ELLENVILLE, N.Y. — This past weekend, a host of Jews — and plenty of non-Jews — congregated in New York’s Catskill Mountains to kibbitz and nosh and laugh and wax nostalgic about the birth of stand-up comedy and the time period when Jewish culture first started breaking into the American mainstream, at the second annual Borscht Belt Festival.

The Borscht Belt — the stretch of Catskills summer resorts frequented mostly by Jews in the mid-20th century, where many stand-up comedians got their start — is considered by many to be the mecca of comedy, but it is so much more, Peter Chester, the treasurer for the Borscht Belt Museum, told eJewishphilanthropy. Romances sparked on the dance floor (see: “Dirty Dancing”) and lifelong friendships flourished over games of mahjong. Eddie Fisher and the Four Tops performed there, and Muhammad Ali trained at the famous Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club, where basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain once served as a bellhop.

“This is an essential slice of Americana,” said Chester, whose organization planned the festival. “It was the template for Las Vegas. It was the template for every cruise ship that set sail on the ocean. It was that critically important. It’s essential that the memory of it lives on, and that the lessons that people like myself learned by living it are shared with others.”

Named after the popular Ashkenazi beet soup and with a reign lasting from the 1920s to 1970s, the Borscht Belt was home to over 500 all-inclusive hotels and bungalow colonies with names like Grossinger’s, The Concord and The Pines. In the early 20th century, many popular vacation hotspots weren’t friendly to Jews, so “they had to create their own vacation world,” Andrew Jacobs, president of the board of directors of the Borscht Belt Museum, told eJP. The Catskills, once known as the “Jewish Alps,” became the favorite escape for city-dwelling Jews seeking refuge from the summer heat.

At the street festival,  Panama hat-wearing attendees got a sample of the experience this weekend as vendors served old-school Ashkenazi foods including pickles, perogies and pastrami. People took shelter from the sun under tents while sipping cups of borscht lemonade as a band of teens whose age belied their vocal range channeled soul and pop crooners, belting songs about summer loving “that happened so fast.”

Sponsored by the Forward, Tablet and many local businesses, the festival opened Friday with an open-mic comedy kick-off giving attendees the chance to say that they too performed in the Borscht Belt, where comedy legends such as Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks and Lenny Bruce once performed. A sold-out “Dine like it’s 1968” dinner prepared by Michelin-trained chef Josh Cohen allowed guests to “run the menu,” Borscht-Belt speak for going all-in on the all-inclusive dining. 

Not billed as a Jewish event, Borscht Belt Fest welcomed everyone to share in Jewish culture and feel the Jewish joy. “It feels like a reunion,” Jacobs said. “There’s a lot of younger people that never experienced the Borscht Belt, but they feed off of that spirit and the positivity and the warmth. It just has that indescribable mishpucha kind of feeling.”

The Borscht Belt always was about bringing people together and making them feel like kings and queens, said Chester, whose family first visited in 1958. “Max the porter, Jack the cab driver, Leo the diamond cutter, we were all the same. They get up there on the weekends. They put on their bar mitzvah suits. They take all the gold watches out of the safe. The women would borrow mommy’s mink stole and mommy’s engagement ring, and you were in paradise… For eight weekends, they could live the lives of the rich and famous.”

Programming at the festival addressed everything from memorabilia to kugel, photography and sports. There was a showing of “Dirty Dancing,” the ’80s romantic drama set in the Borscht Belt, and a performance of “The Jackie Mason Musical,” a play written by the comic’sex-wife, which featured a song titled “I Never Met This Yenta.”

Dozens of comedians performed at the event, and The New Yorker’s Patricia Marx taught attendees to write funny themselves. Comedian Lucie Pohl performed both her solo show, “The German Problem,” and her popular Immigrant Jam featuring immigrant and first-generation New York City-based comics. Being Jewish was not a prerequisite. 

The Borscht Belt is “so universal, because it is the U.S. story of immigrants building communities,” Pohl, who moved from Germany to the U.S. when she was 8, told eJP. “I am the ‘OG’ [original gangster] reincarnation of what the Borscht Belt was born out of.”

Throughout the weekend, attendees recorded their memories of the Borscht Belt for the museum’s archives. People who visited the hotels and resorts are aging, so it’s essential they get their history recorded, Jacobs said.

The event is the main fundraiser for the Borscht Belt Museum, which opened in 2023 and is located in the former Home National Bank in Ellenville, one of the only banks in the area that would extend credit to Jewish hotel and bungalow owners to improve their properties during the early 20th century. Open Thursday through Sunday, the museum closes for the winter because they don’t have heat.

Following a trend throughout the philanthropic world, donations to the museum sputtered out after Oct. 7, as many donors focused their attention and funds on fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel. The museum hopes to be able to afford a heating system soon, so it can open year-round. 

“This is such an important part of Jewish culture in America,” Jacobs said. “And helping combat some of the hate.”

Interest in the Borscht Belt skyrocketed thanks to the Amazon Prime show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which featured episodes taking place at a Catskills resort.  

“Everyone likes that show,” Jacobs said. “Now you don’t have to explain too much about what we are. We just say, ‘Oh, you saw Marvelous Ms. Maisel,’ and they say, ‘Yes,’ and then they get it. So that helps younger people.”

The museum’s current exhibit — “And Such Small Portions!” — focused on the food and comedy of the era. The museum also features recreations of Borscht Belt hotel and bungalow rooms.

The last resorts shuttered in the 1990s due to increased availability of air conditioning, decreased antisemitism and affordable flights making travel more accessible. Chester worked his way up from newsboy at age 9 to being maitre d’hotel of the Aladdin. During his time there, he had his first kiss and first love. He learned how to drive stick shift, how to manage time and how to serve people the worst cup of coffee in the history of coffee and have them believe it was a delicacy. His journey lasted until the Aladdin closed in 1991.

“I would still be working there if there was a Borscht Belt to work at,” he said. 

Keeping the memory alive through the museum and fest allows Chester to “fulfill my passion,” he said. “It brings back memories of the time in my life that was just a different time, a calmer time in some other ways.”