SHAMEFULLY PLEASANT

“And he, Leo Halper, was hiding here between the walls of his house in the Catskill Mountains. It was awesome and shamefully pleasant in the shelter”- Reuben Wallenrod, Dusk in the Catskills, written in Hebrew 1941-44. Published in English 1957

   Diaspora is a word most commonly associated with the Jewish people; although it can equally apply to Africans scattered to the wind by slavery. It literally means the dispersal of any people from their homeland. So happens the Jews, as a group, have historically suffered repeated dispersals more than most. Read the bible. It results in emigration (or immigration) of said people (or what’s left of them) to another homeland; not an easy process. 

     The Catskills have repeatedly experienced and embraced diasporas since the earliest human habitation on North America’s east coast. First Nation mound builders were driven east from the plains by more powerful tribes, eventually finding safety in the hidden penetralia between the Delaware and the Hudson rivers. The first whites to move into the neighborhood were the Dutch, Swiss and Huguenots, fleeing Europe for various reasons; mainly to make more money. They set the stage for white supremacy and manifest destiny, killing and driving the Indians back west or into Canada; more diaspora. 

    In the first decade of the 18th century came the Palatine Germans, fleeing French swords in the Palatinate region of eastern Europe. Indentured to the British, these political refugees settled from Newburgh to West Camp (Catskill), the Schoharie Valley and Stone Arabia. Scattered amongst the Germans, Dutch, Swiss and Huguenot immigrants to New York were Jews. But the largest concentrated Jewish diaspora to inhabit the Catskills came in the mid-20th century. These would be the European Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their American Jewish counterparts, hoping for a break from the recent horrors of the past, the heat of the city and ongoing institutional anti-Semitism, they welcomed the respite of a private, little bungalow and the fleeting illusion of summer happiness. Welcome to the Catskills! 

    I finally received my copy of Summer Haven- The Catskills, the Holocaust and the Literary Imagination by Phil Brown and Hollie Levitsky. I’m only half way through, but I highly recommend it. Although it concentrates only on “Jewish” life in the mountains, there are universal truths revealed by these authors; illustrating the myriad entanglements and mutual dependencies that we all find ourselves experiencing in these hills today, gentile, Jew or free agent.

    Brown and Levitsky put these New York State “vacationing” Jews into two distinct categories: the German Jews of the Northern Catskills and Finger Lakes (possibly a left over genealogical blood trail dropped by the Palatines) and the poorer Yiddish speaking Eastern European and Russian Jewish refugees of hardscrabble Ulster and Sullivan Counties. This is a historical outline I thought I knew. What I didn’t know was that the specific history by place of the pre-war Catskill Jewish community, which ultimately blossomed into the “Borsht Belt” of grand hotels started in Glen Wild, NY. I remind you that I own the only two historical buildings in the tiny hamlet of Glen Wild—the Methodist Episcopal (LGM) church (built 1867) and the Congregation Anshei (Old) Shul (built 1913), that graces the cover of Summer Haven. John Gershon, “considered the first Jewish farmer [in the Catskills], arriving in 1892.” donated the land for the Glen Wild shul in 1912. The Jaffe family and their neighbors built it. According to Summer Haven, Gerson’s Rock Hill Jewish Boarding House, along with Rosenblatt’s Hotel (both in Glen Wild) were two of the first Jewish resorts in the Catskills. It started here.

     As a heterosexual, white man (with no religious affiliation) whose family has resided in the Catskills since 1653, I am not, nor will I ever be, a part of any disenfranchised group or diaspora. As distasteful as the label is, I am considered a “nativist,” a descendent of European aborigines. My slave owning, Christian, Dutch and English ancestors came to America as part of a heavily armed, well funded corporate invasion. We never left. So it is not surprising that I am forced to look elsewhere for a sympathetic “cultural identity.” Mine has been bred out of me. That is why I write on issues of race and religion, exclaiming in public GOD LOVES FAGS or WARNING- Jesus helps me trick people, in both English and Hebrew. Cultural provocation? Probably. I’m an artist. I don’t have to be a Jew, a homosexual, an intellectual or play by the rules in order to claim empathic “diversity” in my work. This is also a tradition in these mountains—one of insular non-assimilation and not giving a shit—as the world spins maniacally around us. Sure, I get a rock thrown through my window or a public piece spray painted over once in a while. But on the whole I feel safe, hidden, and justified in my transgressions. Am I doing enough? Probably not. There is also a “dawn” in the Catskills. We are creating it. Wallenrod put it perfectly. Our shelter is “awesome” and “shamefully pleasant.” I feel I must apologize: $ORRY. In our collective guilt we must protect the Catskill’s fragility and always welcome any diasporas to come to these mountains. It’s not always easy, but it’s a very long tradition. Shalom.