If you were yearning for a bit of a break to learn about Wilt Chamberlain’s history in the Borscht Belt, check out Grantland’s 30 for 30 Shorts. The short film looks back to when Wilt the Stilt worked as a bellhop at Kutsher’s Country Club in the Catskill Mountains.

In 1954, before his senior year of high school, Wilt Chamberlain took a summer job as a bellhop at Kutsher’s Country Club, a Jewish resort in the Catskill Mountains. By day he was making $2 an hour and getting great tips from the awestruck guests as he lifted their luggage through a second-floor window … while standing outside on the ground. At night, he played on the Kutsher’s basketball team and was coached by the resort’s athletic director, Celtics coach Red Auerbach. Mixing rarely seen archival video and interviews with people who lived and worked with Wilt, this short chronicles a pivotal chapter in the life of one of the game’s greatest players, and gives a fascinating glimpse into a time when basketball met the Borscht Belt in its heyday.

I’d suggest we all go grab a bite to eat at Wilt Chamberlain’s, the restaurant, in Florida’s lovely Boca Raton. But, alas, I think it’s closed. No hamburgers and arcade games for us. At least we have this documentary.

Previous: 30 for 30 Shorts: Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop

(Photo by Sporting News Archive/Getty)

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Growing up in Ohio, the child of a southern mother and an east coast father, family dinner meant roasted chicken, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese. We’d have a family meal every Sunday after church, with my sister and I still dressed in our Sunday best.

For Jack Lebewohl, the owner of Manhattan’s Second Avenue Deli, family dinners growing up meant something a little different. “On Friday night we had gefilte fish, and on Saturday we had chopped liver—it’s what we did,” he told the crowd on Thursday at Gefilte Talk, an event dedicated to that most polarizing of Jewish food: gefilte fish.

Though gefilte fish and chopped liver weren’t on my plate growing up, I could easily relate to Lebewohl’s strong associations with his family’s classic dishes. And I wasn’t the only one. Nearly 200 people had gathered in the auditorium of the Center for Jewish History, eager to listen to a panel of gefilte-mongers that included Zach Kutsher of Kutsher’s Tribeca, Israeli chef Omer Miller, Gefilteria founders Elizabeth Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz (who I profiled for Jewcy in March), and Lebewohl.

The Beard Foundation’s Mitchell Davis, a cookbook author and food writer, moderated the panel. I admit that at first I wondered not only how they’d occupy a full hour talking about chopped fish, but also why so many people showed up to listen to it. The answer, it turned out, had a lot to do with nostalgia.

Every panelist, you see, had distinct childhood memories of gefilte fish. For Miller, gefilte fish was something his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, would serve him to help him be strong. For Kutsher, his family’s famous gefilte fish recipe was the best he’d ever had, hands down. For Yoskowitz and Alpern, making gefilte fish was about giving new life to an old Ashkenazi culinary tradition—the Gefilteria is a boutique operation that aims to put an artisanal spin on the classic dish.

While Kutsher uses halibut instead of carp or whitefish and tops his gefilte fish with a parsley arugula emulsion, Alpern and Yoskowitz are all about sticking closely to original recipes. “We made a lot of gefilte fish,” Alpern explained. “We tried different spices, tried to make it new and different before turning to a more traditional recipe because it tasted the best.”

There is something refreshing about the Gefilteria’s inspired creations—at the event, Davis called the team “hipster Jews bringing gefilte fish to the masses.” The trio got together over the simple shared idea that gefilte fish should be more delicious than they remembered it.

“We see ourselves as part of the food movement that’s happening right now,” Yoskowitz told the audience. “Gefilte fish isn’t scary food.” The Gefilteria, which has been selling their kosher-certified, old-world Ashkenazi grub in pop-up stores and markets around New York City, is currently taking orders for Rosh Hashanah. But hurry—they sold out for Pesach, and they’ve got at least 200 new fans since last Thursday.

Previously: In Brooklyn, Putting Gefilte Fish Back on the Menu

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The final chapter of Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort, a new documentary centered on Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club, begins with a prescient clip from Dirty Dancing, the film which serves as a reference point for the former Borscht Belt experience. “It all seems to be ending,” says Max Kellerman, the owner of composite fictional resort Kellerman’s, to his staff member Tito. “You think kids want to come with their parents and take fox-trot lessons?”

The kids may no longer come up to dance, but they are, as some believe, the last hope for revitalizing the once thriving vacation area. A recent New York Times article highlighted the Catskill Park Resource Foundation’s efforts to raise $5 million to rebrand the Catskills. As the article put it, “The idea is to make people think of the Catskills in terms of trout fishing, artisanal cheese and Zen retreats, rather than Simon Says, rimshot comedians and Dirty Dancing.” Brendan Burke, artistic director of nearby Ellenville’s Shadowland Theater, is quoted saying, “You hear [the term Catskills] and think bungalow colonies and resorts with bad carpet.”

