hasn’t gotten its due,” Jacobs added. “And so I think there’s a sense among people who lived it, or whose parents lived it, like, ‘I want this to be acknowledged, I want it to be honored and celebrated, and I want to be part of that.’”
Like the festival, the forthcoming Borscht Belt Museum will also be in Ellenville, located in a building that was once home to Home National Bank — one of the first banks to lend money to Jewish hotel owners in the 1920s. Exhibits and activities will include archival film and audio, lectures, interactive activities and workshops.
Back in the day, from roughly the 1900s to the 1970s, Route 17, then better known as “The Quickway,” was packed during the summer months with New York Jews making their exodus from the crowded city to the Catskill Mountains. Named after the Ashkenazi beet soup, the Borscht Belt drew travelers upstate for leisure, Yiddish culture, food and entertainment. Many legendary Jewish comedians performed early in their careers at Catskills resorts, including Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers and Jerry Seinfeld.
Of course, Jews also came to the Catskills because they were barred from vacationing at many other popular locales — and therefore they created a vacationland of their own, packing Jewish-owned resorts like Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel and Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club.
“These institutions shaped American Jewish culture, enabling Jews to become more American while at the same time introducing the American public to immigrant Jewish culture,” according to the Catskills Institute, an organization at Northeastern University promoting research and education about the region and the era.
By the late 1960s, however, with the rise of air travel, more resorts allowing Jews and younger generations choosing other vacation destinations, the lure of the Catskills began to dim. By the 1980s, most resorts and hotels that populated the Borscht Belt were defunct.
The Borscht Belt Festival aims, however briefly, to revive the traditions and culture of the Catskills’ golden age. With a focus on comedy, the festival’s events include “The Borscht Belt Classic,” a homage to family-friendly Catskills comedy, and a talk with writers Alan Zweibel and Bill Scheft about their experiences writing and performing stand-up comedy in the mountains.
Another comedy performance is Luci Pohl’s “Immigrant Jam,” which pays tribute to immigrant culture and experiences — Pohl herself is a Jewish immigrant from Germany — and a standup comedy showcase presented by the Manhattan club the Comedy Cellar.
Pohl, who is a member of the festival’s advisory board, said that rather than choosing a big headliner, the organizers wanted to focus on comedians they can’t see on Netflix, or maybe haven’t heard of yet. Similar to the Borscht Belt, the festival aims to be a place to “discover new talents,” she told the New York Jewish Week.
Other highlights include a “Rocky Horror”-esque screening of “Dirty Dancing” — in which participants are encouraged to dress as their favorite characters and can sing and dance along to the film, set at a Catskills resort — and a concert from the klezmer group The Shul Band. There will also be the first exhibit of the work of the late Holocaust survivor and painter Morris Katz — who was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Record as both the world’s fastest and most prolific artist — put together by a curator from the New-York Historical Society.
Various signs for the resorts and bungalow colonies in the Borscht Belt. (Catskills Borscht Belt Museum)
Jacobs expects some 8,000 to 10,000 attendees at the festival throughout the day. In addition to having a good time and learning about the Borscht Belt, “We want to bring culture back to the Catskills and … develop Ellenville as a kind of a regional cultural hub,” he said.
Looking ahead, Jacobs said the goal is to have the Borscht Belt Museum and its spin-off festival evolve into a brand. They are hoping to host the Borscht Belt Film Festival in Ellenville in the fall; create a stand-up comedy outpost at Ellenville’s Shadowland Theater, featuring monthly shows there; and create year-round programming in both New York City and upstate.
The museum’s first pop-exhibit, curated by the International Center for Photography New York in partnership with the Bard Graduate Center, will be open from early July through the end of the summer at the yet-to-be renovated site of the future museum.
Many Jewish museums “can be a bit depressing — it’s pogroms and the Holocaust, which is important,” said Jacobs, who directed the 2008 documentary “Four Seasons Lodge,” about a Catskills bungalow colony populated by Holocaust survivors. “But I think there’s a real craving for a museum that tells a story about Jews that is triumphant and joyous.”
The Borscht Belt Fest will take place on July 29 in Ellenville, New York. For tickets, visit Borschtbeltfest.org
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The post The first-ever Borscht Belt Festival celebrates a bygone Jewish era appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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