In 2021, I embarked on a journey to preserve and celebrate a beloved piece of American Jewish history by starting my podcast, The Borscht Belt Tattler. Born and raised in Toronto, my family and I would schlep down to the Catskills every few years throughout my childhood, spending a week at Kutsher’s Country Club, in Monticello, New York. To my young eyes, it seemed like a typical resort. It wasn’t until adulthood that I truly appreciated the rich cultural history and the significant impact the Borscht Belt had on American entertainment and Jewish culture.
At its peak, the Borscht Belt boasted over 500 resorts and thousands of bungalow colonies, each bustling with vibrant Jewish life. The food, laughter, entertainment, and most importantly the sense of community I experienced during those summers has stayed with me after all these years. I wanted to share these cherished memories and stories with others to keep the spirit of the Borscht Belt alive for future generations.
Today, none of the resorts remain open, but the spirit of the Borscht Belt lives on. This is evident in the efforts to establish the future Catskills Museum and the annual Borscht Belt Fest, which I attend each summer. These events and institutions help preserve the rich cultural heritage of the region.
Over the past three years, The Borscht Belt Tattler has allowed me to connect with over 100 guests. We’re the only podcast that chats with people who worked in, played in, lived in, and loved the Borscht Belt, and we get down to the heart and soul of these places by chatting with the people who made it so special. Through these in-depth interviews and personal anecdotes, I’ve learned so much about the rich tapestry of experiences that made the Borscht Belt memorable. Together, we’ve been able to keep these memories alive, ensuring that the legacy of the Borscht Belt continues to thrive.
On May 30, 2022, I interviewed Florida-based Mark Kutsher, the son of Helena Milton Kutsher, whose family owned and operated Kutsher’s Country Club for over 100 years. Their family’s club is where my love for the Borscht Belt started. Journey back to the Catskills with us in this excerpt from our conversation. And I hope to see you at the Borscht Belt festival next year!
How did your family get to the Catskills?
In 1901, five Kutsher siblings—two brothers, three sisters—and the rest of the family arrived at Ellis Island and settled into New York City.
What ultimately happened is my great uncle Max and his wife Rebecca and my grandfather Louis Kutsher bought property. They were working in the garment industry but they knew this wasn’t exactly what they wanted. It was a stop gap. They were from a farming background, back home in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and when they raised enough money they bought a 200 acre farm outside of Monticello, New York and started farming and quickly taking in borders. That site, which they purchased in December of 1906 and started operating in 1907, is the same spot where the hotel grew and stayed until we sold it in 2013. We were one of the early settlers in the Catskills, especially Jewish settlers. And we were surely the last Catskill hotel in the mountains, unfortunately.
If you were speaking to someone who has absolutely no idea what the Borscht Belt was like, how would you describe it to them?
These hotels evolved and they were, to a certain extent, self contained. So you were amusing people during the day.
In the earliest days, they did things like my great-grandfather Max did, who played the fiddle. They’d know the songs and would sing along. They would do mock marriages. Men and women reverse roles, so the groom is the woman and the bride is a man dressed appropriately. And for whatever reason, it amused them to death. That was a real activity. When I was a kid in daycare we recreated a mock marriage. You see me walking down the aisle in this one picture, and I’m the father of the bride. You had people who ran around and acted crazy and created activities on the fly. But you had lots of different things. We had special activities for women where our director of athletics was teaching how to shoot foul shots.
Entertainment at night grew exponentially over the years. You can dig into any period and it looks a little different, but it all evolved as we grew a little larger and more sophisticated.
Who were the people that came to the Borscht Belt?
People who are your best guests and your regulars, they’re like part of your extended family and they bring their family with them. They come often and you’re always doing special things for them. The vast amount of our people came from the greater New York area. So it was New Jersey, Long Island, New York suburbs. But we did a lot of business out of Philadelphia and a lot out of Boston, Montreal. We didn’t do much out of Toronto
How did you deal with unhappy guests?
We always would have a general manager that had to be very people oriented and could really take care of problems. Because you have so many moving parts, my theory was always that if we could make most of the people happy, we would be very successful.
