BACKGROUND OF THE BORSCHT BELT

Marisa Scheinfeld   

is a Jewish-American photographer and author who was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1980 and raised in the Catskills. She received her B.A. from the State University at Albany in 2002, and her MFA from San Diego State University in 2011. Her work is motivated an interest in regional landscape and its myriad histories, both apparent and hidden, and a drive to use the medium of photography as an act of preservation.

Marisa’s work is among the collections of the Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, The Center for Jewish History, The National Yiddish Book Center, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley and the Museum of Photographic Arts. Her work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Forbes, Paper Magazine, Village Voice, the American Historical Association and American Photography.

In the fall of 2016, Cornell University Press released her first book The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland.

 Marisa is currently an Adjunct Professor of Photography at SUNY Purchase and working on her second book which explores hidden, alternative and fringe histories of the Catskills and Hudson Valley. 

Louis Inghilterra is an avid Borscht Belt historian and  recently graduated from Colorado State University (CSU) where he earned a B.S. in Interior Design, Architecture and a focus area of Historic Preservation. Louis was born in 1999 and has lived in Chappaqua, NY, Katonah, NY, Harrisburg, PA and Fort Collins, CO. He currently resides in Denver, CO.

Starting from a very young age, Louis always had a passion for antiques, historic objects, and historic places. At the age of 11 while researching an abandoned hospital in his hometown of Katonah, NY, Louis discovered the abandoned resorts of the Borscht Belt. Since then, Louis has explored and photographed nearly all of the abandoned ruins that once made up the Borscht Belt. In addition, he has amassed a substantial collection over 200 postcards, brochures, and various forms of ephemera from the Borscht belt era.  

Recently, Louis has applied his passion for the Borscht Belt by doing a series of Independent Study projects within the Interior Architecture and Design Program at CSU. By utilizing an architectural modeling software called Revit, Louis recreated a digital model of the famous Indoor Pool building at Grossinger’s Resort in Liberty, NY. With the Indoor Pool and entire hotel demolished in 2018, Louis recreated a model of the pool by tracing existing floor plans, architectural renderings and interpreting photographs to digitally reconstruct the historic building. The project was featured at two research fairs at the University and was featured on an episode of the Borscht Belt Tattler podcast.  

Acting as one of the historic interpreters for this project, Louis additionally provides assistance with helping to locate sites for marker placement, the selection of images for historical markers and will be creating both a physical and digital map to accommodate a self-guided driving tour of the historical marker system. 

Jerry Klinger is the president and founder of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (www.JASHP.org). The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation is a non-profit, volunteer organization. The purpose of the Society is to identify and recognize sites of American Jewish Historical interest. The Society sponsors and promotes programs of local and national historic interest. 

Jerry is the son of Survivors of Buchenwald and Bergen Belsen. A former Yeshivah student, Jerry served with the IDF in the Sinai and is the author of over 100 articles and publications ranging from the Jerusalem Post to the Prairie Connection to the San Diego Jewish World. 

Jerry is frequently interviewed on T.V. and on Radio about the American Jewish experience. To date, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation has completed projects in 40 US. States and in 6 countries. Over 7,000,000 people annually benefit from one of JASHP's efforts. JASHP has also completed 18 projects in Israel. On November 29, 2022, JASHP completed the first-ever historical memorial to the central birthing event for the modern state of Israel - the U.N. Partition Resolution. 

Isaac Jeffreys is a Hudson Valley native and Parsons School of Design (The New School) graduate (BFA Photography, 2022) whose work sits at the intersection of history, memory, and transformation. Focused on 20th-century spaces, especially the Mid-century modern ‘Borscht Belt’ resorts of the Catskills, Isaac uses film photography, long exposures, and carefully staged scenes to illuminate long-abandoned buildings at night, reanimating spaces left without power or presence. His images invite viewers into dreamlike ruins where nostalgia lingers and the past remains vivid.

Since 2022, Isaac has served as Visual Coordinator of The Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project, where he leads research, archival curation, and manages the project’s Instagram—sharing rare collections and stories that introduce the Borscht Belt’s vintage Americana and aesthetics to a new generation. Beyond the Marker Project, Isaac has spoken at The Center for Photography at Woodstock and Modernism Week, and has shot for The Washington Post. His latest photographic series merges New York City nightlife figures with historic landmarks, deepening his exploration of the past. Currently, he is developing a photo book celebrating the vibrance and legacy of the Borscht Belt through his lens.