The Myth Turns Out to Be True

In case anyone doubted that Buddy Hackett got his start at my family’s hotel, here’s a photo my cousin Marsha posted a few days ago … her father, my great-uncle Joe, with Buddy himself, location and date unknown. To tell the truth, even I doubted the...

(Not) Guilty about Loving Shtisel

Growing up as a semi-Orthodox Jew in the heart of the Jewish Catskills, I regarded ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic Jews as the enemy. I worried my gentile friends would see these wildly bearded men in their long black coats, furry black hats, and curly peyes, or these...