New York (State)--Catskill Mountains

Esterita "Cissie" Blumber writes a monthly column for the Catskill/Hudson Jewish Star. She grew up in a hotel in the Catskills, and later owned and operated it with her husband. Last year her book "Remember the Catskills: Tales by a Recovering Hotelkeeper" was published. (Purple Mountain Press)

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the book "It Happened in the Catskills," an oral history of the resorts that made up what was known as the Borsht Belt.

Writer Stefan Kanfer's latest book is called "A Summer World," about the Borscht Belt -- a Jewish enclave in the Catskills that nurtured a generation of comics. Kanfer talks about the lives of some of the resorts' regulars, and why some the community is now in decline.

Writer Stefan Kanfer. Kanfer's latest book is called "A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt." The Borsht Belt nurtured a generation of comics and defined a culture. Kanfer talks about the lives of the people who frequented the Catskill resorts, and the reason those resorts are now in decline.