Archie Barkan’s knowledge of Borscht Belt history goes far back. How far? All the way to when the only time “borscht” and “belt” were used in the same sentence was when an errant slurper had spilled on his lap.
But Barkan doesn’t get his Borscht Belt history from books. He lived it.
A former comedian and activities director of a Jewish summer hotel in the Poconos, Barkan has extensive knowledge of the famous Catskills resorts that were widely known as the Borscht Belt.
He knew the comedians. He knew the hoteliers. He knew the mambo instructors.
For years, Barkan has been a walking encyclopedia of that lore, some of which he will share at a free lecture Tuesday, April 12 at the Bureau of Jewish Education’s Jewish Community Library in San Francisco. “They truly were pioneers in their own way,” Barkan says of the Jews who transformed the Catskills into the ultimate summer destination for American Jews throughout the last century. “I don’t know if any of them dreamed what would eventually happen.”
What happened? Resorts like Grossinger’s and the Concord not only provided several generations of Jewish families summer getaways, they also provided the training ground for entertainers such as Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Red Buttons and Buddy Hackett.
The Catskill Mountains weren’t always the prosperous Jewish Disneyland as depicted in the film “Dirty Dancing.” Barkan says the region’s Jewish origins go back to the 19th century, when Jews first began buying cheap land there.
With anti-Semitism the norm in those days, many prospective landowners could not get loans approved by local banks. They turned instead to New York City–based Jewish institutions to buy Catskills property.
In time, those landowners would often rent rooms during the summer to Jewish families from the city looking to escape the oppressive summer heat (he says the children usually slept in the hayloft).
Some eventually built bungalows. Others built clubhouses and community kitchens — kuchaleyns in Yiddish — which further enticed New York City families to shlep 100 miles up old Route 17.
Once the hotels began to spring up in the 1930s, the region transformed, and the golden age of the Catskills began.
“People started to sink big money in the area,” Barkan says. “The proprietors who first built small then went large.”
A native of Philadel-phia, Barkan worked in Jewish resorts from 1957 to 1977, but not in the Catskills. He was an emcee, musician, comedian and activities director at the Tamiment Resort in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. It was a lot like the Catskills, with Jews, pine trees and cha-cha classes.
Tamiment hired the then-young Barkan to work as a DJ for singles mixers. That evolved into a position as the resort’s summer social and activities director, a job he held for 14 summers.
He remembers regularly driving his boss up to the Monticello racetrack not far from the Catskills. While the boss played the ponies, Barkan would make the rounds at the big Catskills resorts, learning from the masters.
His resort booked the same big names as the Catskills giants, among them comedian Jackie Mason. Barkan recalls one summer night when the air conditioning went out during a Mason performance.
The crowd demanded an encore, but by then Mason was backstage, stripped to the waist, dunking his head in the sink to cool off. Barkan pleaded with Mason to return to the stage, which he ultimately did. Shirtless.
Fluent in Yiddish, Barkan has since gone on to work as a Yiddish translator and teacher. Among his past clients is Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation.
But he’ll always have a soft spot for the Catskills’ heyday. Most of the resorts there are gone, having fallen victim, according to Barkan, to the cruise industry, which offers a floating Borscht Belt–like experience.
He’ll talk about the old days at his upcoming Jewish Community Library lecture, peppering his remarks with plenty of classic Jewish jokes he learned in the Catskills.
“I don’t have a set act,” he says. “But I have 50 to 70 jokes on instant recall.”
“The History of the Catskills” talk by Archie Barkan at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 12, at the BJE Jewish Community Library, 1835 Ellis St., S.F. Free. Information: (415) 567-3327.