"Summer Haven brings to life the vibrant culture of the Jewish Catskills against the backdrop of the Nazi devastation of Jewish life in Europe. I know of no other book that recreates with such richness the history and character of the Catskills and the defining culture of Yiddishkeit. Peopled by refugees and survivors, the Catskills provided a haven in response to loss and displacement, a New Jerusalem, as expressed in the literary imagination, memoirs, and scholarly responses so lovingly collected in this valuable book. Summer Haven brilliantly captures a crucial part of the legacy of Jewish life in America."
— Victoria Aarons, O.R. & Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature, Trinity University

Summer Haven is a must read for all those interested in Jewish culture in an American context set against the background of the Holocaust. Under the astute editorship of Holli Levitsky and Phil Brown, this volume hones in on the Catskills examining from a variety of literary perspectives how the Holocaust was experienced in this very American setting. Among the book's many achievements is its demonstration that while Jews vacationed in the Catskills, their thoughts—and nightmares—were of their persecuted European coreligionists.
— Alan L. Berger, Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University

“Evoking times of great pleasure interwoven with fear and mourning, this rich collection of fiction, essays, memoirs, and inter-generational reflections shows that the Catskills, a holiday refuge, was still intimately connected to the Holocaust. Summer Haven sets the sharply rendered details of local history in a vital international context."
— Eric J. Sundquist, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Johns Hopkins University, author of Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America

"As its sub-title proclaims, Summer Haven focuses on the Catskills, the Holocaust and the Literary Imagination, how Jews came to America after experiencing the agony and horror of the Holocaust and experienced the unique and almost make-believe-funny and peaceful world of the Catskills. We are there through many pages of fiction, memoirs, essays, personal and general, reflections, and musings. The result is an evocation of a time and place, a way of life that belonged to history and now belongs to all of us fortunate enough to have this special book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED."
— Dr. Harvey Frommer, Dartmouth College, coauthor of It Happened in the Catskills

"[A] collection of provocative and highly illuminating essays. . . . Here we find a tight focus on the strange and powerful point of connection between the Borscht Belt, a place of escape and frolic, and the Holocaust, an event of dire gravity. . . . a unique exercise in extracting new meanings from the unlikeliest of sources."
— Jonathan Kirsch

Acknowledgments

Sources and Permissions

Framing and History

Introduction

Phil Brown and Holli Levitsky

Reuben Wallenrod’s Dusk in the Catskills and its Central Role in Catskills Holocaust History

Holli Levitsky and Phil Brown

Memoirs and Conversations

A Memoir from Before My Birth

Phil Brown

The Holocaust, the Catskills, and the Creative Power of Loss

Holli Levitsky

Catskill Reflections: Testimonial, Literary, and Jewish Values in Singer’s Novel

Sandor Goodhart

Legacy

Michael Berenbaum

Imaginings and Re-imaginings

From Dusk in the Catskills

Reuben Wallenrod

Dusk in the Catskills: My Father, the Holocaust, Memories, and Reflections

Naima (Wallenrod) Prevots

From Enemies, A Love Story

Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Holocaust, Three Women, One Man, and a Rabbi: Posthumous Reading in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Enemies, A Love Story

Sandor Goodhart

From Summer on a Mountain of Spices

Harvey Jacobs

Reflections on Summer on a Mountain of Spices

Harvey Jacobs

From Woodridge 1946

Martin Boris

“Not to Know the Past is to Diminish the Future”: Reflections on Woodridge 1946

Gloria Boris

From Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, II: And Here My Troubles Began

Art Spiegelman

What We Didn’t Know

Hilene Flanzbaum

From Paradise, New York

Eileen Pollack

Preserving the Catskills: An Exercise in Nostalgia, or Survival?

Eileen Pollack

Bingo by the Bungalow

Thane Rosenbaum

Renewal

Thane Rosenbaum

A Catskills Muse

Phil Brown

Reflections on “A Catskills Muse”

Phil Brown

From Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust

Joseph Berger

Resuming Life After the War: Survivors in the Catskills

Joseph Berger

The Catskills (or What Was, Was, and Is No More) from A Jew Grows in Brooklyn

Jake Ehrenreich

Reflections on A Jew Grows in Brooklyn

Jake Ehrenreich

From Dreaming in the Ninth

Ezra Cappell

Balm of Gilead: Haunted in the Catskills

Ezra Cappell

New Imaginings and Last Days

The Four Seasons Lodge: Survivors in the Bungalow Colony

Andrew Jacobs

Prize-Winning Essays: Fiction

Catskill Dreams and Pumpernickel

Bonnie Shusterman Eizikovitz

Your Dovid

Rita Calderon

Prize-Winning Essay: Non-Fiction

Forgiving God in the Catskills

Michael Kirschenbaum

Index