4
Crisis In The Catskilh
Little Hotels Going Broke; Can't Keep Up With The Two Bigs
Loch Sheldrake, N.Y. -Tlie glamorous fun-loving, vacationing cro>vds of former seasons at some Cat-skiU resorts are gone, reports Homer Bigart in the New Yorit Times.
A singular hush, betrayed only by the occasional romping of crickets or the stomping of a stray hen on the greensward, fell Labor Day weekend on the roccoco precincts of the New Roxy Hotel.
Mr. Bigart relates: A rancid smell of decaying food Altered down the carpeted corridors from the kitchen. An eerie silence ruled the lobby, mocking a notice forbidding card-playing and a-nother that urged "Sign Up Now For 'Talent Night'!"
Deck chairs upturned by the wind were scattered in disarray on the lawns, Bigart continues. Someone had thrown an empty Coke bottle down the Wishing Well. No one was at the outdoor pool, no one at the indoor pool. A telephone began to ring but no one was there to answer.
The New Roxy, according to Mr. Bigart, had shut its doors to vacationers in mid-August - the latest in a long list of casualties among the medium-sized hotels in the Catskills, hotels accommodating 200 to 700 guests.
Jack Fleischer, a former owner of the hotel, said, "This used to be the liveliest bar in Sullivan County."
He told how hard times came knocking at the door last summer.
It was a familiar story that a visitor can hear from dozens of former innkeepers in the Catskills today. Many hotels are caught in the credit squeeze.
Trying to keep up with the prosperous giants like Grossinger's and the Concord, they have gone heavily into debt for Olympic swimming pools, indoors and outdoors; ornate lobbies and glittering night clubs. The only loans they could obtain were short-term, most of them coming from local banks, the Small Business Administration and the New •York Business Development Corporation.
The new management of the New Roxy closed the hotel on the eve of the climactic summer weekend and the approach of the High Holy Days 'when many Catskill resorts are filled to the rafters.
A South Fallsburgh banker and lawyer said many of the smaUer hotels were in trouble because they are obsolete. Built at a time when people expected to rough it a bit in the country, they cannot modernize enough to meet today's more luxurious standards like baths with every room.
Another problem, he said, is the glamor of more dis-ant holiday lures. "The old-
er generation that used to come here is dying out and their children are a little bit bored witb us by now."
In Poughkeepsie, Louis Townsend, a bankruptcy referee, reported that the number of bankruptcies in Sullivan County and in adjacent Orange County was up 20 oercent over last year.
J. S. Shaw, a New York City lawyer, has asked Govenor Rockefeller to investigate the hotel problem which he said, was caused by "unreasonable mortgage financing, prompted by the greed of a few of the attorneys and real estate brokers in the Sullivan County area."
Several Hotels stUl open are in financial straits and are seeking reorganization under the Bankruptcy Act. Luckily all of them have had a very good season, helped by torrid weather and the airline strike. The strike was a great boon to this region. Former patrons from the metropolitan area, unable to fly to more distant resorts, were obliged to return to famUiar haunts in the Catskills.
Among the larger hotels in bankruptcy proceedings are the WaldemereC'l Found a Husband at the Walde-
The Canadian Jewish News - Wednesday, September 14, 1966 - Page 9
S/S S^a/om 1966-1967 Caribbean Qruises
Strange Queue in Moscow: A Jewish Book Was Published.
travel and adventure
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Eight Cruises From Ne\\- York
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This is the first of two irticles on Scandinavian lewry, written afterarecent isit to Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
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mere") at Livingston Manor and the Flagler ("Join the Lively Set at the Flagler!") at South Fallsburg.
The Sullivan County Hotel, Association said that despite some attrition among "obsolete" hotels, the resort business was in excellent shape. New sources of tourism, including the possibility of luring Europeans to the Catskills, was under study.
Israel Boosts Trade With Common Market
London (JCNS) British exports to Israel over the first six months of this year amounted to 27,519,000 pounds, with a further 670,000 pounds earned by reej^rts - a total rise of about 2 million pounds compared with the same period last year.
Israeli exports to Britain - worth 17,930,000 pounds -were only slightly up on the amount earned in the first half of the previous year.
A comparison based on the half-yearly figures shows that Britain took 13.6 per cent of all that Israel exported, fractionally more than the United States(13.3). The West German market came third, having absorbed only 11.5. per cent of Israeli exports.
It would however, be misleading to assume that Britain has regained her place as Israel's largest single market - a position the United Kingdom held until 1963. For the trade figures up to the end of June reflect the height of Israel's citrus trade (with Britain as the largest single customer) but they do not take full account of the diamond exports for which the United States are the best market.
When the complete annual figures are published it will be seen that the U.S.A. is still not only the largest suppliers of goods to Israel but also the most important market forherownproducts.
But the half-yearly figures do show how important the Common Market has become to Israel. During that period the six countries forming the European Economic Community imported 32 per cent of all thatlsrael sold abroad; whereas the British-led European Free Trade Association (Efta) tooi nomore than 27 per cent.
Orient Likes Kosher
Recently Hong Kong was the destination for an order for half a ton of kosher pastrami filled by the Hebrew National Kosher Food plant in Queens, New York.