There’s always people that fall through the cracks. Some people are just cranky, but some people have legitimate issues. If someone was really unhappy, they would end up in my father’s office. And when they’d sit in his office and talk to him, one way or another, they walked out happy. My father was the kind of guy you just listened to because he had a commanding presence. Once he wasn’t handling those issues anymore, those people would end up in my office. I’m there to solve their problems. A way to make them happy is to say that we see your problem, we feel your pain, and this is what we’re going to do for you. And I have to tell you those people, the ones who had those experiences and you really take care of them, some of them became our best guests. Give them that little extra attention. That’s what people appreciate. You don’t feel that when you go into a big chain hotel. We’re a family-owned property where we’re there, we’re accessible. We eat all our meals in the dining room. Look, you try to take care of the customers. You learn from what they’re telling you because you can always be better.
When you think about all the different hotels, what set Kutsher’s apart? Athletics was a huge part of the hotel’s history.
Every one of the hotels up in the Catskills was a reflection of the ownership. These hotels were not all the same. I mean, they did certain things that basically were the same. The Concord would have a big bar scene and a big single scene, and another one could be trying to entertain seniors. My father really felt that the direction of our hotel should be family and sports. He loved sports. He had been an athlete and we got involved early on. Basketball was a big deal in the Catskills in the late 40s. Interestingly enough, in the early NBA, a lot of its members were Jewish.
It’s amazing.
In 1950, and this was purely happenstance, we had guests at the hotel who came to see him and said our son is a basketball coach and we think he would be a wonderful fit in your hotel. That was the Auerbach family. My father met Red [an American basketball coach]. They hit it off immediately. This is 1950. He's not even with the Celtics at that point. He’s in Washington. And my father hired him as our director of athletics. He coached the basketball team. We started to build that up and then we got into boxing, which started in 1954. The first boxer who trained with us was Ezra Charles. At that point, he was a former heavyweight champion. He was going to be fighting Rocky Marciano, the undefeated heavyweight champion, who also was training at Grossinger’s. We hosted many training camps over the years. We had Tony DeMarco, Archie Moore, Floyd Patterson.
Kutsher’s sat on 1,500 acres, and had 400 hotel rooms, a theatre, a nightclub, kosher restaurants, condos, two bungalow colonies, two camps, 18-hole golf, a health club, racquetball, shuffle bar, ice skating, two pools, tennis, the list goes on. What was your favourite place?
I would pick the golf course. It was a symbiotic relationship between all these businesses. And it helped us, as a hotel, to sustain ourselves as things changed within the industry. We have these bungalow colonies and they carry memberships for the summer. At some point we had built a larger nightclub and we could hold them [the clientele]. We could bring in outsiders.
Bring in bigger entertainment.
Yes.
I remember drinking my first Shirley Temple in that nightclub, and watching the people dance on stage. I thought that was so cool, but my parents were very shy and reserved, so I never went up to dance. I also want to mention the entertainment and the people who came there because in 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal talks about Kutsher’s. This is back in 2005. He brought the show to Toronto and I remember feeling this thing in my heart the second he talked about jumping in the car and going to Kutsher’s. My dad grabbed my arm with this excitement and we’re like, “Oh my God.”
He would talk about the fact that, you know, he went into the nightclub. The old nightclub, the palestra nightclub, and he saw the entertainer on stage and somewhere in his young head, he said, “This is great. I can do this. This is what I want to do.” It actually was a pivotal moment in his life. We had Billy at the hotel about three times.
I have two Kutsher urban legends to confirm. When Jerry Seinfeld was performing at the hotel, was that when he was waiting to hear about the Seinfeld pilot that he was filming?
The last show he did, I’m with him backstage after and I said, “So what do you have planned?” He wasn’t a big household name at that point. I thought he was a terrific young comedian.
How did the audiences like him?
He always did well. I would always make sure that him and Crystal had a younger skewed audience because our crowds changed at different times of the year. And so, I’m talking to him and he says, “Well I’m not sure I’ve got this pilot. I’m waiting to hear about whether they're going to make it or not.” They did the pilot, they loved it, and—
Yada, yada, yada.
Exactly.
Joan Rivers also came to perform.
