When the Catskills Spoke Yiddish

The Catskills made a big impression on readers of “The Forverts,” the Jewish immigrant community’s Yiddish paper of record. Each summer, subscribers jammed the newspaper’s switchboards to ensure their beloved daily was delivered to their Borscht Belt boarding houses, bungalow colonies, and resorts.

Loaded with classified ads for Catskills farmland, boarding houses, hotels, and even Yiddish summer camps, ‘Forverts’ readers and writers found a home in the Borscht Belt for well over a century.

Join archivist Chana Pollack on a journey through the historic Forward archives, hear some of what they reported on the Catskills, and see what the tumult was all about.