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 photographer who lives and works in and around New York, NY. Isaac grew up in the tranquil and historic Hudson Valley/Catskills region, and returns to the area to create work as much as he can. 

Drawn to artistic mediums from a young age, Isaac earned a Photography BFA from Parsons School of Design (The New School) in 2022. The architecture and atmosphere at many of the Borscht Belt's resorts seemed like the perfect marriage of Jeffreys’ interests ranging from architecture, set design, culture/entertainment, tourism history, and the vivid sentimentality of what we now define as the 'past'. 

Working with a variety of mediums within film, ranging from medium to large format photography, Isaac’s work is a communication with the past, and oftentimes he photographs at night to achieve surreal effects within his imagery. He sees the Borscht Belt as a cultural renaissance, and creates work that serve as a reflection and response to the poignant era.

Isaac is currently working on a photo book that will showcase the vibrance of the Borscht Belt through his lens. He's been featured on The Borscht Belt Tattler Podcast, Merch Motel Radio, and designed a collaborative collection of Borscht Belt merchandise with Merch Motel in 2022. 

David Hilfstein is a dual American-Israeli citizen, third-generation Holocaust survivor, actor, writer, and public speaker. He holds a B.S. from High Point University in Sports Medicine where he was also a Division 1 baseball pitcher. Through the organization 3GNY, he displays his passion for storytelling and Holocaust education, where he shares his grandmother’s miraculous story of survival. He uses this platform to be a modern voice, fighting antisemitism and hate in the world. 

Originally from the south in Tallahassee Florida, he spent his childhood and teenage summers in the Catskills where his family has a rich Borscht Belt history. His father a pianist, played in various bands at Brickman’s and Gilbert’s in the 60s’ and 70s’. He learned to ice skate at Kutsher’s with Celia Duffy where he spent plenty of time with his cousins and sister— the same hotel his grandparents were once regulars at for nightlife, including Grossinger’s, The Concord, and The Pines. He has a deep love and passion for the era of the Borscht Belt and is committed to helping preserve its legacy through advocacy and education. 

As an actor and former model, he has appeared on TV, Film, and in theater, having worked professionally for the past 18 years. His on-screen work can be seen on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + among others. His extensive stage work has entertained audiences internationally, where he has had the privilege to play a few well-known Jewish roles— Mark in Rent, Perchick in Fiddler on the Roof, and Tateh in Ragtime. He is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA having resided in New York City and Israel off and on for the past 15 years. Since the pandemic, he relocated to Sullivan County to be closer to family, breathe the fresh air, and bask in the stunning Catskills landscape. 

John Conway was born and raised in Sullivan County and educated at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been the Sullivan County Historian since 1993. He was an adjunct professor at SUNY Sullivan from 1998 to 2016, teaching a course on Sullivan County History, and has taught the History of the Catskills for various Elderhostel and Lifelong Learning programs. He is a founder and president of The Delaware Company (thedelawarecompany.org), a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote and support the history and historic landmarks of the Upper Delaware River Valley and beyond. 

He is the author of nine books and has written a weekly newspaper column on local history since 1987. He was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of New York State. He spent nearly 20 years hosting radio talk shows on four different stations, and is regularly asked to provide a historical context for Sullivan County news events by the New York Times, Associated Press and various other national print and broadcast news organizations. 

He has appeared on several different television shows in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, discussing Catskills history, and collaborated with the Times Herald-Record newspaper on a series of award winning video documentaries, which are available for screening at www.classiccatskils.com. 

Kelli Huggins is a historian, museum professional, and amateur artist with a penchant for the bizarre and forgotten. 

She is a specialist in Catskill history and animal history and her current book project is about canine celebrity in the 1800s that focuses on Railroad Jack and Owney, two real-life, famous train-riding dogs. 

She won the 2016 and 2017 Researching the Empire State Writing Contests for the essays “Flocks of Kittens and Litters of Chicks: Interspecies Adoption in New York, 1880-1920” and “Death Rays: The Murder That Put X-Rays on Trial.” 

Kelli has a B.A. in History and American Studies from Siena College (2010) and earned her Master’s in History from the University of Delaware (2013). 

Stacey Nemerson Palant is an amateur genealogist and a passionate explorer of the rich history of the Borscht Belt.  Stacey's journey into the heart of the Borscht Belt began with a simple family photo: her father, Mark Nemerson, and uncle, Roy Nemerson, captured as children outside the hardball course of The Nemerson Hotel. From that moment on, Stacey's curiosity was piqued, and she delved deep into her family's history, using genealogy research to unearth the stories of the famed hotel and reconnect with her extended Nemerson family.  

Stacey strives to keep the memories and traditions of this iconic era alive for future generations. With each discovery, she not only uncovers the past but also weaves new threads of connection and understanding of the Borscht Belt era.
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Other things about Stacey:

She earned her B.A. from Rutgers University and her M.A. from The College of New Jersey, both in speech-language pathology. Currently, Stacey wears multiple hats in her professional life, serving as a speech-language therapist on the faculty at Princeton Public Schools, New Jersey, and serving on the Board of Directors for the New Jersey Speech Language Hearing Association. Stacey and her husband, Adam, reside in East Windsor, NJ, with sons Ryan (senior at James Madison University, major: sports marketing) and Jason (freshman, The College of New Jersey, major: electrical engineering).