The thing is, though, I loved the carpeting at Kutsher’s. In the many years I spent visiting with my family, it was the most memorable physical component of the space. When we arrived, we’d park the car in front, under the neon yellow “Kutsher’s” sign, hand off the keys to a dapper valet, and walk in with buoyant carpeting underfoot. It felt like landing on the surface of distant yet familiar planet.

My aunt, married to my mother’s brother, is the daughter of Helen and Milton Kutsher, the second-generation owners of Kutsher’s. I grew up going to the hotel every Thanksgiving and for various events throughout the years. And while I may have visited the hotel during its so-called decline, in the 1990s and early 2000s, I remember the place as grand and exotic. Its particularities are frozen in my memory, from the pastel coloring of the walls to the pervasive smell of matzoh ball soup that got stronger as you approached the dining room.

I’ve stopped going to Kutsher’s, because it is no longer a fully functioning hotel. The last trip I made was in 2009, to attend the U.S. version of All Tomorrow’s Parties, a music festival which originated in England but was held at Kutsher’s in 2008, 2009, and 2010. While there, I heard a lot of people talk about the hotel’s state of decay. Many attendees seemed to take ironic enjoyment in comparing Kutsher’s to the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. The epilogue of Welcome to Kutsher’s covers All Tomorrow’s Parties and features interviews with people there, many of whom also make that same comparison.

It’s clear from the film that Ian Rosenberg and Caroline Laskow, the husband and wife team who directed and produced the documentary, were charmed by Kutsher’s, just as I was growing up. When I spoke with Rosenberg over the phone, he recounted a trip to the hotel with Caroline as a young couple in 2005. When Laskow asked if he wanted to take a vacation to a Jewish resort in the Catskills, he replied, “Yeah, but we don’t live in the 1960s.” Despite reservations, Laskow assured him it would be affordable and worthwhile. So they went, ate, and came away convinced that Kutsher’s was perfect material for a documentary.

They began shooting in 2007, and returned to the resort in 2010. Much of the footage and interviews come from the Kutsher family, who had been approached by filmmakers in the past though no projects were ever completed. “The topic seems small–one element of the Jewish American experience—but there’s actually so much in it, from entertainment to music to culture and religion,” Rosenberg explained. “Other projects didn’t move forward because they didn’t have the focus that we did: one Catskills resort and looking at the big picture through that one story.”

I completely agree. The joy of Welcome to Kutsher’s is that it captures what was unique and special about the hotel while also expounding on the larger significance of the Catskills in the American Jewish consciousness. In one particularly memorable scene, as Helen Kutsher talks about hiring Wilt Chamberlain as a bellhop, the film cuts to a clip of a young Chamberlain towering over a guest. It’s a larger than life moment, one of many in Kutsher’s storied history.

There have been two screenings of the film in Manhattan, both during the New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center—the first, the world premiere, sold out before tickets went on sale to the general public, and the second sold out within an hour. During the Q&A session with Rosenberg and Laskow following the first screening, a familiar-looking audience member stood up to tell them what a wonderful film it was, and what a gift it was. He continued, explaining that the Kutsher family was overwhelmingly hospitable to him and his wife, who wasn’t Jewish, when they visited. As the man continued to heap praise on Kutsher’s, Laskow leaned over and whispered, “That’s Jerry Stiller.” Sure enough, it was—and Stiller is giving an interview that will be added to the film this fall.

“People are delighted to see the film, because their goal is to try to preserve this piece of Catskills history before it disappears,” Rosenberg told me. “This is the last of the Catskills resorts and we didn’t only want to look back, but also to show you that it is still existing, though it is about to vanish before our eyes.” Yet while the Kutsher’s resort may be nearing extinction, the name and the emotional resonances it evokes in American Jews continues to thrive in new ways. The latest incarnation is Kutsher’s Tribeca, the trendy downtown restaurant opened by Helen’s grandson Zach Kutsher that serves bug juice, duck schmaltz fries, and delicatessen charcuterie. The restaurant is mentioned in the final scene of Welcome to Kutsher’s, an apt reference to the future of the Kutsher’s legacy. I may not go up to the Kutsher’s Hotel to fox-trot, but I’ll get a Rueben at Kutsher’s Tribeca any time.

Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort will be screened at the JCC in Manhattan on Tuesday, September 4. Tickets are available here.

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