When the Catskills Spoke Yiddish, a conversation with Chana Pollack

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

No charge, but must register. Click “Read More” below.

Presented online by the Southern California group Kultur Mercado, in partnership with the Southern California Arbeter Ring Educational Center and the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language (CIYCL).