Marisa Sche­in­feld is the author of The Borscht Belt: Revis­it­ing the Remains of America’s Jew­ish Vaca­tion­land, a col­lec­tion of pho­tog­ra­phy cap­tur­ing the remains of one­time Jew­ish resorts in upstate New York. Marisa is guest blog­ging for the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil all week as part of the Vis­it­ing Scribe series here on The ProsenPeo­ple.

As Jews we’re all quite famil­iar with the tastes, sounds and actions of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kip­pur — hon­ey on apples, the roar­ing of the sho­far, and head­ing to a body of water to sym­bol­i­cal­ly cast away our sins. Whether deeply reli­gious or mild­ly obser­vant, when we col­lec­tive­ly take a moment to stop to think about the mes­sages behind the Jew­ish New Year and the peri­od of intro­spec­tion that fol­lows it, mea­sures of heart-search­ing and self-exam­i­na­tion can be quite poignant. 

Accord­ing to rab­binic tra­di­tion, on Rosh Hashanah the des­tiny of the right­eous and the wicked are sealed into the Book of Life or the Book of the Dead. Dur­ing this peri­od we embark upon the task of exam­in­ing our lives and repent­ing for any of last years wrongs. We are encour­aged to make amends, to reflect, and to make plans for improv­ing our­selves in the com­ing year. While Rosh Hashanah con­cerns trag­ic themes of life and death, it is also a hol­i­day filled with hope. When con­sid­ered from this per­spec­tive, Rosh Hashana is about mak­ing peace with our com­mu­ni­ties, our­selves, and striv­ing to be a bet­ter person.

In many ways my new and first book, The Borscht Belt: Revis­it­ing the Remains of America’s Jew­ish Vaca­tion­land, echoes with much of these themes. For the past five years I have been sur­vey­ing, study­ing and pho­tograph­ing my home­town region known as the Borscht Belt. Colos­sal names such as Grossingers and the Con­cord are instant­ly rec­og­niz­able to Amer­i­can Jews from the east coast, as are the many enter­tain­ers and acts that graced their stages.

Grow­ing up in Mon­ti­cel­lo, New York in the 1980s, the Borscht Belt hey­day was always recalled to me through a nos­tal­gic lens; whether by a stranger, a friend, or by my own fam­i­ly mem­bers. Once an inter­na­tion­al­ly known tourism mec­ca, the region was an epi­cen­ter for Jew­ish cul­ture, con­nec­tion and leisure. On a region­al scale, the Borscht Belt brought com­merce, cul­ture and fueled the local economy. 

I began to con­sid­er the Borscht Belt dur­ing a time of tran­si­tion as a grad­u­ate stu­dent in Cal­i­for­nia. Dur­ing my down­time, I made repeat­ed trips home to Sul­li­van Coun­ty, New York. I saw the aban­doned struc­tures of desert­ed hotels and bun­ga­lows scat­tered across the land­scape in a new light. These struc­tures had become eye­sores, sym­bols of stag­na­tion and fail­ure. Bro­ken apart by the hands of time or peo­ple, these his­toric spaces and their skele­tal remains cap­ti­vat­ed me. These were each par­adise lost, places where peo­ple once had the times of their lives. Vis­it­ing over 40 for­mer hotel, resort and bun­ga­low loca­tions con­jured up immense per­son­al reflec­tions on time, change, and nature.

Though the orig­i­nal col­ors of the Borscht Belt have fad­ed, the trans­formed fig­ures, shades and tex­tures that I found among its rem­nants sig­naled a new sense of vig­or. No longer are these spaces being used as places of leisure as orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed — din­ing rooms have become paint ball war zones, local kids have turned show­rooms into skate parks, and wild birds live in the guest rooms. 

For those who spent time in these hotels, the pho­tographs in this series often evoke waves of nos­tal­gia and feel­ings of loss. But these are always fol­lowed by the most enliven­ing sto­ries of how they met some­one in that lob­by, or saw so and so on that stage, or what hap­pened that one sum­mer. The dual­i­ty, the yin and yang of it all, is quite fas­ci­nat­ing to me. In look­ing beyond the decay and pathos, there is much beau­ty and life that still remains. There is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly tragedy and hope.

Just as the Jew­ish New Year asks us to reflect on the past — this book is a rumi­na­tion on the past of my home region. In cre­at­ing this series, I feel as if I’ve returned clos­er to the soul of a col­lec­tive his­to­ry. My feel­ings on this project align close­ly with themes of the Jew­ish New Year: somber con­sid­er­a­tion of the past in prepa­ra­tion for fac­ing the future with pos­i­tiv­i­ty and hope.

Click on any image below to browse the full gallery of ephemera Marisa Sche­in­feld col­lect­ed in her research for the book:

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Marisa Sche­in­feld​’s pho­tog­ra­phy has been exhib­it­ed nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly and is among the col­lec­tions of The Cen­ter for Jew­ish His­to­ry, The Nation­al Yid­dish Book Cen­ter, The Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter, The Magnes Col­lec­tion of Jew­ish Art and Life and The Edmund and Nan­cy K. Dubois Library at the Muse­um of Pho­to­graph­ic Arts 

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