We Met at Grossinger's

Closing Night
Director Paula Eiselt expected to attend

If your knowledge of mid-century Jewish resorts in New York’s Catskills mountains — fondly known as the Borscht Belt – stems mainly from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and maybe a couple of Seinfeld references, then treat yourself to this loving celebration of one of the most influential cultural institutions in Jewish American life: Grossinger’s Resort Hotel. Amid bucolic lakes just 100 miles from New York City, Grossinger’s began in 1919 as a necessary haven — welcoming vacationing Jewish families shut out of most restrictive resorts – but was built by three generations of Jewish women entrepreneurs into a leisure-time juggernaut that launched the careers of entertainers from Milton Berle to Joel Grey to Joan Rivers.

Rich with home movies, archival recordings and anecdotes from former headliners, tummlers, waiters, and guests, the documentary establishes not only how central Grossinger’s was in defining a certain kind of Jewish American identity — the lox! the Yiddish humor! — but also how it came to symbolize a century of Jewish American progress: when Eleanor Roosevelt arrived at Grossinger’s in 1950, maybe so had the Jews. —Peter Stein

Bay Area Premiere

Paula Eiselt is an independent filmmaker. Her work has been supported by ITVS, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, NYSCA, Fork Films, the Gucci Tribeca Fund, the IDA Pare Lorentz Fund, IFP, Picture Motion, Hartley Film Foundation, and Women Make Movies. Her feature debut 93Queen won the inaugural Hot Docs Pitch Prize, premiered at Hot Docs in 2018, and was released theatrically and broadcast on POV with support from the NYC Made in NY program. She is a Sundance Creative Producing Summit Fellow, IFP Documentary Lab Fellow, and POV/Wyncote Fellow. She is a Director of Programming at The Edit Center. Additional credits include The Undocumented (Independent Lens), Bronx Princess (POV), and short films Priscilla, My Mom the Dead Head, and The Fitting Room.