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PAGE 28 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 22, 1986
SOUTHERN FIELD REPRESENTATIVE
FOR OFFICE OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS,
HEBREW UNIVERSITY
College degree required. Past participant in H.U.
program preferred. Position entails travelling and
contacts with students and academics.
Send resume to: Director, Office of Academic
Affairs, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 11 East 69th
Street, New York, N.Y. 10021.
FOR THE BEST
OF BOTH WORLDS
Ron Weintraub
Hennessy Cadillac Jaguar
3040 Piedmont R<±, N.E.
Atlanta, GA 30305
261-5700
Catskill hotels changing
to keep in step with times
by Arnold Ages
JTA
— KIAMESHA LAKE, N.Y.
It’s as though Macy’s told Gim-
bels. Resort owners in the fabled
Catskill Mountains of New York
State have co-produced a public
relations leaflet which collectively
lauds their Jewish-oriented hotels.
The leaflet even mentions Grossin-
ger’s, the major hotel that is closed
for renovations.
This unprecedented cooperation
reflects the desire to promote a
community of hotels, not isolated
units, according to Milton Kutcher,
owner of Kutcher’s Hotel, and
Gordon Winarick, owner of the
Concord Hotel, the largest in the
Catskills.
Otherwise, the advertising
stresses the perennial themes of the
resorts, begun in the early part of
this century: their informality com
pared to urban hotels, food, enter
tainment and camaraderie.
But the “Borscht Belt” resort
business is changing. Irving Cohen,
the maitre d’ at the Concord, said
that year-round operations have
changed the nature of the dining
room. Fewer college students are
available to wait on and bus tables,
making it necessary to engage full
time help, and attracting good ser
vice personnel is difficult, he added.
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Also new is the dichotomy be
tween the kosher hotel and the
kosher-dining hotel. Cohen put it
this way: “We have kosher dining
facilities that are impeccable. We
are inspected, moreover, regularly
by New York State agents from the
Department of Agriculture.
“We are not, however, a kosher
hotel in the sense that we do not
control the atmosphere outside of
the dining hall. The Concord and
several of the other Catskill resorts
employ mashgichim to supervise their
dining halls and kitchens, but they
do not enforce religious regula
tions beyond this.”
Some people here claim that
Grossinger’s closed its doors prim
arily because it went “further than
was wise from the business point of
view” to attract Jewish clients who
were religiously observant. As one
hotel owner put it: “There simply
aren’t enough of that segment ol
Jewish society to sustain a hotel of
Grossinger’s size.”
Another change is the guests.
Twenty-five years ago, the major
ity was Jewish and from New York
or New Jersey. Today, as much as
30 percent are non-Jews. In addi
tion, they come from all over North
America and Europe. Winarick of
the Concord said this is an impor
tant development. The presence of
non-Jewish guests at the Concord
and other Catskill resorts is due to
attempts in recent years to attract
convention business. At the Con
cord, for example, an international
chess convention recently was
sharing space with the Pennsyl
vania-based Brit Shalom fraternal
order.
Winarick developed a new fam
ily encounter and reunion program
at his hotel called “L’Chaim,” He
brew for “to life.” He indicated
that one reunion would soon gather
more than 40 people from all over
the United States.
Whether they come for family
reunions, conventions or personal
respites, the Catskill hotels still
offer an array of entertainment.
It’s passe by now to list the promi
nent Hollywood personalities who
began their careers as stand-up
comics in the “Borscht Belt.” The
fledgling would-be comedians are
still making the rounds, but they
are being eclipsed, especially on
weekends, by mega-stars such as
Paul Anka, Harry Belafonte, Joan
Rivers, Tom Jones and Julio Igle-
sias, all of whom were scheduled to
perform at the Concord this sum
mer.
Intellectual entertainment also
attracts respectable audiences.
Kutcher’s has a resident expert on
the Middle East who discourses
regularly about Israeli and Arab
politics. The Concord invites highly
qualified experts on taxes and in
vestment strategy to lecture on a
regular basis.
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