The Holocaust, the Catskills, and the Creative Loss of Power

Summary

The American and immigrant Jews, who had made the many hotels, bungalow colonies, and farms of Ulster and Sullivan counties their summer retreats year after year, were always looking for family, for landsmanshaftn (society of immigrants from the same town or region), for a home away from home. As a second home to generations of Jews, the Catskill Mountains became a place where a Jewish family could bond as a Jewish family—that is, they could practice the culture of Judaism without the pressure to assimilate.