Joan always did great. She was with us over decades. There were times where we would reach out at the last minute because something happened somewhere and she would jump in.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2021, I embarked on a journey to preserve and celebrate a beloved piece of American Jewish history by starting my podcast, The Borscht Belt Tattler. Born and raised in Toronto, my family and I would schlep down to the Catskills every few years throughout my childhood, spending a week at Kutsher’s Country Club, in Monticello, New York. To my young eyes, it seemed like a typical resort. It wasn’t until adulthood that I truly appreciated the rich cultural history and the significant impact the Borscht Belt had on American entertainment and Jewish culture.
At its peak, the Borscht Belt boasted over 500 resorts and thousands of bungalow colonies, each bustling with vibrant Jewish life. The food, laughter, entertainment, and most importantly the sense of community I experienced during those summers has stayed with me after all these years. I wanted to share these cherished memories and stories with others to keep the spirit of the Borscht Belt alive for future generations.
Today, none of the resorts remain open, but the spirit of the Borscht Belt lives on. This is evident in the efforts to establish the future Catskills Museum and the annual Borscht Belt Fest, which I attend each summer. These events and institutions help preserve the rich cultural heritage of the region.
Over the past three years, The Borscht Belt Tattler has allowed me to connect with over 100 guests. We’re the only podcast that chats with people who worked in, played in, lived in, and loved the Borscht Belt, and we get down to the heart and soul of these places by chatting with the people who made it so special. Through these in-depth interviews and personal anecdotes, I’ve learned so much about the rich tapestry of experiences that made the Borscht Belt memorable. Together, we’ve been able to keep these memories alive, ensuring that the legacy of the Borscht Belt continues to thrive.
On May 30, 2022, I interviewed Florida-based Mark Kutsher, the son of Helena Milton Kutsher, whose family owned and operated Kutsher’s Country Club for over 100 years. Their family’s club is where my love for the Borscht Belt started. Journey back to the Catskills with us in this excerpt from our conversation. And I hope to see you at the Borscht Belt festival next year!
How did your family get to the Catskills?
In 1901, five Kutsher siblings—two brothers, three sisters—and the rest of the family arrived at Ellis Island and settled into New York City.
What ultimately happened is my great uncle Max and his wife Rebecca and my grandfather Louis Kutsher bought property. They were working in the garment industry but they knew this wasn’t exactly what they wanted. It was a stop gap. They were from a farming background, back home in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and when they raised enough money they bought a 200 acre farm outside of Monticello, New York and started farming and quickly taking in borders. That site, which they purchased in December of 1906 and started operating in 1907, is the same spot where the hotel grew and stayed until we sold it in 2013. We were one of the early settlers in the Catskills, especially Jewish settlers. And we were surely the last Catskill hotel in the mountains, unfortunately.
If you were speaking to someone who has absolutely no idea what the Borscht Belt was like, how would you describe it to them?
These hotels evolved and they were, to a certain extent, self contained. So you were amusing people during the day.
In the earliest days, they did things like my great-grandfather Max did, who played the fiddle. They’d know the songs and would sing along. They would do mock marriages. Men and women reverse roles, so the groom is the woman and the bride is a man dressed appropriately. And for whatever reason, it amused them to death. That was a real activity. When I was a kid in daycare we recreated a mock marriage. You see me walking down the aisle in this one picture, and I’m the father of the bride. You had people who ran around and acted crazy and created activities on the fly. But you had lots of different things. We had special activities for women where our director of athletics was teaching how to shoot foul shots.
Entertainment at night grew exponentially over the years. You can dig into any period and it looks a little different, but it all evolved as we grew a little larger and more sophisticated.
Who were the people that came to the Borscht Belt?
People who are your best guests and your regulars, they’re like part of your extended family and they bring their family with them. They come often and you’re always doing special things for them. The vast amount of our people came from the greater New York area. So it was New Jersey, Long Island, New York suburbs. But we did a lot of business out of Philadelphia and a lot out of Boston, Montreal. We didn’t do much out of Toronto
How did you deal with unhappy guests?
We always would have a general manager that had to be very people oriented and could really take care of problems. Because you have so many moving parts, my theory was always that if we could make most of the people happy, we would be very successful.