■ Ordered by Lindy's East (not related to the New York eatery), the pastrami vwis kept—frozen at the kosher plant before leaving on its longflighti
According to .a spokesmaa. for Hebrew National, theor-der signified that there is a fantastic market for kosher food overseas, ■■ ' ■
this particular order was a rush job. ,
Whenever there is talk a-bout the problem of assimilation and intermarriage, Scandinavia is given as an example. It is not surprising that tlie problem exi sts there. Sweden, Norway and Denmark are democratic countries, open to new influences, with few economic or political problems which might stimulate discrimination, with an affection for Israel, and with a more or less egalitarian society.
The most highly informed opinion is that in Sweden at least 50 percent of all marriages entered into by Jews are with non-Jews.
The rate of intermarriage in Denmark is also substantial. Nobody authoritative would give me an estimate, though it is certainly lower than the 50 percent in Sweden.
In Norway the problem does not seem to be a pressing one - perhaps because of the smallness and co-hesivenessof the community. Many Norwegian Jews I met had brought their wives from Sweden, Denmark and England.
One of the odder reasons for the high intermarriage rate in Sweden is the Jew-ishness of its Jews. Couples who decided to live together outside wedlock are socially acceptable but, I was told, the inbred "respectability" which Jews are said to have, makes them insist on marriage.
One of the ways in which all the Scandinavian communities are tackling this problem is by providing facilities for young' people to meet each other, mainly at the annual camp of the Scandinavian Jewish Youth Federation, which had been very successful.
In addition, each community has also intensifled its own local activities. There is a community centre in Oslo, a fine community building and a new Jewish school in Stockholm. In Copenhagen the community had intensified its educational activities.
There is some confidfence in Stockholm that the intermarriage rate is now declining, first because Sweden's Jewish population had doubled in the past 20years,, with a resulting increase in potential marriage partners, secondly because of the increased communal activity to which I have referred, and' thirdly because of the heightened Jewish consciousness stimulated by Israel.
One of the most positive and outstanding achievements of Israel has been its choice of diplomatic representatives. It is astonishing that a country with a small population should have so many people of such high calibre to represent it abroad. The Scandinavian countries offer an excellent case in point.
The Israeli Ambassador in Oslo is Air. Nathan Bar-
Yaacov. Many British Jews will remember him as Nat Jackson, of Glasgow, a former Poale Zion Leader. With his charming American wife he has lived in Oslo for nearly three years now, and every journalist and politician I met there referred to him admiringly. His praises were also sung throughout the Jewish community.
Mr. Yaacov Shimoni, the Ambassador in Stockholm, is an expert on Arab affairs. Why this should have resulted in his being stationed in .Stockholm is something of a mystery, but it is reassuring to know that, in these matters, the Israeli Government acts in well-established governmental tradition. Mr. Shimoni is a penetrating observer of the Jewish scene, provides a meeting-place for all the different groups in the community and is an able and active effective representative of Israeli interests.
The third member of the triumvirate is also the newest, having been appointed in January^ this year. Miss Esther Herlitz, Israeli Ambassador to Denmark, whose first appointment as head of mission this is, is a sparkling and attractive personality. She has had a great deal of experience of Israeli and Zionist political life and is extremely well-informed about Jewish communal life. She is obviously on the way up in the diplomatic service.
To return to the smallest of the Scandinavian communities Norway, about 1,000 Jews live there today. Oslo has 700 of them, and the only other group, the world's most northerly community, live in Trondheim, 240 miles north of the capital.
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Almost all Norwegian Jews are of Lithuanian origin, and most of themarriv-ed in the country after 1880.
The small synagogue in Oslo, with its painted woodwork and delightful intimacy, was built in 1921. A new building attached to it contains excellent communal facilities - halls, classrooms, flats, a library and meeting-rooms. One wonders how so small a community is able to maintain these standards.
About 60 children attend the religion classes of the community. They also learn scripture at school, and learning something about the New Testament does not seem to do them any harm.
The community is singular in that it has but one paid official - the chazan. There is no rabbi, no paid administrative officials. All the worit is done by laymen, and this constitutes another example of commitment by involvement.
Perhaps 50 femilies in Oslo buy only kosher meat. Since shechita is not permitted in Norway, this had to be imported from Sweden or Denmark. The conununity is the distributor, the "sales staff is composed of volunteers, and the whole undertaking is, of course,non-
profit-making. As a result, despite its long journey, kosher meat is not significantly more e3a)ensive than the non-kosher meat in the Oslo shops.
Norwegians' preoccupation with their art and customs illustrates a certain inward-lookingness of which I found a reflection in the Jewish community when I visited the Jewish cemetery.
A simple but Impressive granite memorial has been erected there to the 600 Norwegian Jews who perished at Auschwitz - about half the total Norwegian Jewish population. The inscription include the names of whole families, children, too.
My guide, one of the 26 who returned from Auschwitz, pointed silently to the names of his father, mother, sister and uncles. It was one of the most poignant moments I had ejqperienced, and I could understand why it is that, to Norwegian Jewry, the Holocaust centres on its own 600.
Of course, they are aware of the millions from other countries who were slaughtered, but a commemoration service for them attracted only a handful of people.
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