Recognizably Jewish

The region of the Catskills that became known as the Borscht Belt was the social epicenter of American Jewish life in the middle part of the 20th century. At its peak, it had more than 500 hotels and over 50,000 bungalows, and catered to hundreds of thousands of Jewish visitors each year. The biggest resorts like Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s, the Concord, and the Nevele set the bar for dining and entertainment. While the resorts are now long gone, the cultural impact of the Borscht Belt remains. From cruise ships to Vegas hotels. From Dirty Dancing to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to the very existence of stand-up comedy as we know it today.  How did it happen that a particular slice of upstate New York came to be the premier Jewish vacation destination for most of the 20th century, one with an outsized impact on Jewish culture and American culture writ large? Listen to this episode of Recognizably Jewish to find out. Check out Apeloig Collection at apeloigcollection.com. Sources and sites: https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Kutshers-Last-Catskills-Resort/dp/B00WYWWJPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFUa340mdPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Qngt5FrbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PWFttncdZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne63LEGGYWw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borscht_Belt https://a.co/d/2mlenkY https://borschtbelthistoricalmarkerproject.org/ https://hvmag.com/life-style/borscht-belt-hotels-catskills/ https://alexprizgintas.com/borscht-belt-tourism-history/ https://www.borschtbeltmuseum.org/donate https://catskillsinstitute.northeastern.edu/ http://www.livingstonmanor.net/LMhistory/TanningIndustry.htm https://footnote.wordpress.ncsu.edu/2020/06/11/the-jewish-agricultural-society-06-12-2020/

Some representative symbols are uniquely Jewish. The menorah is the classic example. That’s not true for the Star of David, which is not mentioned in the Torah, in other parts of the Hebrew bible, or in the Talmud. Because it’s such a simple geometric figure, the Star of David has been used as a design motif by religions and cultures all over the world for thousands of years. So if the Star of David isn’t uniquely Jewish, how did it end up as probably the best-known visual symbolic representation of Judaism today? Listen to today’s episode of Recognizably Jewish to find out. Check out our website at www.recognizablyjewish.com. Check out HaYom Art at hayom.art. Sources and sites: https://www.commentary.org/articles/gershom-scholem/the-curious-history-of-the-six-pointed-starhow-the-magen-david-became-the-jewish-symbol/ https://outorah.org/p/60349/ https://embassies.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Israelat50/Pages/The%20Flag%20and%20the%20Emblem.aspx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_David https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Solomon https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Magen-David-Avraham-Trugman/dp/9659171617 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tGNWdYLUaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_2JUp90fPA https://zeevgoldmann.blogspot.com/2008/08/special-star-of-david-artifacts.html https://www.mayimachronim.com/secrets-of-the-star-of-david/ https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10257-magen-dawid https://catalog.archives.gov.il/en/chapter/flag/

When he was born in Poland in 1886, there was no indication that David Grün would go on to greatness–let alone the singular greatness he achieved as David Ben-Gurion, the founding giant of the sovereign nation of Israel. So how did he go from an unremarkable youth in Tsarist Poland to a strident teenage Marxist Zionist political activist to the man who read Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948? Listen to this episode of Recognizably Jewish to find out. My primary source for this episode is Anita Shapira’s 2014 Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel. Today’s Yiddish phrase is: “Der ergster sholem iz beser vi di beste milkhome.” Check out the Jewish Council for Public Affairs at https://jewishpublicaffairs.org/.

The widespread adoption of Western-style hereditary surnames by Ashkenazi Jewish communities didn’t happen until around 200 years ago. Why is that? And when it did happen, how did certain names–names like Schwartz, Segal, Katz, Goldberg, Rosenthal, and Weissman–become so recognizably Jewish? How did some American Jews end up with last names that aren’t clearly Jewish? And what happened to Jewish names when Hebrew was resurrected as a living language?  Listen to this episode of Recognizably Jewish to find out. * * * Check out Zaidy’s Deli & Bakery: https://www.zaidysdeli.com/ * * * If you’re interested in the subject of this episode, check out these other sources: A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America (Kirsten Fermaglich) (https://www.amazon.com/Rosenberg-Any-Other-Name-Goldstein-Goren-ebook/dp/B07C5WCR1H/) People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (Dara Horn) (https://www.amazon.com/People-Love-Dead-Jews-Reports/dp/1324035943/) https://www.commentary.org/articles/benzion-kaganoff/jewish-surnames-through-the-agesan-etymological-history/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_surname https://www.jewishgen.org/education/mythbusters.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjWfieO49y0 http://www.billgladstone.ca/on-jewish-surnames/ https://forward.com/opinion/391341/did-jews-buy-their-last-names/ https://forward.com/opinion/415910/how-did-ashkenazi-jews-end-up-with-famous-non-jewish-last-names/