There’s always people that fall through the cracks. Some people are just cranky, but some people have legitimate issues. If someone was really unhappy, they would end up in my father’s office. And when they’d sit in his office and talk to him, one way or another, they walked out happy. My father was the kind of guy you just listened to because he had a commanding presence. Once he wasn’t handling those issues anymore, those people would end up in my office. I’m there to solve their problems. A way to make them happy is to say that we see your problem, we feel your pain, and this is what we’re going to do for you. And I have to tell you those people, the ones who had those experiences and you really take care of them, some of them became our best guests. Give them that little extra attention. That’s what people appreciate. You don’t feel that when you go into a big chain hotel. We’re a family-owned property where we’re there, we’re accessible. We eat all our meals in the dining room. Look, you try to take care of the customers. You learn from what they’re telling you because you can always be better.
When you think about all the different hotels, what set Kutsher’s apart? Athletics was a huge part of the hotel’s history.
Every one of the hotels up in the Catskills was a reflection of the ownership. These hotels were not all the same. I mean, they did certain things that basically were the same. The Concord would have a big bar scene and a big single scene, and another one could be trying to entertain seniors. My father really felt that the direction of our hotel should be family and sports. He loved sports. He had been an athlete and we got involved early on. Basketball was a big deal in the Catskills in the late 40s. Interestingly enough, in the early NBA, a lot of its members were Jewish.
It’s amazing.
In 1950, and this was purely happenstance, we had guests at the hotel who came to see him and said our son is a basketball coach and we think he would be a wonderful fit in your hotel. That was the Auerbach family. My father met Red [an American basketball coach]. They hit it off immediately. This is 1950. He's not even with the Celtics at that point. He’s in Washington. And my father hired him as our director of athletics. He coached the basketball team. We started to build that up and then we got into boxing, which started in 1954. The first boxer who trained with us was Ezra Charles. At that point, he was a former heavyweight champion. He was going to be fighting Rocky Marciano, the undefeated heavyweight champion, who also was training at Grossinger’s. We hosted many training camps over the years. We had Tony DeMarco, Archie Moore, Floyd Patterson.
Kutsher’s sat on 1,500 acres, and had 400 hotel rooms, a theatre, a nightclub, kosher restaurants, condos, two bungalow colonies, two camps, 18-hole golf, a health club, racquetball, shuffle bar, ice skating, two pools, tennis, the list goes on. What was your favourite place?
I would pick the golf course. It was a symbiotic relationship between all these businesses. And it helped us, as a hotel, to sustain ourselves as things changed within the industry. We have these bungalow colonies and they carry memberships for the summer. At some point we had built a larger nightclub and we could hold them [the clientele]. We could bring in outsiders.
Bring in bigger entertainment.
Yes.
I remember drinking my first Shirley Temple in that nightclub, and watching the people dance on stage. I thought that was so cool, but my parents were very shy and reserved, so I never went up to dance. I also want to mention the entertainment and the people who came there because in 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal talks about Kutsher’s. This is back in 2005. He brought the show to Toronto and I remember feeling this thing in my heart the second he talked about jumping in the car and going to Kutsher’s. My dad grabbed my arm with this excitement and we’re like, “Oh my God.”
He would talk about the fact that, you know, he went into the nightclub. The old nightclub, the palestra nightclub, and he saw the entertainer on stage and somewhere in his young head, he said, “This is great. I can do this. This is what I want to do.” It actually was a pivotal moment in his life. We had Billy at the hotel about three times.
I have two Kutsher urban legends to confirm. When Jerry Seinfeld was performing at the hotel, was that when he was waiting to hear about the Seinfeld pilot that he was filming?
The last show he did, I’m with him backstage after and I said, “So what do you have planned?” He wasn’t a big household name at that point. I thought he was a terrific young comedian.
How did the audiences like him?
He always did well. I would always make sure that him and Crystal had a younger skewed audience because our crowds changed at different times of the year. And so, I’m talking to him and he says, “Well I’m not sure I’ve got this pilot. I’m waiting to hear about whether they're going to make it or not.” They did the pilot, they loved it, and—
Yada, yada, yada.
Exactly.
Joan Rivers also came to perform.
Joan always did great. She was with us over decades. There were times where we would reach out at the last minute because something happened somewhere and she would jump in.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.